Posts tagged ‘transparency’

  |  
February 12, 2010

Free Software for Non-profits from TechSoup

Many of my posts talk about how non-profits can use technology to improve operations and better communicate with stakeholders.

However, a big questions non-profits have is: How do I get this technology?

My best answer is TechSoup. TechSoup Global, headquartered in San Francisco, provides a platform for non-profit organizations around the world to gain access to the software and hardware they need. TechSoup has served “more than 83,000 organizations and distributed over 4 million products as of June 2008″

At SAP, we partner with TechSoup to distribute our solutions such as Crystal Reports and Xcelsius to over 900 non-profit organizations in the US, Canada, Germany and Brazil. In 2010 we will be adding another 15 countries to that list.

In addition to SAP software, TechSoup provides access to solutions from Microsoft, Symantec, Cisco, Adobe and many other donors. These offerings are available in 32 countries with more being added all the time.

To get access to the software, non-profits sign up for a TechSoup account in their country. This involves providing proof of non-profit status (i.e. 501c3 status in the US or CRA certification in Canada). Then you can choose from the donor list and download software. The software itself is free but TechSoup charges a modest administration fee to pay for running the platform. Note that the exact mix of software available varies from country to country. Also, each donor will have their own criteria for donations. For example, we do not grant software to political or religious organizations.

In addition to the technology distribution platform, TechSoup offers help and info such as “instructional articles and worksheets for nonprofit staff members who utilize information technologies, as well as technology planning information for executives and other decision makers”. Also part of the TechSoup family is the amazing NetSquared program designed to help non-profits take advantage of Web 2.0 and social web technologies.

TechSoup is an invaluable resource for any non-profit organization looking to add to their technology portfolio. If you are in this sector, signing up with TechSoup for your technology needs is an absolute must. I’m very proud to be partnering with TechSoup to build capacity in the non-profit sector and help organizations better deliver on their mission.

Share

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
February 4, 2010

Question Zero Part 6: Next steps

In the last 5 posts, we have covered a number of components that help you answer, and communicate  your answer, to Question Zero “What, exactly, are we trying to accomplish?”:

  • Choosing the type of story you are trying to tell
  • Ensuring you are speaking the right language for your audience
  • Making sure you are measuring things that support your mission, not just capturing your activities
  • Checking that you are balancing your measures across time and space

As you can see from these items and the previous posts, there is no simple answer to the “perfect” measures that illustrate your answer to Question Zero and your progress to achieving that goal. However, this process and series of questions can  help you get there and ensure you are measuring the “right” things – things that will help you better manage your organization, achieve your goals, communicate your impact to your audience and ultimately make the change you are driving for.

So now, over to you! When I’m doing this presentation in person, I usually split people into groups and we do a short run through this process. I would encourage you to try this on your own. In “real life”, this process needs to include representation from your board, your staff, your volunteers, your clients and your ED. As an exercise though, try this:

  • Choose a project to focus on
  • Decide if you are going to:
  • Communicate
  • Demonstrate
  • Engage
  • Decide on your audience
  • Customers and potential customer
  • Volunteers
  • Potential donors
  • Internal managers and staff
  • Board of directors
  • Check for balance
  • Time and space
  • Financial, mission, organization
  • Find 3 things to measure that support your answer to Question Zero

I would love to hear your thoughts and your answers to this question either by email or commenting here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , ,
January 29, 2010

Answering Question Zero: What is success and how do we measure it?

Herman Leonard, a professor at Harvard Business School, has a concept called Question Zero. This asks “What exactly are we trying to accomplish?” The idea being if you can’t answer Question Zero, then don’t bother with questions 1 through 99!

For social ventures and non-profits this can be a difficult question to answer simply and communicate succinctly. Especially challenging is the need to manage, measure and balance financial success, mission or community impact and ongoing organizational sustainability.

I have been writing and speaking about this topic for a while – at Social Venture Institute at Hollyhock and Social Tech Training in Toronto, with the Demonstrating Value Project – and most recently at the Vancouver Net Tuesday event in November.

Over the years  I have developed some techniques, and incorporated the best I have found, to help non-profit, social enterprises and social purpose businesses answer this question. Ironically, through another series of questions! Questions like:

  • What kind of story are you trying to tell?
  • Who is the audience?
  • Are you speaking the right language for that audience?
  • Are you measuring your mission or your activities?
  • Do you have the right balance between time and space in your measures?

Over the next few posts I will be going into more detail on each of these questions. For now I’m very grateful to Guacira Naves from Online Strategy for posting a video recording of the presentation here. Many, many thanks Guacira!

Part 1: http://onlinestrategy.ca/2009/11/05/vancouver-net-tuesday-november-2009/
Part 2: http://onlinestrategy.ca/2009/11/06/vancouver-net-tuesday-november-2009-part-ii/
Part 3: http://onlinestrategy.ca/2009/11/06/vancouver-net-tuesday-november-2009-–-part-iii/
Part4: http://onlinestrategy.ca/2009/11/09/final-video-segment-steve-williams-at-net-tuesday-vancouver/

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
March 10, 2009

Tale of two views: Public and Private stimulus spending tracking sites

The New York Times has a profile on the “Big Man” tasked with monitoring spending for the US recovery bill. The article talks about both recovery.org (a government run site) and Stimulus Watch (a private site).

As you can see from the images below, the difference in level of detail and speed of posting is staggering. Which one would you want to visit to get the details on spending? This really hammers home what others like Visible Government and David Eaves have been saying: open the data to the people and be amazed at what the people will build. For you. For free.

US Government Stimulus Package reporting site

US Government Stimulus Package reporting site

And by contrast, a private site from Stimulus Watch

And by contrast, a private site from Stimulus Watch

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Tags: , , , , ,
March 8, 2009

Opening MP Voting Records: how?

Interesting article on opening MP voting records “soon” but how effective will this be?

While not as interesting as the US given our more traditional party-disciplined voting, one can imagine some interesting data mashups. For example one could create a map linking voting records with government spending projects, financial contributions and media coverage by riding.

Will be very interesting to see what format the data is in – locked in PDFs as David Eaves has mentioned in his blog post about Vancouver, or tagged and available for anyone to access and manipulate programatically as he shows for Toronto here

Also interesting is the reference to “A Canadian site, run by a B.C. man in his spare time, tracked voting records, but it was often out of date.” which I assume means http://www.howdtheyvote.ca This would be a perfect opportunity for a collaboration between someone like How’d They Vote and the government agency responsible for publishing the data. Here is someone who has already, with no government funding, put up an interactive site to explore this data – along with quotes, bills raised, statistics and so on. Seems pretty up to date to me, with last voting data from Feb 12 2009

UPDATE: After posting this to the vanchangecamp Google Group, Cory Horner (the “BC man” in question) responded saying:

Ouch… I am past tense — but I guess perception is reality, since while all votes have been added to the database within 48 hours lately (and appear in the stats), they don’t show up in the votes listing until they are marked as “relevant” and attached to a bill.

It was updated on Monday, and the front page shows the date it was last updated.

Interestingly, Cory goes on to say:

Also, looking for thoughts on a development version of our API here:

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=516782FB-2AF1-4980-AC97-36F619A90ECC%40canoe42.ca&forum_name=howdtheyvote-developers

This is exactly the kind of open access required to enable third party application development. Imagine the possibilities!

Finally, Cory recommends this article in The Hill Times for more detailed coverage.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , ,
  |  
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.