Your tech should free energy for the mission — not eat it.
We spent years inside NGOs — coordinating campaigns with broken spreadsheets, patching servers at midnight before a big action. We built the infrastructure we wished we'd had. Now we run it for you.
You didn't become an NGO to manage IT
Someone on your team became "the IT person" by accident. Maybe it's you. You're juggling three tools that don't talk to each other, a donor list that lives in someone's personal Gmail, and a server that last had a security update in 2021. Meanwhile the actual work — the campaigns, the advocacy, the services — keeps piling up. We've been there. Literally.
What We Do
CRM Maintenance & Setup
Your donor and contact data in one place — no more re-entering the same person three times across four tools.
Website Templates & Deployment
A fast, secure website you can actually update yourself, without calling a developer for every change.
IT Infrastructure Setup (Google Workspace, OnlyOffice, or fully self-hosted)
Email, documents, and collaboration tools that your whole team can use — whether cloud or fully self-hosted on Swiss servers.
Monitoring & Alerts
We watch your systems around the clock so you find out about problems from us, not from a panicked staff member on a Sunday.
Nextcloud Setup
Your files, your server, your data — full digital sovereignty with no monthly subscription to a US data broker.
And much more
Email management, security audits, migrations, backup systems, and the question your "IT person" has been afraid to ask out loud.
What 90 days looks like
A Swiss environmental NGO came to us managing donor data across four spreadsheets, running their email through a personal Gmail account, and sharing files via WhatsApp. Within 90 days: one CRM for all contacts, a team email on their own domain, encrypted file storage on Swiss servers, and a monitoring dashboard the whole team could read. The accidental IT person went back to doing the actual campaigning.
Your data stays where it belongs
NGOs hold sensitive data: donor identities, beneficiary records, internal communications. A board member asking “where does our data live?” deserves a straight answer. Here's ours: we host on Swiss and EU servers, never US-owned infrastructure. Your data is subject to Swiss DSG and EU GDPR – not a US company's terms of service. We host on Infomaniak servers in Switzerland or Hetzner servers in Germany. No US jurisdiction, no third-party data sharing. The US CLOUD Actallows US authorities to access data held by US-owned companies – even when those servers are physically located in Switzerland or the EU. Organisations relying on Google, Microsoft, or AWS carry that risk. We don't.
When we set up your infrastructure, you own it. If you ever leave us (which rarely happens, but we build systems that don't trap you), you walk away with everything. No export fees, no "sorry, your data is in our proprietary format."
The path of least resistance — stitching together free-tier US cloud tools — feels easy at first. Then a provider changes their terms, raises prices, or gets acquired. We've helped organisations migrate out of exactly that situation. It's painful. We'd rather help you avoid it.
What it costs — and how we work
We work on a monthly retainer for ongoing support and monitoring, or project-based for one-time setups and migrations. We offer nonprofit-appropriate rates — we know you're not a SaaS company with a marketing budget. // TODO: confirm actual retainer range with Andreas before publishing
On the first call, we'll tell you what something costs. No discovery phase that turns into a surprise invoice. If your budget is fixed, tell us — we'll tell you honestly what we can do within it and what we can't.
We also help you find free money: nonprofit software programmes (TechSoup / Stifter-helfen in Germany/Austria), open-source tools that eliminate licence costs entirely, and grant-eligible infrastructure setups. nowCRM, our own CRM, is open-source — no per-seat fees, ever. // TODO: confirm TechSoup availability for Swiss NGOs
Who this is for — and who it isn't
Good fit:
- Swiss or German-speaking NGOs, associations, and foundations with 3–50 staff
- Organisations tired of tech that "sort of works" but nobody really owns
- Teams who want IT decisions made with them, not handed down to them
- Anyone who has ever thought "we really need to sort out our data situation"
Probably not a fit:
- —Companies with existing in-house IT departments (we complement, we don't replace)
- —Organisations that need 24/7 helpdesk in multiple time zones (that's a different product)
- —Anyone who wants the cheapest option regardless of quality (we're not that)
Common objections:
"We already have someone"
Great. We work alongside your existing IT person or volunteer. We handle the infrastructure layer they don't have time for.
"Switching sounds painful"
It can be. We've run dozens of migrations. We de-risk it: audit first, migrate in stages, nothing breaks on a Monday morning.
"We're too small"
If you have data worth protecting and a team worth supporting, you're not too small.
Why nowtec — and why it matters that we've been you
Andreas Freimüller spent over a decade as a campaigner — at Greenpeace, then as founder of Campax, one of Switzerland's largest digital campaign platforms. He knows what it feels like when the CRM crashes the night before an action, when donor data gets scattered across personal inboxes, when the board asks about GDPR and nobody has a good answer.
Vladimir Stajilov runs the technical side. Together, that's who picks up your call — not a ticket queue, not an offshore support centre. You get the CEO and the CTO.
We're a small team deliberately. It means you get continuity, accountability, and people who actually know your setup. The downside: we're not for everyone. The upside: for the organisations we work with, we're properly present.
Common questions
How much should a small NGO budget for IT?
A small NGO (5–20 staff) typically spends CHF 300–800 per month on managed IT, depending on whether systems are cloud-based or self-hosted. The biggest cost driver isn't licences — it's the hidden hours your team loses to tools that don't talk to each other. // TODO: confirm real ranges with Andreas before publishing
Where can an NGO legally host donor data under GDPR and Swiss DSG?
Donor data can be lawfully hosted on servers in Switzerland or the EU/EEA, where both the Swiss DSG and GDPR provide adequate protection. Hosting with US-based providers triggers additional transfer-safeguard obligations under GDPR Art. 44–49. The simplest compliant path for most Swiss NGOs is Swiss or EU-based infrastructure — which is what we use (Infomaniak CH, Hetzner DE).
What does an NGO actually need from IT support?
At minimum: reliable email on your own domain, secure file storage, a contact/donor database that the whole team can use, regular backups, and someone to call when things break. Most NGOs don't need a complex stack — they need the basics done properly and maintained, so the team can focus on the mission.
How do you migrate an NGO off spreadsheets without breaking everything?
We audit first, migrate in stages, and test before cutting over. Nothing goes live on a Monday morning. A typical migration — from scattered spreadsheets and personal Gmail to a proper CRM and team email — takes 4–8 weeks and is done alongside normal operations. // TODO: confirm typical timeline with Vladimir
Book a Meeting
Directly with Andreas (CEO) or Vladimir (CTO) — no sales funnel, no pre-qualification form.
Not ready to book yet?
Start with a free IT health check. We'll look at your current setup, flag the top three risks, and tell you what we'd do differently — no commitment required.