By Todd Cohen
San Francisco
Three groups in the San Francisco Bay area that provide technology assistance to nonprofits are looking for ways to work together to deliver services more productively.
While their talks generally are open-ended, one result could be creation of one-stop shopping for nonprofits in Northern California looking for tech support.
The three groups -- CompuMentor and the Support Center for Nonprofit Management, both in San Francisco, and HandsNet in San Jose -- have received $25,000 from the James Irvine Foundation to support a six-month planning process.
The groups' intention is to plan various types of cooperative efforts over one or two years.
Each of the three groups has provided tech assistance for at least 10 years, although their services differ from one another.
HandsNet is a national group that helps human services organizations integrate their online communications strategies. The group also has a training center in Washington, D.C.
The Support Center provides a broad range of management services, including tech assistance. It runs three training labs in San Francisco and San Jose.
CompuMentor provides a broad range of tech support services, both with staff consultants and volunteer mentors. It also is one of two groups in the U.S. licensed by Microsoft to offer its donated software to nonprofits.
"This is an effort to build on the good faith and collaborative relationships already in place on various levels" among the three groups, says Daniel Ben-Horin, CompuMentor's president.
The main outcome from the collaborative talks could be a single point of entry for nonprofit groups in the region seeking tech services and resources. That one-stop shop would serve as a clearinghouse for the services offered by all three of the participating service providers.
Other possible outcomes of the planning process include:
Educating the staff of each group about the full range of tech services and resources of the other two.
Including information on all three groups in educational materials about each.
Joining forces to develop additional resources for local nonprofits.
Serving as a model for collaboration in other communities.
The planning process will include taking a general look throughout the U.S. at the types of tech services that groups are providing to nonprofits in other communities; taking a close look at what each of the three Bay area groups are doing, including where they overlap and where any gaps might be; and holding a retreat of key staff from all three groups about how to better work together, as well as follow-up discussions.
Todd Cohen can be reached at
tcohen@mindspring.com
