Why NGOs And Non-Profits Are Turning To Open-Source Low-Code Platforms To Build Their Solutions

Open-source software is defined as a solution that enables end-users to freely access, modify and redistribute modified source code. Open-source software can be extremely useful for helping businesses develop high-quality software in a much more cost-effective manner than ever before. A recent study has shown that approximately 82% of businesses currently utilize open-source platforms to drive innovation in their organization.

Low-code is a visual approach to software development that requires little to no manual coding to create powerful enterprise applications and business processes. Low-code platforms can enable users to take advantage of visual interfaces, drag-and-drop tools and instant mobility. As digital technology continues to develop at an exponential rate, open-source, low-code platforms are becoming more and more popular for all types of organizations, including NGOs and nonprofit organizations.

NGOs and nonprofits can leverage open-source low-code platforms to build solutions that can support fundraising campaigns, accelerate productivity, improve internal and external communication and much more. These advancements can enable NGOs and nonprofit organizations to develop practical solutions and data-driven strategies that can optimize and streamline various operations as well as facilitate more informed decision-making processes.

How Open-Source, Low-Code Development Platforms Can Help NGOs and Non-Profits:

1) More Effective Communication and Collaboration

Open-source low-code platforms can help NGOs and nonprofits simplify internal processes and outreach programs by personalizing invitations, grouping volunteer profiles and instantly notifying donors about upcoming fundraisers and events and much more.

One of the benefits of any open-source is that it can be developed by anyone. Because it encourages collaboration and teamwork, the open source model is useful for doing things quickly and more effectively. For nonprofit organizations, open-source is a way of reducing costs by providing core collaboration tools like sharing environments, content management and communication tools to organize data, manage operations and create content.

One of the primary benefits of open-source platforms is that they can be accessed, modified and redistributed by all users. Therefore, since they encourage and facilitate better collaboration, open-source development models can help make organizational processes significantly more efficient and effective. Furthermore, low-code platforms can help nonprofit organizations develop core collaboration tools such as shared environments, real-time data transmission and automated doner communication.

2) Decreased Operational Costs

Open-source low-code development can also help nonprofit organizations take advantage of rapid application development, enabling them to significantly decrease the length of the development cycle and save scarce organizational resources. Furthermore, open-source low-code  platforms can help nonprofit organizations build better solutions with increased accessibility and technical support.

Open-source platforms are typically much cheaper to implement and usually only depend on the level of maintenance required; hence nonprofits can customize enterprise applications according to their specific preferences and requirements. Low-code development tools can help nonprofit organizations create powerful applications without having to undergo complex, manual coding processes.

Furthermore, low-code platforms can also enable nonprofits to easily keep track of donations and utilization of organizational resources; hence enabling users to take advantage of cohesive, data-driven enterprise applications that can streamline and optimize organizational processes.

3) Faster Development Cycles

Since low-code development platforms enable users to eliminate repetitive, time-consuming coding processes, they can empower nonprofit organizations to significantly reduce the length of the enterprise application development cycle.

A recent study conducted by Forrester has shown that low-code development platforms can help organizations build enterprise applications approximately 10 times faster than traditional application development methods. Therefore, nonprofits can leverage the power of low-code, open-source development platforms to not only build solutions more efficiently but also analyze previous trends such as donation patterns, event attendance and volunteer demographics.

4) Encourage and Empower Transparency

Open-source low-code platforms can help democratize application development by enabling citizen developers with little to no traditional coding experience to create powerful, high-functioning enterprise applications without the interference of a skilled developer.

Therefore, open-source technology can help encourage increased transparency within your nonprofit organization. Since your organization’s source code, infrastructure and processes are accessible to users, your nonprofit organization can prioritize transparency and authenticity.

Furthermore, open-source, low-code platforms can help provide universal access to crucial organizational data and insights while still enabling users to alter data accessibility settings with minimal time delays.

5) Increased Efficiency

Traditional development methods often result in organizational employees spending large amounts of time undergoing manual administrative and maintenance tasks. However, open-source low-code platforms can enable your nonprofit’s employees to automate a wide variety of repetitive, time-consuming processes.

By utilizing low-code, open-source development platforms, NGOs and nonprofits will be able to significantly improve their operations by prioritizing innovation and agile development. This can not only help your organization develop more enterprise applications in much less time than ever before but can also enable employees to work on higher-level, more intellectually stimulating tasks. This can also help avoid the wastage of scarce organizational resources.

A recent study conducted by Gartner has revealed that approximately 70% of all new applications developed by the year 2025 will be dependent on low-code technology. The exponential growth in low-code, open-source development platform adoption in various industries is driven by a need for constant innovation and scalable growth.

Planet Crust – Help Your NGO and Nonprofit Build Powerful Solutions:

With rapid advancements in low-code technology in recent years, more and more NGOs and nonprofit organizations have begun to leverage the power of low-code, open-source development platforms to build powerful, high-functioning solutions. Open-source low-code platforms can help nonprofits facilitate more effective organizational collaboration and communication, decrease operational costs, reduce the length of enterprise application development cycles, encourage and empower total transparency and increase efficiency as a whole.

Corteza, created by Planet Crust, is a 100% open-source low-code platform that can help users build, iterate and deploy an unlimited number of enterprise applications, build and automate complex workflows, integrate data across numerous applications and data systems and much more.

Try a trial now so that your NGO or nonprofit organization can take advantage of the wide variety of benefits of low-code, open-source development platforms to build solutions.