Managing a Few Macs at Your Nonprofit with Nura Aboki

Community IT Innovators Nonprofit Technology Topics

Senior Consultant Nura Aboki explores best practices on supporting one or two Macs when everyone else is on Windows laptops.
Nura and Carolyn discussed the ins and outs of supporting a few staff members and managing a few Macs, whether in a Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace environment.

The days of leaving your Mac users to manage their own devices are long gone – current cybersecurity risks require full management of ALL your end users. You might try to get all your staff on the same laptops, but Mac users really love their Macs and are reluctant to give them up. How can you best ensure their device is secure while letting them use the machine that makes them the most productive?

There are a lot of advantages to allowing Mac users to keep their Macs. It increases the pool of qualified talent you can hire, and can make your office more able to recover from cyber attacks by having a variety of laptops running different systems even if they are united on Microsoft or Google platforms.

Nura recommends starting with policy – even if you are only managing a few Macs, you are going to want to include those users in your Acceptable Use Policies. You’ll also want to document the expectations on your IT team or IT provider for their level of Mac support.

Second, do not leave your Mac users behind in terms of IT support. If you allow them, support them. If you are hiring for an internal IT team, ensure the ability to support Macs. And if you are hiring outsourced IT, be thorough in questioning their support agreement to manage a few Macs.

Finally, Nura gave us some ideas in three issues:

• on what one thing nonprofits could do to better support Mac users,
• what Mac users would do differently, and
• what Apple could do to better at the enterprise level in addition to the individual level.

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Thanks for listening.