Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

I like hosting the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants. Mostly, because I get to read blogs by people that aren’t on my list of feeds I read regularly. And I get to highlight the work of some of my favorite bloggers, too.

Joanne Fritz asks the question that is probably on the minds of lots of folks in the nonprofit sector: what are we going to do in facing the current problematic economic climate? She suggests not to panic, and not to change course - keep steady, and keep communicating.

SOX First, which is a new blog to me, and focuses on Sarbanes-Oxely compliance, asks whether nonprofits hold the ethical high ground. Their answer: they may well be losing ground.

James Young, writing on Convio’s newish blog, Connection Cafe, talks about how to find, and create, influencers. What are “influencers?” Read the blog entry. It’s pretty interesting.

Marketing and Fundraising Ideas tells us about how not to ask for a major gift.

There is an interesting case study of the marketing of Tampax and Africa on the Cause Related Marketing Blog.

And Katya tells us why Seth Godin is right about people being lazy and in a hurry, and gives us some tips on how to use that.

And lastly, since I’m hosting, I get to mention my recent post on Twitter and nonprofits.

Next week, the Carnival is being hosted at A Small Change - Fundraising Blog.

(Photo by frankienose)

I’m hosting the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants here, next week. So send in your best of the week!

Someone mentioned to me that from what I write on my blog, she wouldn’t know what it is that I actually do in my consulting work. I kinda thought that was surprising, but in thinking about what I write, I realize that people could get the wrong idea (or, more accurately, fail to get the right idea.) And, I guess truthfully, the blurb on my consulting site is kinda dry. Gotta work on that.

So, what do I do? I think of myself in these terms: I educate, facilitate, mediate, and problem-solve.

For one client, I am their technology go-to person, since they are really small, and have no tech staff. I don’t implement much for them (although in a pinch, I’ll set something up, or fix a specific problem.) But I help them plan their technology initiatives (a new database, a new website, etc.,) help them find the vendors that will do the work by helping them craft good RFPs. I answer all of their tech questions, and solve pretty much all of their tech problems (mostly by helping them figure out who they should call.) I’ll be the project manager on their big new client database project, and help them think about how far to dip their toes into Web 2.0.

For another client, I helped them vet vendors for their new website, taught them the difference between Joomla, Drupal and Plone, and I helped free them from a vendor who was particularly egregious in their hosting charges, among other things. ($1200/month for an old and therefore crappy custom CMS and not much support. I. Kid. You. Not. I myself wrote a custom CMS a long time ago that would be considered crap now, so I don’t blame them for that, but the charges???)

For a third client, I helped them translate their ideas about what they wanted their website to do, to things that could actually be implemented in a CMS. I helped them vet CMS vendors, make sure the CMS that was chosen could do the complex job they were asking it to do (some were not up to the task) and am the intermediary between the current web vendor and the client, lending my expertise as needed, and helping to move the project forward.

I think my clients benefit from one particular thing that I think is pretty unique. Although I am deeply experienced and knowledgeable in implementation of technology, from networks to web applications and databases (I really know how DNS works, can write a left outer join in SQL, and know the difference between REST and SOAP) since I don’t do implementation or coding anymore, I’m not wedded to one set of technologies. I can bridge the gap between technology vendors and clients in a way that is pretty unusual, and, honestly, that I’m proud of. I know when a vendor knows their technology, and when they are blowing sales language at me, and might not be up to the technical task. I can evaluate previous projects based on what I see is the underlying complexity, and figure out how much experience a vendor has had with a particular set of problems. I know when a technology is really appropriate, and when it’s not.

I have other kinds of projects as well - those that use my talents somewhat differently. I do a ton of technical writing, and I have become the “documentation facilitator” of the OpenMRS project - it is an open source medical records system, designed to serve clinics in low-resource areas (such as sub-sarahan Africa) that treat patients with HIV/AIDS. Since we’re starting with the developer documentation, one of the coolest things about this project is that it’s making me learn Java and Eclipse, plus get my hands dirty with Tomcat. Yum! I love learning new stuff.

I like the range of projects I do. I’d like to do more of all of it. I’d also love to consult with for-profit vendors who are thinking about dipping their toes into offering support for open source projects, or open sourcing their software.

OK, enough of that. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. :-)

Michele Martin, one of my fave bloggers, has a great post today on Reflective Practice. Both reflective practice - that is the process of reflecting on what you do, and how you do it, as well as conscious, deliberate evaluation of projects, are things that are not very common in our field, nor things that are valued or encouraged.

In many ways, we are focused on solving technology problems, or completing projects.  But I have really come to believe that the way that we work with people is as important as the “final” outcome. We might be able to build the most wizz-bang amazing website ever (in a technological sense) but if we haven’t really thought about how we moved through the project, never evaluated how the project really went, and didn’t learn from the process, in the end, the project wasn’t the success it seemed to be. In fact, it’s amazing how much we can learn from projects that might be considered failures by technological criteria.

In the last few months, I was involved in helping three organizations choose vendors for varied technology projects, and in the course of that time, I talked with almost a dozen technology vendors of one type or another. One question I asked all of them was about whether they had a process of reflection and evaluation of their work, as it was going on, and when the project was coming to a close. Unfortunately, none of them had an answer to that question. That is something I would love to see change.