Mission-critical apps

Learn which tools nonprofits are prioritizing

Mission-critical apps

Categories at work

APP CATEGORY GROWTH

Design, cloud, and security apps continue rising

Among our top 10 app categories (ranked by the number of customers deploying these tools), app adoption slowed this year. However, nonprofits had the most growth in the design category, with a 16% YoY increase. Cloud platforms like AWS were a close second, followed by developer tools, a category that includes apps like Atlassian Product Suite and GitHub.

Across all industries, nonprofits ranked third in growth within the security apps category, which includes tools such as Jamf, Palo Alto Networks, and KnowBe4. This category's 5% YoY growth rate is down from last year’s 19%. However, we consider it a positive indicator that nonprofits rank highly in adding security tools compared to other sectors — especially considering that less than 15% of NGOs have cybersecurity experts on staff and many rely on general IT staff to manage cybersecurity efforts.

Mission-critical apps

Fastest-growing apps

FASTEST-GROWING APPS

Canva wins again

For the second year in a row, Canva is the fastest-growing app among Okta’s nonprofit customers, with a 26% YoY increase in deployment by number of customers and a 477% increase in unique users — at least twice the growth of any other app. This reiterates the importance of visual storytelling for communicating impact to donors and clarifying offerings to their communities. Canva's self-serve capabilities may help lean teams better meet their design needs.

This growth aligns with recent findings from Salesforce in their most recent nonprofit trends report, in which more than half of the nonprofits they surveyed reported increased investments in driving creativity and innovation.

Fastest-growing apps

Other priorities: Accounting and work management

After Canva, QuickBooks saw the next highest growth rate of 23% YoY on its accounting platform. This suggests that nonprofits may now more closely track payments in and out, using Okta to protect access to their accounting and financial software. Monday.com, the work and project management software, had a 16% YoY growth rate, demonstrating a focus on team efficiency and collaboration.

AWS is No. 2 for unique users

AWS had the second-highest spike in unique users, with a 210% increase. AWS efficiently integrates with and enhances Okta's benefits, helping secure digital experiences for internal and external users.

Mission-critical apps

Security tools

SECURITY TOOLS

Nonprofits are catching up on security tools

Amidst record-high data breaches, how do nonprofits — a critical component of our societal and environmental infrastructure — secure themselves? For the past few years, they have done so in the top three ways other industries do: VPNs and firewalls, training, and endpoint management.

VPNs are the top security tool for nonprofit organizations that work globally and embrace remote work. This category of tools includes popular products such as Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect and Prisma Access, AWS ClientVPN, and Zscaler Private Access.

Empowering the whole team

Security awareness training apps are the second most-used security tool category overall. It had the third-highest growth, with a 10% YoY increase. Nonprofits’ use of apps like KnowBe4 to create cybersecurity training programs reflects their understanding of the importance of preparing employees to respond to threats, including phishing attacks, the most common attack vector accounting for 43% of all incidents.

The Global Cyber Alliance predicts that in 2025, “there will be more emphasis on equipping all staff — not just the engineering team — with the skills and analytical tools they need to actively protect the company’s digital assets” and close the gap in cybersecurity expertise. Protecting an organization against threats requires a team-wide effort, and training teams is the first step.

Security tools

Secure web gateway on the rise

The highest spike for nonprofits was in secure web gateway tools, a 14% YoY increase. This shows that more organizations are taking measures to prevent malicious content from reaching their networks.

Compliance is a lower priority

While compliance tools grew by up to 50% for other industries like tech and professional services, nonprofits added more infrastructure monitoring and email security. Out of the top five categories of tools overall, training apps saw the most growth, followed by password managers — including apps like Keeper and 1Password.

Security tools

"Those who do are likely involved in healthcare, education, and financial nonprofits. These types of organizations are typically regulated by nature due to the sensitivity of the data they manage. According to data compiled by the National Center for Charitable Statistics, nonprofits in these groups represent around 30-50% of the nonprofit sector. This should not diminish the importance of data privacy and security in the nonprofit sector. We should continue to foster competencies and prioritize efforts to be good stewards of their constituent’s data."

Michael Enos
Vice President of Infrastructure, Security, and Governance
TechSoup

“Compared to the private sector, nonprofits have less regulatory compliance requirements."

Why are nonprofits relatively less focused on compliance tools than other industries? Michael Enos at TechSoup, a nonprofit that equips other nonprofits with the technology solutions and skills they need to serve their communities, says one possible reason may be:

Mission-critical apps

Cyberthreat growth

Attackers know nonprofits are critical infrastructure to society and are backed by $557 billion in charitable donations.

CYBERTHREAT GROWTH

Nonprofits are the second-most attacked industry

As noted in Businesses at Work, “Automated cyberattacks are on the rise worldwide. Okta ThreatInsight evaluates legitimate and malicious sign-in activity across our customer base to detect risky IP addresses and thwart credential-based attacks such as password spraying, credential stuffing, and brute-force cryptographic attacks.” This year, we saw steep YoY increases in attacks. In May 2024 alone, Okta blocked 2.38 billion malicious requests.

Low risk, high reward for attackers

Nonprofits were the second-most targeted sector among Okta customers, behind energy, mining, oil, and gas. The ratio of detected threats vs. authentications grew more than 6x, with a ratio of 2.6% last year and 18% this year for nonprofits using Okta. Nonprofits represent low risk and high reward for attackers because nonprofits often lack full resourcing to monitor and remediate attacks.

Cyberthreat growth

_Note:_{This data is based on one year of cumulative ThreatInsight data from Okta Workforce Identity customers.}

Grave consequences

With 65% of organizations reporting a security breach in the past year, we know many attacks are successful.

NetHope noted in their 2024 State of Humanitarian and Development Cybersecurity Report that “nonprofits are highly vulnerable to common cyberattack methods. Without further investment in technical controls, organizations risk disrupting their operations and eroding public trust, ultimately hindering the ability to serve vulnerable populations.”

Risk assessment

Using assessment tools, such as those from TechSoup or NTEN, can help uncover vulnerabilities and determine areas for improvement.

The report Critical Missions Need Critical Data: A Comprehensive Cybersecurity Assessment of International Nonprofits (NetHope, 2024) shows the benefits of evaluating cybersecurity with the CIS Critical Security Controls and their Control Self-Assessment Tool (CIS CSAT).

Mission-critical apps

Authentication factors

AUTHENTICATION FACTORS

Advancing toward stronger MFA

Most organizations understand the importance of multi-factor authentication (MFA) as an early line of defense, but among those who use it, the factors they employ vary in levels of protection. The Businesses at Work report suggests that “with stolen credentials (logins and passwords) now the initial action in 24% of all security breaches, it’s a smart move to swap weak factors for strong MFA.”

The report also notes that “lower-assurance factors, such as phone and email, make it easier for hackers to crack through defenses. Sixty-three percent of last year’s breaches were linked to organizations’ authentication processes.” Fortunately, nonprofits are moving toward stronger factors.

Authentication factors

Okta Verify FastPass rivaling SMS for No. 1 factor

Seventy-eight percent of Okta’s nonprofit customers use MFA of some kind. Of all factors, nonprofits had the greatest spike in adoption of Okta Verify FastPass — and the second highest growth of all industries — with 82% YoY growth. The second-highest growth overall was in security key/biometrics, which we saw being used more across all industries.

Authentication factors

While these are positive improvements, nonprofits still rely on SMS, with 45% of them applying SMS as one of their factors — maintaining its place among the top three most-used factors within the sector. This could be due to the global nature of their work in low-bandwidth environments where smartphone access isn’t always prevalent. Because SMS is known to have a low assurance level and is more expensive to operate, nonprofits should consider evaluating and implementing stronger authenticators like biometrics or a physical token.

Stronger factors replace weaker ones

Nonprofits are already making progress in moving away from weaker factors. While SMS still ranks highly overall, its 11% decrease in growth is notable, along with a 14% decrease in security questions.

Mission-critical apps

Most popluar apps

MOST POPULAR APPS

Nonprofits aren't skimping on
the basics

Nonprofits use the same top 15 apps as other industries, though in a slightly different order. This makes sense, as foundational apps like cloud platforms are critical to success in our digital world. Included in the steady use of productivity and collaboration tools, nonprofits leverage Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Zoom to work as a team across geographies. Docusign allows them to obtain signatures on important documents from anywhere securely.

“We’re seeing more and more nonprofits adopt digital tools to improve how they operate in their communities. Like their for-profit counterparts, these organizations want to find faster, safer, and more efficient ways to accomplish their goals. Much work remains in building tech capacity across the sector, but there’s no doubt been an uptick in adoption over the past several years.”

Shruti Ramaswami
Executive Vice President of Strategic Relationships and Strategy
TechSoup

Most popular apps

This is in line with Informing an Uncertain Future (NetHope, 2024), which found that the top keystones of NGO digital ecosystems are:

Information certainty: Collaboration and knowledge management
Peak performance: Workflow and efficiency tools
Applied technologies: Expanding the use of existing devices and apps for program delivery

NGOs employ tools in these categories globally for organizational cohesion, often utilizing nonprofit pricing from software vendors.

Mission-critical apps

Automation with Workflows

WORKFLOWS

Steady growth of Identity automation

Okta Workflows enable nonprofits to automate repetitive tasks like onboarding with a no-code interface, templates with pre-built flows, and the ability to integrate with any app. Considering that 53% of nonprofits have no full-time IT staff, Identity automation can help fill the gaps and allow nonprofits to operate efficiently within their limited resources.

This year’s Businesses at Work report notes, "Workflow-powered efficiency gains are expected to increase: AI and automation are estimated to contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. Not surprisingly, data from our Okta Workflows products shows that Workflows adoption is growing steadily across countries and industries.”

Nonprofits were no exception, with a 24% YoY increase in adoption of Okta Workflows. The impact of streamlining complex IT and security tasks can be staggering. For example, The Trevor Project saves 5,500 hours and $300K annually using Okta Workflows.

Workflows

Okta hosts community office hours for discussing how Okta Workflows applies to your organization and addressing questions about the product, which is included in our Okta for Good nonprofit offering.

Explore templates

Mission-critical apps

Best-of-breed apps

BEST-OF-BREED APPS

Popular combo: Microsoft 365 + Google Workspace

Solving humanity’s most challenging problems requires constant collaboration, documentation, and cloud-based sharing. Nonprofits also have unique use cases for software and need specialized tools that they can customize.

Nonprofits are using Zoom, Google Workspace, and Salesforce in addition to Microsoft 365. Google Workspace saw the most YoY growth, but numbers for other apps are declining slightly.