August 1998
state , - 'iorrh ■- .'arolina
Ra i e i 9 i
VOLUME 5, ISSUE 12
PhilantbropvJoumal
A nonprofit newspaper about the nonprofit community H A /
OF NORTH CAROLINA
Nonprofits need technology and training to keep up
While technological innovation
continues to revolutionize the
private sector, nonprofits are
struggling to catch up. One group
is developing a national technology
strategy for the sector. It hopes a
coherent approach will help fun
ders and nonprofits be successful
in their use of technology.
By Sean Bailey
Why should nonprofits concern
themselves with technology? After all,
isn’t it enough that they already face
a nearly crushing challenge to simply
do more in their respective fields,
everyday, often with less staff and
resources than ever before?
How can they afford not to, says
Marshall Mayer, executive director of
Desktop Assistance, a technology
assistance nonprofit.
“The private sector is completely
reinventing itself,” Mayer says. “And
those that recognize the importance
of technology are racing ahead and
those that are slow to catch on are at
an extreme competitive disadvan
tage.”
Mayer says fewer than 200 people
in the United States are helping non
profits understand how technology
can help them do more, faster, better
and cheaper. Compared to the private
sector, that number is woefully low
“There’s not enough of it being
TECHNOLOGY
directed at the nonprofit sector,” he
says.
Mayer and a handful of other non
profit technologists are working to
rectify the situation. The group, with
the support of Microsoft Corporation,
Surdna Foundation, the Eugene and
Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, and the
David and Lucille Packard
Foundation, is spearheading an effort
to produce a “National Strategy for
Nonprofit Technology.”
The group hopes the plan, due out
this December, become the basis
for funders to put their doOars suc
cessfully behind the right approach
for upgrading the sector’s technology
capacity.
“We decided now is a very oppor
tune time to work strategically and
coUaboratively to figure out how to
grow our field significantly,” he says.
“So, over the next five years we’ll
have 2,000, even 20,000 people, doing
this.”
Technology rising
The timing seems right, if not
overdue. It’s hard to ignore that the
U.S. economy is evolving at a rapid
pace, fueled by new technology The
evolution of the personal computer
from word-processing, secretarial
appliance to high-powered manage
ment tool affects nearly everyone in
the workforce.
But nonprofits have been slow to
embrace technology Enmeshed in
their own struggles to meet the
expanded needs of their programs,
technology hasn’t been a chief con
sideration among nonprofits, until
recently
“Ten years ago, nonprofits didn’t
buy technology,” Mayer says.
“Now they buy it but they’re not ade
quately budgeting for training,
upgrading or special appUcations.”
Rob Stuart, director of the
Rockefeller Technology Project for
the Rockefeller Family Fund, says
even those nonprofits that buy tech-
Look for TECHNOLOGY, page 18
Students as teachers
Wake Forest students help nonprofits plug in
A Wake Forest University program
pairs faculty members and organi
zations with undergraduate men
tors, who will show them how to
incorporate technology into their
teaching and work.
Bv Patty Courtright
Winston-Salem
Wake Forest University students
are bringing their knowledge of com
puters outside the classroom and into
the community
Ten students — mostly rising
sophomores and juniors — are
spending the summer helping non
profit organizations find ways to
expand their use of technology, with
another 10 students doing the same
for the corporate world.
The internships are an
expansion of the Student
Technology AdvisoRS — or
STARS — program, which was
estabhshed last year through
an anonymous donor as part of
the university’s effort to put
technology to w’ork in teaching
and learning campnswide.
Working one-on-one with facul
ty members, technologically
astute students help the profes
sors develop creative uses of
technology in the classroom.
A $137,300 gift over three
years from the Jessie Ball
DuPont Fund of Jacksonville,
Fla., has helped take the pro
gram to communities around
North Carolina through sum
mer internships. The gift is funding
five of the internships this summer.
Jessica Woodard, a rising junior from Winston-
Salem (seated), helps Lisa Holleman of Winston-
Salem's Hospice understand what technology
can do for the organization.
eight next year and five in 2000, pro
viding housing and travel allowances
tor some students. The remain
ing internships are funded
through Wake Forest and an
anonymous donor.
“It it wasn’t for the gen
erosity of donors, it would not
be possible for a nonprofit like
us to have a STARS intern,”
says Lisa Holleman, director of
community services for
Winston-Salem/Forsjlh County.
“We feel so fortunate to be part
of the program. What Jessica,
our STARS intern, has done tor
us is phenomenal.”
Jessica Woodard, a rising
junior from Winston-Salem who
wants to major in biology, has
spent the past couple of months
helping Hospice in Winston-
Look for STARS, page 22
Self-Help gets
$50 million grant
By Emily Brewer
Durham
The Ford Foundation has
^en Durham-based Self-Help a
$50 million grant to expand the
nonprofit’s ability to help low-
income families buy their first
homes.
The grant — the largest the
foundation has given this decade
— will be used to expand Self-
Help’s operations throughout
the United States.
“We have learned in our work
in North Carolina that there are
a lot of hardworking, bill paying
low-income and low-wealth peo
ple who may not meet conven
tional standards but have
Look for HOMES, page 24
Product donations focus of giving
High-tech firms slow to embrace philanthropy
Despite criticism of meager charity
by technology companies, they
make sizable product donations.
Some give cash. And a new foun
dation in Silicon Valley encourages
high-tech entrepreneurs to become
philanthropists.
By Emily Brewer
The rap on the technology indus
try is that it scrimps on charity
In fact, while data on giving by the
rapidly growing industry is hard to
come by, the industry is generous in
donating equipment, and some
observers say it eventually will
foUow in the footsteps of the
nation’s long-time philanthrop
ic giants.
“They are a young indus
try,” says Bill Reinhard, editor
of Corporate Philanthropy
Reports. “The most philan
thropic industries out there
have been around for a long
time — some for a hundred
years,” he says.
“Computer companies over
the past few years have been
criticized for not giving enough,” he
says, “but I’m not sure that it’s true
that they’re not giving as much as
"mh the success of the compa
nies, the number of companies crop
ping up each year and the individual
wealth that’s been generated, more
people are thinking about how they
can give back to the community."
Gib Myers
Entrepreneur's Foundation
other industries.”
Total giving by technology compa
nies in Silicon Valley grew 69 percent.
from $29 miUion to $49 million
in the years between 1994 and
1997, according to a survey
released this year and spon
sored in part by the Community
Foundation SUicon Valley
And a 1996 study by the
Conference Board found that
the computer and office-equip
ment industry gave 2.6 percent
of its U.S. pre-tax income to
charity, a figure that research
associate Audris Tillman says
is “well-ahead of what other
industries are giving.”
Of the companies surveyed
by the Conference Board, the average
contribution by industry was 0.9 per
cent of U.S. pre-tax income.
But a hst of America’s 25 most gen
erous companies that was published in
the summer issue of American
Benefactor, a New York-based maga
zine, includes no computer companies.
Computer companies such as
Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp., Sun
Microsystems Inc. and Seagate
Technology Inc. all made it onto the
Fortune 200 hst — but not onto the
list of generous givers.
In compiling its list, American
Benefactor took into account not only
Look for GIVING, page 20
INSIDE
Opinion 10
Grants & Gifts 21
In August 22
People 22
Professional Services..23
1 NONPROFITS
1 FOUNDATIONS
1 VOLUNTEERS
1 CORPORATE GIVING
The nation's spirit requires
Community colleges step up
New Hampshire-based
Charlotte organization offers
greater civic involvement by
their fundraising efforts
Timberland encourages
products to nonprofits at a
Americans, say two studies.
through foundations.
employees to help their
communities.
fraction of their market value.
Page 3
Page 6
“ Page 8
:iPage 12
FUNDRAISING
Universities seek donations
from individuals, hoping to
take advantage of stock
market boom.
: Page 14