It’s an issue that many organizations face.
They need technical support ASAP but don’t have enough work for a full-time hire. So what do they do?
Vyda Ng, Executive Director for the Canadian Unitarian Council (CUC), found herself in this exact predicament. The CUC is the national association for Canadian Unitarian congregations. With staff, board members and council members scattered across the country, technology is the glue that keeps their day-to-day operations and communications running smoothly.
“I needed someone to do tech support for us who would be available whenever questions came up,” she explains. “Someone who could answer questions from, ‘Hey, I don’t know what’s going on with my computer.’ to ‘What’s this thing on Google?’”
After doing some research online, she soon realized that finding the right person for the job would be a little tougher than she expected.
“It was really hard to find the specific kind of person we were looking for because I didn’t need somebody full-time, I didn’t need someone onsite, but I needed someone who would be available,” says Vyda.
The issue was also becoming more pressing as the weeks and months went on.
“We didn’t have a central person to go to for a number of months, and that was really hard because everything’s fine until it’s not.”
Eventually, she turned to the Centre of Social Innovation’s member list and found the answer to her prayers in the form of our founder, Wins McDonald.
“We had a chat and he seemed to be really knowledgeable about the issues we were facing,” says Vyda. Wins also had a lot of experience with G Suite, which was a huge priority for her organization as they were looking to transition all of their company files to the platform.
Over the course of their time together, Wins was able to get their organization set up on G Suite and consolidate all of their documents onto the platform. He also upgraded their software, conducted a hardware break-fix, and helped them with their business strategy.
“The transition to G-Suite was really good. He was able to answer our questions, he customized all our emails so things are flowing more efficiently. It’s been great.”
Wins also worked with the Canadian Unitarian Council to fully implement an AGM conference streaming system.
“Our membership is from across the country and two years ago, I started implementing online participation,” explains Vyda. Wins worked with the team to fully implement their conference streaming system. He continues to support their technical needs to this day.
Today, thanks to Wins’ work, the Canadian Unitarian Council’s IT systems are running more efficiently than ever before. In fact, Vyda was so happy with his work that she recommended our services to a partner organization with similar needs.
“I would recommend Wins for his knowledge, and for the ease with which he works with people. He’ll work through a problem until he figures out a solution.”
