Joined on 07-19-2007
TechSoup Member
If you are interested in the issues faced in sustaining nonprofits, consider visiting the new Sustainable Nonprofit site at http://www.sustainablenonprofit.org. It will complement TS by helping npo's discover better ways to take are of its people and other resources beyond technology.
Got a non-tech npo sustainability issue to grind? See you there.
Hi, Russ,
Thanks for dropping in. I'd enjoy hearing your take on sustainability in nonprofits, from the perspective of TechSoup topics discussed here at TS. It also might help to give people a sense of what that means and how they might find the concept useful.
Best wishes,
Joined on 08-20-2001
San Francisco, CA and the web
Hi Russ--
Welcome to TechSoup! I agree--it'd be great to hear your perspective on the different topics we discuss on the message boards. Please do introduce yourself and let us know about the work you do. I encourage you to check out our different
forums and our
Community Standards. If you have a question, please post!
Best,
Megan
Joined on 07-19-2007
TechSoup Member
Hello Sasha:
Thanks for the good idea. Formerly, when most people think about sustainability in nonprofits, they focused on having diverse funding streams and a strong core of committed supporters. Certainly valid concerns. This new site wants to focus on the other myriad considerations of nonprofit sustainability: Wage equity, ethics, best practices, board management/relations, leadership development and even, career development. We trust the users to evolve that content. We wanted to provide a forum to share ideas driving sustainable business practices with nonprofits. We all win!
Hope that helps. I'll cover how this relates to TS tech in another post.
Joined on 07-19-2007
TechSoup Member
Hello Megan:
Thanks for the welcome. I lurked on TechSoup for years as a professional fundraiser. Now I am delighted to be part of Sustainable Nonprofit and want to share it.
When we created this site for the nonprofit community, we made a decision not to try to duplicate the work so ably handled by TS , NTEN and other great technology-focused sites. But clearly, there are sustainability issues that relate to technology and we will tackle some of those in the near future.
If there is a better way to invite folks to sample Sustainable Nonprofit, I'd appreciate your guidance.
Joined on 08-20-2001
San Francisco, CA and the web
Hi Russ--
Glad you're here and it's great to see how your organization is fitting in with the work we do here at TechSoup. Look forward to seeing you more in the forums.
Best,
Megan
Joined on 07-19-2007
TechSoup Member
Helo Sasha:
As you suggested, I should speak to the concept of sustainability as it relates to TS and technologies. Here's my initial take on it:
Technology is wonderful...for the nonprofit who can use it. By the use of "can" I make two observations. First, just because technology is available doesn't mean that it will be rightly adopted, adapted or used. Here, sustainability relates to the ability a nonprofit has to correctly implement, articulate, document, use and feed a database (for example).
Secondly, technology--as wonderful as it is--can never be allowed to get between the nonprofit and its constituents. Here, sustainability points to the ability of the nonprofit to critically choose the technology that fits who and what they are (due diligence, anyone?) and the commitment, skills and tools needed to monitor and evaluate their effective use of technology.
I know the tech field moves fast and so places a real burden on nonprofit leaders to keep a hnadle on technology...and that is what makes TechSoup so important to all of us.
Hope that helps.
Thanks, Russ,
This is a very interesting topic. I appreciate you explaining it further. I'm co concerned that if we continue it here, it will be lost to most users.
I wonder if you might want to post in one of these forums, maybe a general announcement, or even a discussion topic?
Town Hall (general announcement about your site and who its serves, it's mission and how it compliments TS)
Digital Divide (maybe a discussion topic, if there is something that inspires you)
Tech Planning (a discussion topic, or even participate with comments about sustainability to users with questions).
Look forward to your perspective,
Joined on 07-19-2007
TechSoup Member
Thanks Sasha:
Your point is well taken. I'll pop over to Town Hall for an annoucement and then Tech Planning to join that venue.
Thanks for your interest and support of Sustainable Nonprofit.