We will use collaborative communication tools to understand the extensive software knowledge that already exists among nonprofit software practitioners and then publish it in summary articles that compare the available software tools.
The technology practitioners working in the nonprofit sector have a vast combined knowledge of what software packages exist, which packages typically work well for various situations, and the key considerations in choosing various types of software. However, this information is not evenly distributed. Literally hundreds of thousands of nonprofits have little access to information about specific software packages. They struggle to understand even what software packages are available, let alone what might be appropriate for them or how to choose.
Without software knowledge, nonprofits are unable to take advantage of the increased innovation, information, efficiency, and effectiveness that good software can provide. This contributes to a growing “organizational divide” in which large and well-funded organizations take advantage of the best in software and Web 2.0 tools while small and mid-sized community organizations are left further and further behind.
Idealware proposes a Nonprofit Software Knowledge Sharing Initiative to understand the extensive software knowledge that already exists in the sector and publish it in a form that will be useful to many nonprofits worldwide. We will start by collecting information from a wide swath of those working with nonprofit software to understand who has knowledge about each type of software. We’ll work with this community to define a set of software topics for which knowledge is available but widely needed, and then use online communication tools to collaboratively create knowledge summaries about these topics.
These knowledge summary articles will be published online and widely distributed through sources such as the Idealware website, the TechSoup website, listserves, and other partners. Possible knowledge topics might include online integrated packages such as Kintera, Convio, and Democracy in Action; collaboration tools; constituent databases; content management systems; event registration tools; and many more.
We are seeking initial funding to create the expertise data repository and write an initial set of articles, but Idealware’s revenue model will allow us to keep the repository and articles up-to-date without additional funding. Earned income strategies such as business partner sponsorship of the articles, and webinars based on the article content, as well as donations to Idealware, will allow us to make updates on a yearly basis. This model has already been successful in allowing us to update similar articles on the Idealware site. In this way, an initial investment in the Knowledge Sharing Initiative will allow us to provide robust knowledge in these areas for years to come.
The key resource needed is seed funding to create the tools to collect community expertise data, to facilitate collaboration, to provide nominal compensation to those practitioners who share their expertise, and then to write up the knowledge. Idealware will commit the staff to oversee the process and write the knowledge summaries. We’ll also outreach widely to practitioners to contribute information about their own expertise.
We estimate the initial collection of expertise data to be an $8,000 project. With this expertise data repository established, we can then facilitate and publish each software knowledge article for $2250 each.
At the end of this first initiative, a set of software area summaries will be immediately useful to nonprofits looking for software information. In addition, the collection method defined, we can periodically request updated information to keep the expertise data timely and useful to a wide audience.
The vast majority of nonprofits struggle without strong knowledge of what software tools are available or what might be useful for them. However, a great deal of software knowledge exists, spread through the community of nonprofit technology practitioners, most of whom would be happy to share their knowledge if they had an easy way to do so. Idealware proposes a Nonprofit Software Knowledge Sharing Initiative to understand the extensive software knowledge that already exists in the sector, use collaborative communication tools to collect and organize this data, and then publish the knowledge in articles that compare the available software tools, using accessible language that will be useful to hundreds of thousands of nonprofits worldwide.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
TechSoup, CompuMentor. 2009. Share our content.
