The lifeblood of a nonprofit organization is its donor list. A healthy number of donors making healthy contributions will keep your operations running while facilitating your mission.
But as your nonprofit grows its donor base, so does the threat of sensitive records exposure. Charitable organizations are a prime target for data thieves because they possess sensitive donor records, including those of high-net-worth individuals.
That’s why it’s important to repay your donors’ patronage by protecting their private data and reducing risk. Secure destruction of donor records prevents physical data breaches. Steel City Shredding offers NAID AAA certified document shredding for nonprofits so that they can properly dispose of paper, hard drives, and e-waste with minimal cost and hassle.
Examining the Threat Calculus of Nonprofit Data Breaches
Every penny counts for smaller nonprofits, and many feel forced to cut corners so they can make ends meet. When the money isn’t coming in, leadership looks for ways to trim expenses.
NAID AAA certified document shredding for nonprofits can be viewed as a “nice-to-have” and either gets the axe (or isn’t even in place to begin with).
But what’s more costly? A paper shredding service or a breach?
The breach, by far.
The average data breach can cost up to $2 million, which includes expenditures related to data recovery, legal fees, etc.
If your small nonprofit experiences a breach, it could be an existential threat you can’t afford.
Regional, national, and global nonprofits are at an even greater risk of exposure. Mountains of personally identifiable information (PII) and financial data flow through these organizations, which has data thieves seeing dollar signs. This is their “big score” that they can exploit, sell, and even hold for ransom.
Most larger nonprofits have some cybersecurity measures in place. Yet many nonprofits remain indifferent to the very real threat of physical data breaches. The pervasiveness and media coverage of digital data breaches can lull an organization into a state of laxness about a physical data breach. They tell themselves, “We’re in a digital world now. Paper records aren’t as prevalent.”
A threat’s popularity or Q score have nothing to do with its effectiveness. Physical data breaches are just as devastating and can happen just as easily. Insider threats, opportunists, and bad actors can wreak havoc by stealing sensitive documents or swiping a decommissioned hard drive that hasn’t been shredded.
Secure Document Destruction is About Accountability
No matter the perceived risk level, your nonprofit has an ethical (not to mention legal) obligation to protect your donors’ privacy, along with their sensitive financial and personal information.
Going even further, nonprofit donor data protection is a matter of credibility for your charitable organization. It’s incongruent to promote your mission and claim that you’re making a difference if you have not taken the minimum viable steps to securely shred sensitive paper files, hard drives, and e-waste.
Safe and Documented for Activism is a manual with data security policies and procedures that activist organizations and nonprofits can employ. It recommends that nonprofits map out the types of breaches they could face, identify where their biggest vulnerabilities are, and consider what the consequences would be. This gives nonprofits clarity about how strong their chain of custody is for sensitive donor records. The process also gives nonprofits clarity regarding where specifically they should enhance their data protection services, including secure document destruction.
Steel City Shredding can consult with your nonprofit to determine whether a scheduled shredding service or a periodic document purge works best. And if your nonprofit has branches in many different areas or multiple states, we can develop standardized protocols that all of them can follow.
And of course, if your nonprofit is located in Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, or West Virginia, Steel City Shredding can routinely provide mobile, on-site NAID AAA certified document shredding services.
Why NAID AAA Certified Shredding Advances Your Mission
It seems counterintuitive that secure document destruction helps build your nonprofit’s operational capacity. But by properly disposing of donor records and electronic e-waste, you preempt the chance of breaches and steer clear of their catastrophic effects on your daily activities.
Paper Shredding Strengthens Security
It’s the most obvious benefit. According to IBM, identifying and containing a data breach takes an average of 241 days.
That’s nearly eight months assessing the damage, restoring order, and surviving any loss of charitable giving. Paper shredding and secure hard drive shredding add that extra layer of security for donor records.
Document Disposal & Regulatory Compliance
Depending on your nonprofit’s area of service, you may be obligated to federal, state, and local regulations for data protection and secure destruction. Below are a few that may apply:
FACTA (Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act): Consumer protection law that requires nonprofits to protect against unauthorized access of financial details and personally identifiable information. This covers donors and employees of nonprofits.
PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard): Obligates nonprofits to protect credit card transactions, establish data encryption, and maintain access controls.
Employment/HR Laws: As employers, nonprofits are subject to laws that mandate the confidentiality of employee records, background checks, and financial information.
NAID AAA certified document shredding for nonprofits ensures that they have a secure chain of custody and a documented audit trail.
Paper Shredding Preserves Public Image
No data breach means no PR nightmares, no media scrutiny, and no reputational damage. Besides the emotional pull of its mission and demonstrable impact, a nonprofit’s reputation is everything. If the public doesn’t trust you, it won’t buy into your mission and reach into their wallets.
NAID AAA certified document shredding for nonprofits has a butterfly effect. Because donor records are shredded into undetectable pieces, baled, then recycled, they don’t face exposure. Because they don’t face exposure, your standing doesn’t suffer and the donation pipeline stays filled.
The same holds true for old electronics like computers, phones, and hard drives.
End-of-lifecycle electronics contain sensitive data, so Steel City Shredding can completely destroy those to prevent any risk of data recovery.
The Effect of Data Security on Governance
Great nonprofit leaders and boards are proactive, rather than reactive.
They don’t wait for a serious incident to get serious about data security. Instead, they contract with an NAID AAA certified shredding service like Steel City Shredding to avoid sensitive records exposure.
If you’re a nonprofit executive, you’re accountable to a board. By demonstrating your commitment to data security, you can foster trust with that board and establish proper shredding protocols from the top down, which reinforces an organization-wide adherence to data security.
Don’t Shred Donor Relationships
With more than 2 million registered nonprofits in the United States, the competition for donors’ time, attention, and money has never been more intense.
Potential donors research organizations before contributing to them, and they want confidence that their personally identifiable information will be secure if they’re going to contribute money.
If you’re contracted with Steel City Shredding, you can show that you’re protecting donor records and can be trusted with sensitive details.
Paper Shredding Promotes Sustainability
Regardless of how you serve your community, reducing your carbon footprint is a net positive for any nonprofit. Steel City Shredding is proud to recycle 100% of shredded paper and all eligible e-waste.
E-waste is not biodegradable, so its pollutants are released into the air and leach into the soil. The runoff from tainted soil can travel into waterways and contaminate them. The chemicals and materials in e-waste place public health in danger, causing respiratory illnesses and cancers, among other health issues. Recycling e-waste prevents those damaging effects, while also repurposing valuable metals and materials that are becoming increasingly scarce.
If your nonprofit focuses on conservation or environmental justice and advocacy, having an NAID AAA certified shredding service in place is a mark of authenticity, especially when greenwashing has become commonplace.
Fund Shredding Services Through Capacity Building Grants
Capacity building is one of the most essential, and often most overlooked, investments a nonprofit can make. While donors frequently gravitate toward direct-service programs, the long-term health and effectiveness of a nonprofit depends on the strength of the systems that support its mission.
Capacity building ensures nonprofits have the infrastructure, tools, and operational safeguards needed to deliver services effectively while keeping the organization secure and compliant. But many nonprofits operate with limited administrative budgets, making it easy to delay investments in secure document destruction and e-waste disposal.
That makes it all the more important for nonprofits to proactively seek donor support for secure shredding and e-waste disposal services as part of their broader capacity-building efforts. A nonprofit cannot fully serve its community if it lacks the systems to protect confidential information or safely retire outdated technology.
Understanding the Basics of Data Security
The National Council of Nonprofits recommends taking these steps to protect your data:
- Collect only what you need
- Adopt and honor privacy policies
- Educated staff, volunteers, and vendors
- Use secure donation platforms
- Don’t buy or sell lists
We’d also add that it’s important to contract with an NAID AAA certified shredding company for all the reasons explained earlier in this article.
Once documents are eligible for destruction and no longer under their retention period, it’s crucial to securely shred them as soon as possible. The longer documents and electronics lie around, the more they risk exposure.
This “dead period” is dangerous because when a document or device is no longer needed, team members don’t feel a responsibility to them. And without a commitment to secure document disposal and hard drive shredding, a physical breach becomes easier.
Here are common types of nonprofit files that should be shredded:
- Mailing lists
- Financial statements
- Grant applications
- Unused checks
- Tax documents
- Reports, minutes from board meetings, policy documents
- Personnel records
How Nonprofits Should Dispose of Sensitive Documents
The time of your leadership, team members, and volunteers is precious. Asking them to manually shred sensitive documents not only pulls them away from their core tasks but also fails to offer the level of security that a NAID AAA certified document shredding service does for nonprofits.
The process isn’t labor-intensive, because when you contract with Steel City Shredding, we make the process painless, allowing you to focus on your mission. Here is a brief glimpse into how we shore up nonprofit data privacy compliance:
- Steel City Shredding will provide you with secure, locked shredding bins where documents and hard drives can be placed.
- We’lll come to you with one of our Steel City Shredding mobile shredding trucks.
- We’ll shred paper files, hard drives, and eligible e-waste onsite.
- You can choose to witness the destruction firsthand on the CCTV camera mounted on the side of our mobile shredding truck.
- After the shredding is complete, we’ll provide an official certificate of destruction.
Picking the Right Partner for Nonprofit Document Destruction
Steel City Shredding has been serving the greater Pittsburgh region for more than 97 years and we’ve proud of the reputation we’ve cultivated in the communities we serve.
As Pittsburgh’s most secure document shredding solution, we maintain an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. We’re also NAID AAA certified for nonprofit records destruction. It’s the top accreditation from the National Association for Information Destruction and authenticates our compliance with all known data protection laws.
Partnering with Steel City Shredding will also save you money both in the short and long term.
Our secure document destruction services are both affordable and scalable.
- Mobile, onsite shredding: We’ll come to you with our mobile shredding truck.
- Offsite shredding: You can opt to bring your documents to our headquarters at 3220 Penn Avenue in Pittsburgh and have them securely shredded there.
- Scheduled shredding service: If you have more consistent shredding needs, we can map out a regular service route.
- One-time document purge: Good for periodic cleanouts and office relocations.
We guarantee pricing transparency, so when we provide a quote, the price you see is the price you’ll pay.
Schedule A Shredding Consultation for Your Nonprofit
Destroying sensitive documents means avoiding breaches that destroy donor confidence. So book an introductory call today or contact us at 412-496-1240 to schedule your shredding service.