Nonprofits at Work 2025

*Nonprofits at Work 2025*

Technology and security trends to inform nonprofit strategies

Read Okta's Nonprofits at Work Report and learn about popular nonprofit apps and security tools, the cyberthreat landscape, and advancements in Identity.Contents

Mission-critical apps

Conclusion

Methodology

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Nonprofits at Work 2025

Introduction

Resilient missions,
evolving challenges

Welcome to our second-annual Nonprofits at Work report: a deep dive into Okta nonprofit customers' app use, threat risk, and methods of boosting security and efficiency.

During a year of record-setting heat, elections, job cuts, and global disasters, nonprofits served as critical infrastructure in our communities. These organizations stepped in to fill the gaps where essential services were lacking and enriched our communities with support ranging from food security and healthcare to job training and education.

The nature of this work requires safeguarding sensitive information of vulnerable populations since nonprofits play a key role in protecting the data and digital identities of individuals near and far. Unfortunately, they’re also a prime target for cyber attacks. As threats continue to escalate and advance in new ways, integrating comprehensive cybersecurity strategies is an operational necessity and a critical component of a nonprofit's ability to fulfill its mission.

Introduction

We at Okta see the immeasurable value of nonprofits and are committed to improving their Identity security. For the past 10 years, Okta’s social impact program, Okta for Good, has helped thousands of nonprofits access Identity security products and expertise. In addition, we share insights and content that we hope will benefit the sector, expanding awareness of risks and potential solutions.

In this report, we explore anonymized data from Okta’s nonprofit customers worldwide to reveal the technology advancements that supported nonprofits’ impact in 2024 and highlight improvements needed to strengthen their efforts moving forward.

Erin Baudo Felter
VP, Global Impact &
Chief of Staff to the COO
Okta

What’s inside this year’s report

Mission-critical apps

Categories at work
Fastest-growing apps
Security tools
Cyberthreat growth
Authentication factors
Most popular apps
Automation with Workflows
Best-of-breed apps

Conclusion

Methodology

Key findings

This year, we saw nonprofits start to catch up to for-profit industry security trends in areas like authentication and network protection — perhaps in response to an extreme surge of cyberattacks disproportionally targeting nonprofits. Design, cloud, and collaboration apps were an even greater investment choice supporting their day-to-day work. Here’s a quick snapshot of 2024’s key trends:

Categories at work — App adoption slowed in some industries, but design software is still all the rage among nonprofits, who often need to visualize impact and service offerings. Nonprofits have historically fallen behind other industries in security app deployment. This year, they tied for third place. See more data

Fastest growing apps — The three fastest-growing apps in the Businesses at Work report are all security-focused, but for nonprofits, it's Canva, QuickBooks, and monday.com, with Amazon Business tied for third. See more data

Key findings

Security tools — Regarding security apps they use, nonprofits are on trend with other industries except in compliance tools. VPNs and security awareness training were the top tools, with the highest growth spike in secure web gateways. See more data

Rising threats — Nonprofits are the second-most targeted industry across our customer ecosystem, with 18% of detected threats versus authentications, up from 2.6% last year. Threat actors see nonprofits as critical infrastructure with low risk and high reward. See more data

Factors at work — Higher-assurance, phishing-resistant authentication factors among nonprofits are steadily replacing low-assurance ones, such as security questions and phone factors. Nonprofits grew their use of Okta Verify Fastpass the most, followed by security key/biometric factors. See more data

Among nonprofits, nearly one in every five authentications is a detected threat.

Key findings

Most popular apps — Nonprofits use the same top 15 apps as other industries, though in a slightly different order. Cloud and collaboration platforms like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace top the chart. See more data

Automation with Workflows — Nonprofits continue to increase their use of Identity automation, aka Okta Workflows, at 24% year-over-year (YoY). They’re seeing impressive efficiency gains by streamlining complex IT and security tasks. See more data

Best tools for the job — Nonprofits using Office365 also use best-of-breed apps, reiterating the importance of Zoom, Google Workspace, and Salesforce, which are their top additional apps. See more data