Data loss is more than just an inconvenience for individuals, businesses and other organisations that lose valuable information, it’s quite costly. According to a 2014 survey conducted by EMC Corporation and reported in an article by Security Week, organisations that operate at the enterprise level lost a reported $1.7 trillion U.S. dollars annually due to data loss.

Common Causes of Data Loss

Most instances of data loss come down to events that it’s hard to prepare for and prevent. Common causes of data loss include: mechanical failure of computer hardware such as the hard drive, corruption of software and other viruses, destruction during an unforeseen event such as an earthquake, or actual theft.

Risk of Data Loss

Data loss is also more likely to occur than you might reasonably expect, even for something for which the risk factor has seemingly been controlled, such as mechanical failure of the hard disk. According to research conducted and reported by Backblaze, the average annualized failure rate for hard drives is 2.02%, with the average for most major manufacturer’s varying widely from 0.4 to 9.0%

While any one user’s individual risk for data loss due to mechanical failure might be small, if you happen to be one of the unlikely ones, your rate of occurrence is 100%! The rate of other causes of data loss also seems to be growing as well.

Can Your Nonprofit Survive a Loss of Critical Data?

Whilst you might be able to recreate the lost data for your NFP should it suffer a data loss, it would likely be quite time consuming and costly, if not downright impossible. Since the likelihood of data loss is so great, and the risk cannot be reasonably mitigated by actions completely under the user’s control, it is critical for everyone to back up their data on a regular basis, before a data loss actually occurs.

Backup Options to Prevent Data Loss and Protect Information

Designing a system that will work the best to back up your data too is largely dependent upon the size of your organisation, and its current operating environment. For example, what might be an optimal backup solution for a smaller organisation, might be impractical for a larger one. Conversely, backup systems that are efficient for larger organisations might be solutions that are too costly for smaller ones to implement.

Tips to Back Up Data for Small to Medium Sized Nonprofits

Consider using a cloud based system, such as OneDrive, Box, or Dropbox to store your NFP’s financial data, or databases. NAS can also be a good option for backups of the local file storage for your nonprofit.

Consider adding an extra layer of security and protection by using several hard drives that you cycle daily for a daily backup solution, and, periodically backup all files to an external hard drive that is then stored offsite for extra peace of mind.

Tips for Backing Up Data for Larger Nonprofits

A really large organisation is likely using their own server, and so will need a more complex and comprehensive back up system. It’s really not feasible to use a click, drag and drop type of app to transfer copies of files in this type of situation, and you will also want to ensure that they back up system that you use will be fully compatible with your nonprofit’s current server and other applications.

Acronis, Cloudberry and Backup Ex are all good choices, but there are others on the market that can give your nonprofit the protection and tools that you need to efficiently keep all of your nonprofit’s data secure while you are preserving it. Rackspace and Amazon 3 offer storage space solutions in the cloud that will work for organisations of all sizes.

Outsourcing Back Up

Organisations of all sizes are increasingly turning to outsourcing for their backup needs. In this scenario, the backed up data is sent to the cloud on a regular time table, with daily and weekly being the most popular intervals that are chosen. Once backed up to the cloud, the third party then secures the data to external hard drives or tapes, and either provides secure storage, or transports the physical backup copies to a secure storage facility.

Outsourcing is a great option when the nonprofit has staff with limited IT skill and expertise readily available, and when there are funds in the budget to cover the expense.

Taking steps to preserve and safeguard your nonprofit’s important information and data is just as much a part of the treasurer’s duty of care as protecting and preserving physical assets such as cash. Data loss can occur unexpectedly and can be very costly. Designing a system to catch, or “back up” the nonprofit’s important data is the only real way to avoid some of the potential consequences of a large data loss.