Dear Colleagues, Having lunched with the Boston Technobabes(1) on Saturday and dined with the Boston 501 Tech Club(2) yesterday evening, I find myself more eager than ever to attend the annual Nonprofit Technology Conference(3) later this month.
When I think about working in this field, the pleasure of supporting mission-based organizations is matched only by the pleasure of collaborating with other nonprofit techies. It's a great gift to have congenial colleagues. Apparently, many other members of the Boston 501 Tech Club agree; about 15 of them showed up for dinner. I was especially delighted to see my buddy Eric Segal(4). This was partly because it had been quite a while, and partly because he and I have worked together on various efforts to encourage collaboration and build capacity in order to serve the technology needs of our region's nonprofit community more effectively. As I have mentioned previously in my blog(5), the gaps between technology needs and resources for nonprofits in the Boston area worry me quite a bit these days. Naturally, this regional problem became a topic of conversation at our end of the table. We have a nonprofit sector that urgently needs the right technological resources, and an impressive array of talented techies who want to provide them, but an appalling lack of coordinated and financially sustainable initiatives that will meet current and future needs. Perhaps it should not be surprising that money is one of the controlling variables in the situation. Looking around the table yesterday evening at my colleagues, I found myself wondering whether attrition would be taking its toll on the Boston 501 Tech Club, if these smart, idealistic, and delightful individuals were forced to move to other regions or pursue other professions - not because there is no work for them to do, but because there is no money to support the work. And this evening, I find myself wondering it what ways this braindrain could damage the local nonprofit sector - and those it serves - as the talent to create, maintain, and expand its technology infrastructure disappears. It seems to me that the onus lies upon the local nonprofit techies to put our heads together, and come up with a cogent strategy to overcome the nonprofit digital divide in our region. Any thoughts? Best regards from Deborah 1) <http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog/_archives/2005/1/3/222543.html> 2) <http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog/_archives/2005/1/18/260506.html> 3) <http://www.nten.org/ntc> 4) <http://www.ericsegal.org> 5) <http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog/_archives/2005/1/15/249468.html> Deborah Elizabeth Finn Cyber-Yenta Boston, Massachusetts, USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog http://public.xdi.org/=deborah.elizabeth.finn _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
