Your Tech Stack Shouldn’t Require a Decoder Ring

Between 2010 and 2016, when I was building the nonprofit I co-founded, I treated our tech stack like a puzzle only I could solve. If there was a tool with advanced features, hidden settings, and a learning curve steep enough to scare off the average user, I was all in.

Zapier with multi-step filters? Love it.
Custom-coded WordPress plugins? Yes, please.
Google Sheets with so many formulas it looked like mission control? Absolutely.

And here’s the problem: it worked… as long as I was the one running it.

The moment I went on vacation, got sick, or handed something off to a volunteer, the whole system ground to a halt. Not because the mission was complicated—but because I’d made the tools unnecessarily complex.

Over time, I realized this wasn’t just inconvenient—it was risky. If something happened to me, a lot of the organization’s institutional knowledge and access would disappear overnight. That’s not leadership; that’s gambling with the mission.

Here’s what I learned the hard way:

1. Share passwords like the organization depends on it—because it does.

Stop keeping logins in your head or on scraps of paper. Use a shared password manager like 1Password so anyone with the right permissions can access what they need without emailing passwords around. I’ve seen weeks wasted because a critical account was locked and the only person who knew the password was unreachable.

2. Create internal reference documents while you work.

Every time you run a process—publishing a blog post, sending a Mailchimp email, updating the website—write it down in plain language in a shared document. Not polished manuals. Just clear, step-by-step notes. Over time, you’ll build an internal library that makes onboarding easier and keeps operations from grinding to a halt when someone leaves.

3. Favor adoption over optimization.

Squarespace, Mailchimp, Google Drive—these aren’t “basic,” they’re accessible. Your mission isn’t to impress other tech nerds; it’s to keep your systems usable by the widest number of people. The best tool is the one your team can actually use, even if it’s missing a few features you love.

4. Avoid single points of failure.

If you’re the only one who can update the website, send an email blast, or pull a report, you’re not building a sustainable organization—you’re building a bottleneck. The goal is that someone else could run the core operations tomorrow without calling you for help.

5. Think of operations as a risk management tool.

Your tech stack isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about derisking the mission. Staff turnover, illness, vacations, and even emergencies shouldn’t take the organization offline. If your systems are simple, documented, and accessible, the work can continue seamlessly no matter who’s in the chair.

The fancy tools might make you feel like you’re operating on another level. But the real test of your tech stack isn’t how impressive it looks—it’s whether the mission keeps moving when you’re not at the keyboard.