After mulling it over a bit more I am thinking that the use of the word "portal" implies an old technology approach - collecting links to other sites. That means static, frequently broken and difficult to maintain content.

Thinking about how the term was thrown around yesterday, I am guessing there is a greater interest in making information more:

1. open
2. easier to find
3. easier to apply

"Portals" were unsuccessful in achieving these goals. So here are some ideas I have:

Making Information Open
Create content! Implement a simple technology and spend a majority of your time soliciting content from individuals that are already finding success.

Easier to find
Get technical support on optomizing search results for issues related to your topic. Also investigate how you can leverage tagging to assist people in finding your content.

Moreover, if your target audiences are not tech savvy, it is likely helpful to get back to the basics. Use grassroots social change strategies to educate your audiences on how they can use your website, or perhaps the web more generally.

Easier to Apply
This is where the rubber hits the road. My view of human nature is there are some people that will read something and it will cause them to act immediately. These type of people are far and few between. However, a majority of people with only a reasonable amount of support will act if they understand the value of their actions to their immediate circumstance or that of their communities. Given the messiness of human nature, I am thinking this is where the interesting technical and social change questions are unearthed. This is the place of experimentation and social and technical innovation.

Erica Rios
Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
http://www.anitaborg.org
http://www.xicanista.net

Since I think I used the word in my presentation, I want to clarify: I was using the word "portal" in a more expansive way. Perhaps it was an inapt word choice, but I simply meant a coordinated, accessible destination for a particular project -- in this case, anti-genocide activism.

Let me know if this has made things less clear...

I think you're getting an accurate assessment of the range of "forward-thinking" vs. "old-timey thinking" in the non-profit and NGO community.

Sometimes people just need to be caught up; however, there are undoubtedly others who have people they connect with professionally that still think that the web is a bunch of tubes, and you can't leapfrog organizational learning when people already have some ideas about the technology, you have to uplift.

Also the non-profit world, since growing topline is always a big question mark, they can become very risk averse, and view everything "new" in the sense of "unproven" rather than "exciting and full of potential."