After being awarded a 2005 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Philanthropy and Volunteerism grant, TechSoup embarked on a study to better understand the needs of nonprofits serving communities of color and to determine how our Web site, services, and outreach strategies could be adapted and enhanced to better meet those needs.
Read a
summary of the report (or go to the end of the summary to download the report in its entirety) and share your feedback here.
Joined on 01-05-2005
TechSoup Member
Our community is very culturally diverse. I think one of the ways TechSoup could help its members is by posting articles about various groups--what excites them--what prevents them from getting involved and ways we can overcome those barriers. If you can find someone within the different cultural groups, it would be helpful. This would be extremely beneficial to prevent misunderstandings. Also it is important that the differences between groups would be helpful. I will give an example, we have staff and volunteers who are of the Muslim faith. One eats everything except pork. The other will eat vegetables etc when she is out in the community that have not undergone "halal" procedures but she will not eat meat that is not processed in this manner.
Another instance, we had a wonderful volunteer from Japan. We ordered pizza for him. He was allergic to dairy products (this is a common allergy among orientals but it is not exclusive). If we had checked we would have discovered this before we went out and ordered pizza as a treat (this could happen to anyone, but sometimes just talking to people once we get them in the door can smooth things out.
The challenge is to get them in the door. In our case we have people with challenges and different groups helping us with our fundraising (stuffing envelopes, cleaning up--all those little jobs that make a difference.
We are also seen as a good training ground for office experience. I just told recently by a supervisor that he had checked out several places before deciding to place his head injured client with us. The difference was the atmosphere in our office.
People get to know when you have a welcoming attitude. But there is still more to do.
Joined on 03-29-2006
TechSoup Member
Hi,
What a wonderful question! A simple answer has to do with dispelling the myth that communities of color have little or no access to computers or the Internet. It's just not true, regardless of what you hear.
Go to AOL or any site with a chatroom, and you'll find a room specifically geared towards people of color. Needless to say, as an African American, I very tired of this picture that is painted by those who barely enter into such communities.
So, I would say that if I had that grant/award, I would check into area schools where computer/tech courses are high on the list of educational priorities, and then begin to "beef up" those curriculums with any assistance you believe will get the youth ready for college or a career as either an tech, healthcare worker or receptionist - and then make it known to the media and the public that contrary to popular belief, communities of color not only own computers, but they are learning and using them to enter into the workplace.
Taking a portion of that money to train high school students to be peer educators for junior high schoolers needing to understand computers serves two purposes: helps to take some of the pressure off the teachers, and it helps to instill the idea of training and helping others as you get older - something I believe we've forgotten to teach our young people.
Our organization enlisted the aid of 12 graders to help us put together an essay writing contest for Black History Month. When asked what we should provide for first prize, it was overwhelming! The students all agreed that is should be a computer with a printer, and then proceeded to talk about every little detail that should be included to make it the best darn computer a high school kid could receive as a prize.
Trust me, keeping education in the forefront with a healthy dose of reaching out to encourage someone coming behind you is the best thing you can do in communities of color - ALL COLOR.
Johanna Blanding-Koskinen
Hepatitis C Multicultural Outreach
"It's not about color. It's about care."
10515 Blue Ridge Blvd. Suite 207
Kansas City, MO 64134
816.767.9472
http://www.hepcmo.org
Joined on 09-07-2006
TechSoup Member
i think that there should be more free software and i mean free without the shipping cost or any adminstrative cost, some nonprofits like ours is small and yet it gets expensive for us when we have to pay all the cost just to get software when we used to get it all donated free by microsoft now they require us go thru here where it is no longer free for us meaning we have 40 computers right now just sitting because we cant afford the operating system software to go on them.
For free software, you may want to check out TechSoup's
Free Downloads section, which includes links to free office applications, operating systems, and more.
You may also want to check out the following TechSoup articles in the Software section of our
Learning Center. (Be sure, too, to check out our
Open-Source Software forum, where you can learn and ask questions about free open-source offerings)
Top-Notch Free Software
Creating an Open-Source Desktop
Six Steps to Adopting Open-Source Software at Your Org
Three Free Software Applications You Can't Live Without