MAY 2007

INTRO: Why We Should Worry About Nonprofit Technology Leadership FEATURE: Lessons Learned: Effective Practices in IT Management FEATURE: When Campaign 2.0 Met Citizen 2.0: A Confusing Love Story FEATURE: Book Resources on IT Leadership RANT: Nonprofit Mangement vs. Forprofit Management NTEN SPOTLIGHT: This I Change Series, Installment 2 HOW TO: Put Technology To Use THINGS WE LIKE COMMUNITY BUZZ

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WHY WE SHOULD WORRY ABOUT NONPROFIT TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP

As a student of nonprofit management and as a nonprofit professional, I've spent a lot of time thinking about nonprofit leadership. One of the more frightening - and motivating - facts that I've come across is the Bridgespan Group's 2006 finding that the nonprofit sector will need 640,000 new senior managers in the next ten years.

Nonprofit leaders are missing in action, and those still here are tired. Demand for services is growing, cuts in government funding are putting pressure on fundraisers, the calls for greater accountability adds to the stress and workloads of managers throughout the sector. And all the while organizations are expected to keep overhead low, making it hard to invest in the training and resources - including technology - needed to meet these challenges.

As the membership organization for nonprofit professionals working with technology, NTEN helps nonprofit leaders meet these challenges head-on, with more confidence and less stress. We're launching a Leadership Institute for Executive Directors and IT staff and are writing a book about IT Leadership in nonprofits. In this spirit, this issue of NTEN Connect is focused on technology leadership.

Whether you are a current nonprofit leader, or a future one, read on and you'll find Peter Campbell sharing his hard-won wisdom from 20 years of first hand experience as a senior technology manager. Alan Rosenblatt talks about how to navigate the confusing intersection of organizations and Web 2.0. We've put together a short list of useful books on managing and leading your organization's technology. Finally read my take on a recent nonprofit vs. for-profit management debate and why it misses the point vis a vis tech management. Happy Spring!.

Best,
Ali Levine
NTEN, Special Projects Fellow

FEATURE: LESSONS LEARNED: EFFECTIVE PRACTICES IN IT MANAGEMENT

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria.com

I've spent more than 20 years in the sometimes maddening, sometimes wonderful, world of nonprofit IT management. Along the way I've worked under a variety of CEOs with very diverse styles, and I've developed, deployed, and maintained ambitious technology platforms. In order to survive, I put together three basic tenets to live by.

Tenets to live by:

1. Management is 360 degrees. Managing your superiors and peers is a bigger challenge than managing your staff.
2. To say anything effectively in an organization, you have to say it at least three times in three different media.
3. Follow Fidonet's basic social guideline, "Do not be excessively annoying and do not become excessively annoyed."

FEATURE: WHEN CAMPAIGN 2.0 MET CITIZEN 2.0: A CONFUSING LOVE STORY

Alan Rosenblatt, Internet Advocacy Center

True leadership can sometimes feel like a balancing act that requires all the skill of a tightrope walker. One of the many lines to walk is weighing the need to act boldly and take advantage of new opportunities with the imperative to be a responsible steward of your organization's resources. This can be especially hard when making decisions about resource-intensive technology projects.

Many nonprofit leaders are currently trying to find the right balance when it comes to social networking. If you jump into social networking without a clear sense of the benefits (and who has a clear sense at this point?), are you boldly leading your organization into the future? Or needlessly wasting staff time and money that could be put to better uses? If, after dipping a toe into online networking, you pull those resources back, are you wisely cutting your losses? Or throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

With the flare up over the Barack Obama MySpace community takeover by the campaign from a volunteer, many nonprofits that are just getting or about to get their feet wet in the online social network pool might be having second thoughts.

FEATURE: THE NTEN LIBRARY - BOOK RESOURCES ON IT LEADERSHIP

Here's a roundup of some useful books on managing and leading your organization's technology:

Managing Nonprofits.org: Dynamic Management for the Digital Age
Ben Hecht and Rey Ramsey

The digital age has dramatically changed the way we all do business, from the tasks we do everyday, to the pace at which we must adapt and embrace change. Managing Nonprofits.org focuses on adapting leadership styles and management decisions to this new reality. Each chapter highlights a case study to offer context and real world examples. (NTEN members get discounts on Jossey Bass/Wiley Books.)

Nonprofits and Technology: Emerging Research for Useable Knowledge
Michael Cortes and Kevin Rafter, editors

Michael Cortes and Kevin Rafter have collected research papers on topics ranging from technology infrastructure to the use of online advocacy in order to explore how technology helps, and hinders, nonprofit effectiveness. This work is a welcome addition to the relatively new field nonprofit technology, as hard data is hard to find.

RANT: NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT VS. FOR-PROFIT MANAGEMENT: ISN'T THE POINT REALLY GOOD MANAGEMENT?

Ali Levine, NTEN Special Projects Fellow

I have spent almost every Thursday night for the past two years in classes learning, thinking, and talking about nonprofit management. I've also worked for more than ten years working at various nonprofit organizations. I've seen and studied different types of management, and frequently hit up against the ever-popular question of "should nonprofits be run like businesses?" In fact, it was a raging discussion just recently on a nonprofit tech list. I've always felt that this question misses the point. But it does offer an interesting look at the intersection between day-to-day management and the larger trends at work in the nonprofit sector.

In my Thursday night pursuits of my Master's in Nonprofit Administration, I studied those trends - the rapid growth and professionalization of nonprofits, the "culture of scarcity" that permeates the sector and the growing pressures of accountability, to name a few. I also studied the various management functions of a nonprofit - finance, fundraising, and technology. What is abundantly clear, to the point of being a bit boring at times, was that regardless of the function, every project has a set of strategic steps that are strikingly similar.

NTEN SPOTLIGHT: THIS I CHANGE, INSTALLMENT 2

In the This I Change series recorded at the NTC, we asked nonprofit techies to tell us what inspires them to do the work they do. Here's a few of their responses:

Camille Hinojosa, America's Second Harvest

"It is the faces of the hungry children and the elderly people that we feed on a daily basis that keeps me motivated and inspired."


Dale McGrew, GoLightly, Inc

"What inspires me about technology is that you can really bring to bear energy from around the world. What inspires me is just seeing results."


Danny Moldovan, Change.org

"Social technology is beginning to be able to harness people's ideas, energy and passion. I get up in the morning to see if I can help make that happen."

You can find out what inspires other nonprofit techies by watching video interviews and listening to podcasts in the This I Change series online.

THINGS WE LIKE

COMMUNITY BUZZ

News and buzz from people and organizations in the nonprofit tech sector. Read our posts on our blog.

GETTING THE LAY OF THE LAND - RESEARCH ON CRITICAL MATTERS

> What should you invest in online communications when you don't really know what will work? Convio's Online Marketing (eCRM) Nonprofit Benchmark Index Study gives you some clues.

> M+R Strategic Services offers some insight into what works in online fundraising campaigns and tactics.

> Nonprofit Innovation can use a shot in the arm. Check out PolicyLink's report Bridging the Innovation Divide: An Agenda for Disseminating Technology Innovations within the Nonprofit Sector. You can also read our blog post about the report. They've identified a lack of funding and information sharing as the key culprits.

And speaking of funding...

GET REWARDED FOR YOUR GOOD WORK

> The Florence and Frances Family Fund at Tides Foundation has announced the second Antonio Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest. If you have developed software that is available at no-cost to nonprofits and advocacy groups, has demonstrated its value to at least one nonprofit organization, and can serve multiple nonprofits, apply here for the $10,000 prize. Applications are open until August 1st.

> Cisco's 2007 Growing with Technology Award recognizes the creative ways that nonprofits are using the Internet and networking technology to expand their reach and services and better serve their constituents. If this sounds like your organization, enter to win up to a $25,000 prize.

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