October 4, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
Few small grass-roots organizations in California take advantage of the free or low-cost services offered by nonprofit technology-assistance groups, or even know that those services are available, according to a new study.
Researchers at the University of San Francisco’s Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management conducted in-depth interviews with 28 groups with annual revenue of less than $1-million to learn how they make use of information technology.
What they found was that when the charities did not have an employee with the technological expertise needed for a project, the groups were likely to rely on volunteers, board members, spouses, relatives, or friends to provide assistance or put them in touch with someone else who could help.
The approach allowed the groups to stretch the little money they had allotted for technology, but also led to some problems. Organizations whose staff and board members lacked technological expertise themselves were less likely to have tech-savvy contacts, and had trouble assessing the competence of those who offered to help.
Carol J. Silverman, research director at the institute, says that both nonprofit groups and foundations need to be more realistic in their approaches to budgeting for technology. “Funders need to understand and recognize — and many of them do — that either as a part of general operating support or as an actual technology line, there needs to be money, not just to get the software and the hardware, but also to maintain it and learn it,”she says.
To read the report: Go to http://www.usfca.edu/inom.
