By Todd Cohen

More than 15 years ago, the Chicago Community Trust began seeing more requests to fund nonprofit tech initiatives. The foundation made some grants, but found the projects it funded were less than hoped for because recipients hadn't planned for technology or trained their staff to use it.

So in 1984, the Trust helped create the Information Technology Resource Center to help local nonprofits with tech planning and training. It was among the first tech assistance providers in the U.S.

Today, ITRC is part of a scattered but accelerating movement to help nonprofits use technology to strengthen their organizations.

"Technology is a key today to efficiency, to accountability and to communications," says Deborah Strauss, ITRC's executive director.

Strauss is a partner in the National Strategy for Nonprofit Technology, a growing group of leaders who for the past year have worked on an ambitious blueprint to coordinate and expand tech resources for nonprofits.

Now, the two dozen partners in the National Strategy are poised to support and link a series of initiatives designed to help build technology into the way nonprofits think and work, and connect them to citizens, business and government. Those initiatives would help nonprofits plan for technology, acquire it, understand how it works and use it to manage data and people, raise money, deliver services and communicate.

Specifically, the National Strategy aims to support a handful of tech projects (which I'll look at in future columns), including:

• New local tech-assistance providers in Seattle and Washington that other communities could study in creating their own tech assistance groups, and a new graduate program in nonprofit tech studies in New York.
• A Web site to identify the full range of tech resources, link nonprofits to them and connect citizens to nonprofits.
• An online tool to help nonprofits assess their tech needs, find tech resources and measure their impact.
• An online marketplace to coordinate the exchange of donated hardware and software - and help ensure that nonprofits use it productively.
• A virtual foundation to support tech initiatives.

Those initiatives would be part of an online cooperative venture, tentatively known as the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network, or N-TEN. The network would function like a marketplace in which tech resources and entrepreneurial know-how would be exchanged.

A top priority of the network is to cultivate a range of tech-resource models that individual communities can study to create solutions that best meet local needs. So far, only a few communities boast tech assistance providers, and additional tech help - while available - is scattered throughout the U.S. and inconsistent in its quality and range of services.

In fact, it was the lack of coordinated tech assistance nationally, and inadequate support for it, that prompted the formation of the National Strategy.

ITRC in Chicago, for example, is one of a handful of groups that help local nonprofits plan their use of technology, identify the hardware and software they need, learn how to use it and measure its impact on services. Others - which offer varying serivces - are in Boston, Helena, Mont., Kansas City, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York, Nashville, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

A tiny corps of other groups, like CompuMentor in San Francisco and HandsNet in San Jose, Calif., serve nonprofits throughout the U.S. as well as locally.

Foundations have been slow to embrace technology, either in their own operations or in funding its use by nonprofits, although a growing number have begun to support tech-assistance efforts.

The Rockefeller Family Fund, for example, launched the Rockefeller Technology Project in collaboration with other funders to help grantees learn about and effectively use new technology.

Rockefeller also coordinates an emerging network of "circuit riders". Often working for, or funded by foundations, these missionaries deliver hands-on training and tech help to grantees and other nonprofits.

Nonprofits also can turn to Web sites, such as NPO.NET and Idealist, for links to a broad range of tech services. And Internet access providers such as San Francisco-based IGC, as well as many newspaper companies, help nonprofits design Web sites - often for free or at discounted rates.

Free software is available, too. Microsoft and other software makers donate products to nonprofits, which also can obtain donated software from tech assistance providers such as CompuMentor that are licensed redistributors. And Gifts in Kind International distributes hardware and software donated by manufacturers.

And ebase, interactive contact-management database software designed for nonprofits, is available free online. Desktop Assistance, now part of the Rockefeller Technology Project, created ebase with foundation funding.

Tech assistance to nonprofits is starting to click. The National Strategy aims to nurture and help coordinate these efforts so nonprofits can become more effective as organizations and as a sector.

Next week: Creating new tech assistance providers in Seattle and Washington, D.C., and a new graduate program in nonprofit technology.

Previous columns in the series on the National Strategy:
Doing good by plugging in (3/5/99)
Lending a hand to an invisible market (3/12/99)
Microsoft opens window on nonprofit technology (3/17/99)
Building an online tech co-op for nonprofits (3/19/99)

Todd Cohen can be reached at
tcohen@mindspring.com