The Nonprofit FAQ

Where can I learn the basics of the Internet?
From Nonprofit Online News (see http://news.gilbert.org) for August 10, 2005:



Deborah Elizabeth Finn has listed Ten Things That Every Nonprofit Executive Needs to Know About Information Technology
  1. Very little technical knowledge is required of you.
  2. Your board of directors should participate in your technology planning.
  3. High-quality planning resources are available at no charge.
  4. You can follow innovations in IT without a technical background. IT will probably never save your nonprofit organization any money.
  5. You need an in-house IT committee.
  6. Administrative staff should be the lynchpins of your IT infrastructure.
  7. In the long run, IT training and support will make up about 70% of your IT budget.
  8. Donated hardware, software, and services can cost a nonprofit more than purchased products or services in the long run.
  9. Most strategic IT problems are actually organizational development problems.
Michael Gilbert, editor of Nonprofit Online News, comments "I don't entirely agree with #4 (I have plenty of cost savings examples) or #8 (I believe that planning and evaluation should have a meaningful chunk of the tech budget), but this is still a list worth talking about."

For the full discussion of these 10 points, see http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog/_archives/2004/12/29/222355.html



TechSoup (http://www.techsoup.org) offers online discussions of many Internet topics (and other technical issues) from CompuMentor (http://www.compumentor.org) a San Francisco based nonprofit that assists other nonprofits with technology issues.

CompuMentor is one of several sites across the country where NPower offers consultation and advice to nonprofits. The others are:



Free Management Library also offers several basic overviews about the Internet and how to use it. See http://www.mapnp.org/library/infomgnt/Internet/internet.htm



Posted 8/19/99 -- CM; revised 11/4/00; 2/16/02; 8/15/05 -- PB