The word intelligence calls up images of James Bond and the CIA and MI-whatever. Cloak and dagger. Illegal snooping. Spooky stuff.

Nope! It’s more boring than that.

Intelligence is a constant scanning of the environment to understand that environment and to detect changes early. Most of that information is open-source and available to you, if you want to make the effort. Information about your clients. Information about funders. Information about state and local government. And, yes, information about other nonprofits.

With the rise of the internet, the intelligence function has become both easier and more difficult. Easier, because so much more data is instantly available. Almost anything you want to know. More difficult, because you must process all that data so it becomes useful information.

Open-source information is everywhere. Start with newspapers, television, radio. Press releases are great. Then, move to their websites and social media. That is just the first round. Just scan the environment.

Talk to people. Your volunteers have lots of friends and relatives, all with information. You can even, gasp, ask the individuals involved. Go meet with the local officials. Go talk with the Executive Director of that other nonprofit. Most are happy to share information.

At the most basic level, intelligence is just a continuing vacuum cleaner, sucking up whatever information is available.

Eventually, there comes a time for a decision. Then you focus the intelligence efforts in a particular direction. You answer a specific question.

Remember, to be useful, it must impact decisions. Think about that point. It has to provide useful information that changes decisions.

The idea that the person responsible for “intelligence” is ALWAYS in conflict with the decision maker is a real eye opener.

Conflict 1: Gathering information is a continuous process with no end result in sight. Demands for information by decision makers are usually one-time no-warning events.

Conflict 2: If the decision maker hears what he already “knows” or believes to be true, the information is of no value. To provide value, the intel person has to buck the belief of the boss. Not a prescription for career advancement. There will be more about this in a future post.

So what?

I know. You probably can’t afford a staff intelligence person. But, you can recognize that the world outside your organization exists and the things that happen in that world will impact your organization and its mission.

You can gather data and toss it into a file folder (or a dump folder on you computer.)

You can intentionally pull outside information into your decision-making processes. Strategic planning. Bid-no-bid decisions on grant applications. Funding strategy. The uses are endless.

Read Real-World Intelligence for a more detailed discussion.