They really can't. It's very rare for a scrappy human rights NGO to even have an IT person. Access to IT skills are largely via auditors/consultants who rove around, doing it close to pro bono. Those consultants in turn try to maximize the good they do and spread it around, and that's how advice like this happens. It's basically IT field medicine. What you're suggesting is the equivalent of a top-grade operating room with attendant staff.

Disclaimer: I do volunteer work in a human rights NGO. We interview North Korean refugees about execution and burial sites and record the data in a GIS and incident database. I'm also a Linux desktop developer, and help them run their IT. But I've rarely seen this anywhere else.