Survey Tracks Sources of Charity Technology Help

By Nicole Wallace

Most organizations that provide technology assistance to charities are small, for-profit enterprises, according to a new survey.

Of the 149 technology-assistance groups surveyed, 65 were for-profit businesses and 54 were self-employed consultants. The remaining 20 respondents were nonprofit organizations.

The largest organization in the survey said it employed 100 workers, but that was unusual. Nearly half of the technology-support groups had one to five full-time employees.

Technology advisers were more likely to use informal evaluation methods, such as debriefing clients during the course of a project (80 percent), than more-formal assessments, such as surveying clients after a project’s conclusion (30 percent).

The survey is the first phase of a three-year research project designed to measure the effect that technology assistance has on a charity’s ability to carry out its mission and on its efficiency. NPower, a national network of 12 techology-assistance organizations, and the Nonprofit Technology Network are working together on The TechImpact Project.

“We hope that we will actually be able to understand what types of technology assistance yield the greatest return on investment, so a nonprofit organization could look and say, ‘This might work for me,’” says Jennifer Werdell, a manager at NPower. “And a funder can look and say, ‘This is a worthwhile investment to make in technology assistance.’”

The next phase of the project will be to survey nonprofit organizations that have received technology help. The online survey will be available on the TechImpact Web site starting April 12. Researchers will also take an in-depth look at technology assistance by following eight charities over the course of a year as they work with assistance providers on technology projects.

To read the report: Go to http://nten.org/research/techimpact.