. . . proactive leadership can transform finance from a reporting function into a strategic engine of resilience and opportunity.
The Workday Advantage for Nonprofits: Transforming Finance, HR, and Operations for the Future
BDO’s 2025 Nonprofit Benchmarking Survey report contained responses from 250 organizations about key issues of concern to nonprofit leaders.
Seventy-eight percent of respondents stated that demand for services had increased since the previous year. As for revenue, 86% of leaders reported growth in their most recent fiscal year, and 90% expected that growth to continue. In the coming year, factors like economic uncertainty, regulatory changes, and funding challenges will drive innovative methods of achieving greater financial transparency and operational discipline.
Through technology investment and AI adoption, leaders can improve efficiency while maintaining mission focus. Yet, behind the scenes, organizations may be supported by finance and HR teams, IT professionals, governance processes, program staff, and leaders using outdated, fragmented systems. A single platform like Workday replaces these systems with a single source of truth that streamlines decision making and innovation while keeping pace with evolving business and technological needs. This eBook describes how BDO’s Workday team offers clear, credible solutions to help nonprofits face today’s added pressures and growth expectations
Download the Workday Advantage Ebook
How Has Technology Become a Mission-Critical Investment?
Technology is not just a line item in a ledger — 65% of respondents to BDO’s 2025 Nonprofit Benchmarking Survey indicated they use AI for organizational strategy.
Instead of functioning only as administrative support, technology serves as a strategic driver of mission delivery, operational success,
and resilience across the organization in the following key areas:
Disparate systems do not generate real-time information. Manual processes are time consuming, increase risk to data integrity, and slow reporting, making it harder to meet stakeholder expectations. Yet many nonprofits operate with disparate or “Frankenstein” systems built over time, and those outdated platforms often cannot adapt to technological innovations like AI. Investing in technology like Workday improves efficiency by bringing people out of their silos and onto a single platform.
The nonprofit’s organizational framework supports and enables its mission. Creating a single source of truth across that infrastructure delivers widespread benefits, including stronger risk management, improved stewardship, better grant compliance, and faster decision making in uncertain funding environments. Scalable tech solutions like Workday can enable leaders to respond quickly as priorities shift and address both current and future challenges.
Repetitive, time-consuming tasks pull staff away from a nonprofit organization’s primary initiatives. Automating routine tasks and using AI can reduce the administrative burden, improve data visibility, and promote better collaboration across all departments. A single system frees staff to concentrate more time on mission delivery
Workforce strategy encompasses recruiting, onboarding, developing, and retaining employees. Disorganized workforce planning and operational problems such as manual processes often cause burnout and high turnover. Both challenges can significantly impact the nonprofit’s ability to carry out its mission.
Integral Care, a healthcare-related nonprofit located in Texas, chose Workday to integrate its financial and human capital management capabilities. Clinicians gained access to AI tools that automated note-taking allowing them to focus on patients.
How Workday Addresses Common Nonprofit Finance, HR,
and Compliance Challenges
Workday helps nonprofits face significant financial challenges like the following:
Workday’s unified, single source of truth platform connects finance and HR data to provide leaders with the most up-to-date information. Using manual reconciliation and “yesterday’s data” slows decision making and hinders scenario planning, both essential to a nonprofit organization’s success and resilience.
Manual processes, disorganized data, and weak internal controls contribute to the risk of fraud that diverts funds from mission-critical initiatives. Workday’s automation and integrated workflows help mitigate that risk by improving data visibility and reducing human error
Workday’s integrated, automated workflows streamline internal operations and reduce manual processes prone to human error. This promotes efficient, data-driven decision making, improves timely financial closes, and supports audit readiness, all while freeing staff to work on more critical mission initiatives.
Nonprofit financial planners struggle to meet funders’ changing requirements and limitations on how dollars are used. Workday offers integrated data, real-time reporting, and analytics that promote informed decision making and the ability to pivot when necessary.
A clear mission-impact narrative provided to donors, grants, and other funding sources is critical to a nonprofit’s ability to deliver on mission initiatives. Workday gathers data into a single source of truth, enabling nonprofit organizations to connect data across finance, HR, and operations resulting in cohesive, wellinformed communications.
32%
of nonprofit leaders noted funding stability as a top concern based on the current legal and regulatory environment according to BDO’s 2025 Nonprofit Benchmarking Survey.
Workday helps Nonprofits Handle
Human Capital Management
Workday helps nonprofits handle human capital management challenges with strategies tailored to attract and retain employees while prioritizing their wellbeing.
Visibility into workforce health can be clouded when data resides in inefficient, disconnected systems. Workday centralizes employee data, giving nonprofit leaders better insight into significant issues related to employee wellbeing and retention in mission critical roles.
Nonprofits and public sector organizations face intense competition for talented employees. Workday’s AIpowered tools support skills mapping and scenario planning, enabling organizations to align people with mission needs through skills-based hiring and predictive retention analytics.
Workday’s fully cloud-based platform replaces inefficient manual processes with AI, automation, and consistency across the organization, which improves the workforce experience. Workday’s Peakon Employee Voice’s predictive analytics identifies burnout and attrition risks early, allowing timely intervention that can improve retention rates.
Digital transformation for HR systems requires careful consideration of cost, adoption, training, and innovation. However, the upfront investment in Workday can be offset by its long-term benefits, including the positive, longterm impact on mission delivery.
There’s a myth in nonprofit that we have to keep admin costs low, but if you invest in operations, you create a more efficient organization and that efficiency drives to the mission better processes, better systems, better data, which allows for better conversations and better people
Michelle Adams
Director of Public Services and Education Industry Solution Marketing, Workday
Workday Enables Nonprofit Organizations
Workday enables nonprofit organizations to manage compliance challenges in several ways:
Scaling up to Increased Demands
Workday integrates systems within an organization to centralize data and allow for better analytics and reporting. As nonprofit organizations face increased compliance and reporting demands from all sides — from stakeholders to donors to regulators — accessibility and scalability are essential.
Complying with Regulatory Funding Requirements
Federal funding is subject to delays and freezes due to regulatory changes and agency policy actions. As compliance obligations shift, Workday enables nonprofits to adapt by providing greater data visibility and accessibility
Complex Grant
Compliance
Grants often tie funding to headcount and employee effort. To comply, nonprofits must maintain accurate records that enable defensible tracking and reporting. Workday’s system integration creates order from chaos.
. . . technology is not an overhead cost . . . it is absolutely critical to how we support our business. How do we move it forward with efficiency, focus, compliance, sustainability to get to that kind of mission-driven purpose . . .
Rusty Taylor
CFO, Integral Care
How Workday Enables the Future-Ready Nonprofit
Workday’s capabilities are forward-thinking but also well-grounded, offering practical solutions to problems nonprofit organizations face now and in the coming years.
And, while 97% of survey respondents are using AI in some capacity, 75% indicate they plan to increase their technology spend.
Implementing a System That's Change Ready
Workday’s single extensible platform adapts to an organization’s evolving business requirements by supporting continuous innovation and customization.Supporting Compliance
With integrated systems and greater data visibility, Workday positions users to manage compliance as grant life cycles evolve, prepare for audits, and maintain communication with funders and boards.
Throughtout the Grant Life CycleMoving from Retrospective Financial Reporting
Workday provides data visibility and predictive analytics that help leaders and boards with scenario planning, monitoring risks, meeting financial reporting deadlines, and faster and informed decision making.
to Real-Time Insights
Adopting Automation and AI
Workday embeds automation and AI as core functions while giving nonprofits the flexibility to adopt new functions at their own pace. After implementation, Workday improves operational efficiency across the organization, strengthening financial reporting, decision making, risk management, and compliance while also supporting employee engagement and retention.Providing Mission-Driven Technology Built
Workday includes features that directly support the unique needs of nonprofit organizations, such as grant and fund tracking, workforce planning, skills and talent management, and reporting that helps leaders align staffing and spending to mission priorities. Its unified finance and HR platform gives nonprofits better visibility across their people and resources, helping them manage compliance, control costs, and make more informed decisions. By reducing manual administrative work and offering tools built to support mission-driven operations, Workday helps nonprofits focus more energy on delivering impact.
for Nonprofits
Workday Transforms the Nonprofit Capability Problem
Nonprofit leaders must prepare now for rising service demand, continued revenue growth, and a more complex operating environment. It’s not an easy task when faced with volatile funding, employee retention problems, and sharper regulatory expectations — especially when fragmented back-office support systems lack the necessary capabilities to adapt.
Workday replaces disparate, outdated processes with a single source of truth that gives leaders real-time insight across the organization, stronger internal controls, and the flexibility to react to funding, workforce, and regulatory changes. For nonprofits, transforming operational efficiency is ultimately about mission impact. When technology solutions reduce manual work, improve data integrity, and support AI adoption, teams have more time to serve constituents, engage with funders, maintain grant compliance, and plan for the future. With Workday, nonprofits gain agility and the ability to focus on long-term mission delivery.
Learn more about how BDO’s Workday team can help transform your nonprofit.