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Jul 16, 09:03 pm: [Alliance]Understanding and Building Technology Capacity for Nonprofits

Presenters:

• Kay Sohl
  Executive Director
  TACS
• Patrick McWhorter
  Executive Director
  NPower Arizona

  Notes:

• As people introduced themselves, I noticed, what seemed, like a fair number (5 or so) of small local foundations who were interested in developing reasonable technology capacity programs.
• Also, people wanted to understand how non-technology saavy people can manage tech staff and know that what that tech staff is doing is the right thing.

Kay

• described “typical” nonprofit tech scenario
  • struggle to find funds to meet technology planning goals
  • people who did not have insight into the organization put in charge of technology
• TACS trying to bring what they know about OD into their technology consulting work
• changing tech in an organization creates chaos
  • must have a way to try and manage that chaos
  • as such, must work with someone who has a comprehensive view of the organization and the ability and authority to make decisions at a high level
• “technology isn’t a miracle…[change]happens when people change their behaviors and begin to systematically examine their work.”
• understood that service small to mid-sized nonprofits would value the most is scheduled support
  • helps organization to maintain their systems
  • person becomes “the place where people in the organization can go and say ‘Isn’t there a better way to do this?’”
• call to help influence governmental funders around new resources that are coming available
  • HMIS requirement (federal manadate) for states to put in a electronic client management system
  • opportunity because of ASP that meet their needs
  • engage in own state’s effort around 211
    • 211s are going to go to web-based access
    • potential for social service organizations to free up resources because they will simply be more accessible
    • will be a reason that social service organizations need technology—can’t afford not to have working technology.
    • orgs will need the help of service providers to get there

Patrick:

• market segments

1. Tech Saavy organization:
   • invested in technology,
   • stable,
   • thinking creatively around technology
2. non-profit preferred
   • want to be sure they are working with providers that understand the unique the nonprofit environment
   • wants consutlants to understand what they do as a nonprofit
   • tend to be on the tech saavy side or able to get there quickly
3. tech constrained
   • orgs for which scheduled support is an ideal way to get started
   • not necessarily a small organization
   • have an accidental techie
   • just make this stuff run and take care of the basics
   • challenge—how do you build an understanding of technology to help them make decisions?
4. training only
   • just want to understand how to use what they have
   • not really looking to do much beyond what they have
• levels of technology
5. infrastructure
   • desktop,
   • network,
   • Internet access,
   • email,
   • website,
   • financial management,
   • donor management
6. Integration with service delivery
   • transform the way you can actually deliver your services
   • moving into this level is a key thing when you getting orgs to think about their technology
7. Innovation
   • everybody isn’t ready for this layer
   • isn’t necessarily about nonprofits being at the bleeding edge of technology
   • no one should expect nonprofits to be at the edge; it’s too risky; nonprofits should play catch-up
   • deliver something in a new way that wasn’t possible without information technology
   • a lot of this innovation is the result of collaborative efforts

Q&A section:

q. About the internet service delivery model (ASP), where are nonprofits w/ that?
a. there is some. Servicepoint. Some, like Servicepoint, are showing that this is possible. However, there are still a lot of failure (such as accounting packages). These still don’t give you the person in your organization who can think clearly about data and how to use it.
—talked about putting Internet connections into low income developments. Pointed to One Economy and the beehive(a complete cataloguing of resources of value to low-income people).
—general discussion that technology plans need to be reviewed by an OD consultant—does it look like you have talked to the right people; does it look like you have framed this in a way that will help the organizations understand that they should take this on
—advocated role for MSO in a local area to vet consultants on TechFinder (is this a way to solve that problem? only if we make this database results available to MSOs and then give them an opportunity to deliver feedback to the stream.