Brightway Community Foundation: Sensitive-Data Security, Microsoft 365 & Managed IT Case Study

The challenge

Brightway Community Foundation is a Los Angeles nonprofit that supports a large team of staff and more than 500 volunteers serving the community — which means handling sensitive constituent and donor data on a nonprofit budget. As the organization grew, its technology needed to protect that data and support its people without pulling dollars away from the mission.

• Sensitive data to protectConstituent records and donor data demanded strong protection and careful access control.
• A tight nonprofit budgetThe organization needed enterprise-grade security and reliable IT without enterprise costs, so more funding could go to the mission.
• No enterprise security or MFAAccounts and devices lacked managed EDR/MDR and multi-factor authentication protecting sensitive systems.
• Email exposed to phishing and fraudNonprofits are frequent targets of phishing and donation/payment fraud, and inboxes had no enterprise email security.
• Microsoft 365 not optimized or securedThe organization wasn’t fully leveraging nonprofit licensing or a hardened, secure configuration.
• Core systems under-supportedThe organization’s case-management and volunteer systems needed reliable, secure, knowledgeable support.
• Reactive IT supportThere was no proactive monitoring, backup, or a dedicated team supporting staff and hundreds of volunteers.

The solution

Advanced Networks gave the organization enterprise security and dependable IT on a nonprofit budget — protecting sensitive data while keeping costs aligned to the mission. Explore our nonprofit IT services in Los Angeles.

Sensitive-data protection & access control

We tightened access controls and protections around constituent and donor data, so sensitive records are available only to the right people.

Managed security: EDR/MDR & MFA

We deployed managed EDR/MDR across devices and rolled out multi-factor authentication on the accounts that hold sensitive data.

Email security & anti-phishing

We put enterprise email security and spam filtering in place to stop phishing and donation/payment fraud before it reaches staff.

Microsoft 365 for Nonprofits

We optimized and secured the organization’s Microsoft 365 environment using nonprofit licensing — improving collaboration while stretching the IT budget further.

Case-management & volunteer support

We provided reliable, secure support for the organization’s case-management and volunteer systems so staff and volunteers can focus on the mission, not on technology.

Backup, disaster recovery & managed IT

We implemented tested backup and disaster recovery and wrapped everything in 24/7 monitoring and full managed IT with a dedicated Technical Account Manager.

The major projects

The results

• Sensitive constituent and donor data protected with access controls and MFA
• Enterprise security on a nonprofit budget, keeping more dollars on the mission
• Phishing and fraud defenses across staff inboxes
• An optimized, secure Microsoft 365 using nonprofit licensing
• Reliable support for 75+ staff and 500+ volunteers and core systems
• Backup and disaster recovery with 24/7 monitoring and 99.9% uptime