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Bridging the Innovation Divide:An Agenda for Disseminating TechnologyInnovations within the Nonprofit Sector

A Report by PolicyLink and BCT Partners

Winter 2007

PolicyLink is a national research and action institutethat works collaboratively to develop and implementlocal, state, and federal policies to achieve economicand social equity. By Lifting Up What Works—usingresearch to understand and demonstrate thepossibilities for positive change—PolicyLink presentsnew and innovative solutions to old problems.

Design: Design Action Collective

Cover photos courtesy of (from left to right): ©iStockphoto.com (Sheryl Griffin), ©iStockphoto.com (Alfio Ferlito), ©iStockphoto.com (Laurence Gough), ©iStockphoto.com (George Cairns), and ©iStockphoto.com (Vladimir Pomortsev).

Bridging the Innovation Divide: An Agenda for Disseminating TechnologyInnovations within the Nonprofit Sector

A Report by PolicyLink and BCT Partners

Principal Authors

Sarah TreuhaftArnold ChandlerJosh KirschenbaumMelissa MagallanesRandal Pinkett

Copyright © 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the Hewlett Packard Company fortheir generous funding of this project and support forour community technology work. Camilla Nelson wasparticularly helpful in providing leadership, guidance,and feedback throughout the project.

The findings presented in this report are grounded inthe experiences of the twelve case studyorganizations, whose staff members and partnersgraciously shared their reflections and challenges withus. We are thankful to the following individuals forparticipating in interviews with the research team.

Neighborhood Information Systems: NealRichman (Center for Neighborhood Knowledge), PatMcGuigan and Jim Lucht (The Providence Plan),Marshall Clement (Family Life Center), Michael Barndtand Todd Clausen (Neighborhood Data Center), TomKingsley and Kathy Pettit (National NeighborhoodIndicators Partnership), Steve Kachoki (CaliforniaCoalition for Rural Housing), Brian Lawlor (LegalServices of Northern California), Denice Warren(Greater New Orleans Community Data Center), Lanie Wasserman (United Way of Greater Milwaukee),David Schilling (Merced County Human ServicesAgency), Denise Nguyen (Alameda County LeadPrevention Program), Rene Guerrero (Planning andConservation League), Jim Pingel (WisconsinSentencing Commision), Kelly Zertuche and TrentMueller (West End Development Corporation), MattMelendez (Sherman Park Community Association),and Maricruz Ponce de Leon (Olneyville Housing).

E-advocacy: David Chiu (Grassroots Enterprise), StevePhillips (PowerPac), Jo Lee (CitizenSpeak), Rob Stuart(Strategic Relations for Advocacy), Maya Harris (ACLUof Northern California), and Marty Kearns (ActionCommittee for Transit).

Digital Inclusion Initiatives: Jack Ward (SouthernCalifornia Tribal Digital Village); Shelonda Stokes (EastBaltimore Digital Village); and Faye McNair (East PaloAlto Digital Village).

Internet-based Microenterprise Support: DavidRand (Micromentor), Asheesh Advani (CircleLending),and Cathy Keeley (Count Me In). We also thank JerryBlack for his research and drafting assistance.

The team is indebted to Janet Dewart Bell and PJRobinson for their editorial prowess and careful readsof many drafts of this report. And we would beremiss without thanking Leslie Yang for managing theproduction process.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary 9

Introduction 15

The Innovation Divide in the Nonprofit Sector 19

Findings from the Field: The Adoption of New Technologies for Community Building 25

Neighborhood Information Systems:Facilitating Data Access and Analysis by Community Organizations 26

E-Advocacy: Using Information Technology for Policy Change 34

Internet-based Microenterprise Support:Developing Online Tools forMicroentrepreneurs 43

Digital Inclusion Initiatives: Empowering Communities with Technology Access and Training 49

Dissemination: Spreading NewTechnologies among Community Building Organizations 56

An Agenda for Bridging the Innovation Divide 61

Notes 65

PolicyLink, BCT Partners, and the Hewlett-PackardCompany have long partnered in the search forsolutions to bridge the gap between the power ofnew information and communications technologies(ICTs) and the ability of marginalized communities andtheir advocates to access and use them. We arepleased to share Bridging the Innovation Divide: AnAgenda for Disseminating Technology Innovationswithin the Nonprofit Sector, which presents a newframework for understanding today’s digital divide—the innovation divide—and the policy options fortranscending it.

Nonprofit community building organizations arecrucial innovators when it comes to responding tosocial needs. They are entrepreneurial in designingnew programs and policies. Nonprofits also innovatewith technology. The growth of technology-infusedprograms and organizations—largely created from thepast decade of digital divide policy—attests that thesector can be a rich venue for incubating emerginginformation and communications technologies. Incontrast to the private sector, which has pouredbillions of dollars into technology research anddevelopment, nonprofits adopt and further develop—or adapt—new technologies on shoestring budgets,creatively leveraging philanthropic and corporateresources to create innovations that are relevant totheir particular needs.

Although nonprofits are increasingly innovating withtechnology, they have yet to fully realize the potentialof new technologies. The sector faces what thisreport articulates as the Innovation Divide: the lack ofinfrastructure and support for adopting andeffectively using ICT innovations as well as the paucityof mechanisms for sharing knowledge aboutinnovations among practitioners.

Though the innovation divide has always existed, theurgent need for a plan to address innovationdissemination within the nonprofit sector becameapparent at a 2004 meeting of technology leadersconvened by HP. Responding to this need, PolicyLink,BCT Partners, and HP combined our collectiveknowledge of technology development in both thenonprofit and for-profit worlds to craft a five-pointpolicy agenda for bridging the innovation divide. Thisagenda was built upon the groundbreaking efforts bynonprofit leaders from within four key areas ofcommunity building practice: neighborhoodinformation systems, electronic advocacy, internet-based microenterprise support, and digital inclusioninitiatives. As policymakers, philanthropic institutions,and technology companies search for the nextgeneration of technology strategies to advanceeconomic and social equity, we hope this agenda willcatalyze a national dialogue about the future oftechnology innovations in the nonprofit sector, whichwill ultimately inspire new solutions.

We deeply appreciate the tireless efforts of theresearch team lead by PolicyLink. Sarah Treuhaft,Arnold Chandler, and Josh Kirschenbaum ofPolicyLink were the primary researchers and authorsof the report with contributions and leadership fromMelissa Magallanes at BCT Partners.

Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder and CEO,PolicyLink

Randal Pinkett, Chairman & CEO, BCT Partners

Bess Stephens, Vice President, CorporatePhilanthropy, Hewlett-Packard Company

PolicyLink 8 BCT Partners

Preface

Nonprofit organizations form the backbone of civilsociety and are at the forefront of efforts to buildhealthier, more vibrant, and more inclusivecommunities. They are being called upon to take onexpanded roles and responsibilities in service deliveryand community revitalization in a time of increasingsocial inequality. In response, they have become majorinnovators, continually creating new programs andpolicies that grow the social, economic, physical, andcivic infrastructure of disinvested neighborhoods.

Technology plays an important role in enablingnonprofits to respond to social needs at this criticalmoment. The rise of information and communicationstechnologies (ICTs) has created unprecedentedopportunities for nonprofits. Computers and the Internetallow nonprofit organizations to perform fundamentalfunctions—research, communications, public education,advocacy, fundraising, and program development, andservice delivery—with ever-greater speed and efficiency.A number of entrepreneurial nonprofits have not onlyinfused their activities with information technology, buthave emerged as forerunners in adopting emerging ICTinnovations. For example:

• The Providence Plan, a nonprofit data intermediary,customized a Geographic Information System(GIS), a computerized mapping application, to mapand analyze individual property parcels inProvidence to support community developmentand organizing efforts.

• Southern California Tribal Digital Village, anonprofit organization established to further thedevelopment of 18 dispersed Native Americanreservations in San Diego County, built a wirelessnetwork that connects 15 of the reservationslocated over a 150 square mile area of ruralSouthern California to high-speed Internet.

• The No on Proposition 54 campaign, developedby the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) ofNorthern California to challenge an initiativebanning the collection of race and ethnicity data,used targeted e-mail messaging to catalyze a viralelectronic advocacy campaign that defeated thispotentially harmful legislation.

• Micromentor, a microenterprise supportorganization, uses an Internet-based matchingprogram that it developed to linkmicroentrepreneurs across the country withmentors that have specific knowledge on how tobuild and sustain small business.

These “early adopters” of emerging technologiesoffer compelling evidence that ICT innovations canstrengthen the nonprofit sector. Unfortunately, suchsuccess stories are too few and far between. Whilemany nonprofits have entered the 21st century withaccess to computers and some form of Internetaccess, many ICT innovations remain concentratedamong a handful of organizations with hightechnology capacity—the financial and humanresources needed to access and use technologyinnovations. Beyond the problem of access is theissue of effective use. Even among the pool ofnonprofits that have gained access to particular ICTinnovations, it is often the case that only a few havemanifested the full potential of the innovation. Mostnonprofit practitioners sense that new and relevanttechnologies exist, but they lack the knowledgeneeded to choose among the increasing number ofproducts as well as the technical know-how requiredto apply new technology tools to their particularorganizational goals or problems. Consequently, thevast potential for new ICTs to strengthen the sectorremains unrealized.

BCT Partners 9 PolicyLink

Executive Summary

This report articulates the key technology challengecurrently facing nonprofits as the Innovation Divide:the lack of infrastructure and support for adoptingand effectively using ICT innovations as well as thepaucity of mechanisms for sharing knowledge aboutinnovations among practitioners.

As a part of the “Community Building in the DigitalAge” initiative to bring technology resources toorganizations working to promote equity, PolicyLinkcollaborated with BCT Partners, a consulting firm withextensive experience in nonprofit technology, toinvestigate the problem and devise a strategic agendafor bridging this manifestation of the digital divide.Through consultations with practitioners and leadersin the community technology field, literature reviews,and case study research, we sought to answer threequestions:

(1) What are the causes of the innovation divide?

(2) How and why do nonprofit organizations adoptnew technology innovations and assimilate theminto their work?

(3) What can be done to speed up the diffusion ofinnovations within the nonprofit sector?

Included in this report are the results of thisinvestigation and a five-part agenda to empower thenonprofit sector with new technology applications.Implementing the proposed agenda would help buildthe capacity of the sector to carry out its work—connecting people to economic and socialopportunities and making all neighborhoods healthyand livable—more efficiently and more effectively.

The Innovation Divide in the NonprofitSector

Why is there an innovation divide? What is it aboutthe nonprofit sector that makes the adoption and useof new ICTs particularly difficult? While the causes arenumerous, the nonprofit sector faces a few keychallenges for adopting ICT innovations:

• Innovation development is geared toward thetechnology needs of the private sector and is lesslikely to fit the needs and capacities ofnonprofits. Over the past decade, the privatesector has invested heavily in technology researchand development (R&D) to keep pace with

technology changes and stay ahead of thecompetition. Comparatively little investment hasgone into R&D for technologies oriented fornonprofit organizations, resulting in few new ICTsoriented to the sector’s needs and capabilities.

• Nonprofit organizations lack resources fortechnology adoption and technology capacity.The adoption and implementation of newtechnologies require a significant financialcommitment. Not only must organizations investin the equipment and software, but they alsomust invest in training, maintenance, support,and technology capacity. Nonprofit fundingstreams often do not provide the flexibility or theresources needed to adopt new ICTs.

• There is a lack of information flow aboutinnovations within the nonprofit sector andbetween the nonprofit sector and the private andpublic sectors. One of the major barriers to thespread of emerging ICTs is the lack ofinformation about how innovations could be orare being applied to nonprofit activities. Thestories and lessons of nonprofits that do adoptand use new technologies need to be available towould-be adopters. There are also many lessonsabout technology adoption and use from theprivate and government sectors that could beapplicable to the nonprofit sector.

Findings from the Field: The Adoptionof New Technologies for CommunityBuilding

While the nonprofit sector faces significant barriers toadopting and using ICT innovations, a number ofnonprofit organizations have successfully charted newterritory within their domains of practice throughadopting and implementing new technologies. Theexperiences of these early adopters shed importantinsights into the adoption of innovations by nonprofits.

This report profiles 12 innovators within four areas oftechnology innovation, which correspond with fourdifferent areas of community building practice (seeTable 1).


Neighborhood Information Systems (NIS). NIScombines data, maps, and data analysis tools into asingle system, usually available online, that enablescommunity building organizations to obtain, analyze,and apply geographic data.

Electronic Advocacy. E-advocacy incorporatesInternet-based technology tools—websites, e-mailprograms, and Flash web animations, for example—as part of advocacy campaigns that aim to influencepolicy decisions.

Internet-based Microenterprise Support. Anumber of microenterprise-supporting organizationsare adopting internet-based tools that enable them todeliver services such as mentoring and access to creditmore efficiently to a greater number of dispersedmicroentrepreneurs.

Digital Inclusion Initiatives. Community-basedtechnology initiatives integrate different ICTs intocommunity building strategies within practice areassuch as IT access and training, job training, economicdevelopment, and education.

Dissemination: Spreading NewTechnologies among CommunityBuilding Organizations

Beyond demonstrating how early adopters ofemerging technologies successfully adapt these toolsto meet the needs of community building practice,the case study research also revealed an incipientinfrastructure for technology dissemination within thenonprofit sector. This infrastructure consists of sixmain components, or factors for diffusion, thatprovide information, support, and resources foradopting and implementing new technologies. Thesefactors work both independently and in concert tohelp disseminate technology innovations, as illustratedby Figure 1.


Table 1. Technology Innovations, Community Building Practices, and Case Studies

TechnologyInnovation Area

Community BuildingPractice Case Studies

NeighborhoodInformation Systems

Geographic Data Analysisand Use

The Providence Plan (Providence, RI)Neighborhood Data Center (Milwaukee, WI)Neighborhood Knowledge California (CA)

Electronic Advocacy Policy Advocacy Free the Schuylkill River Park Campaign (Philadelphia, PA)Inner Purple Line Campaign (Montgomery County, MD)No on Prop. 54 Campaign (CA)

Internet-basedMicroenterprise Support

MicroenterpriseDevelopment

MicroMentor (National)Count Me In (National)CircleLending (National)

Digital Inclusion Initiatives Technology Access andTraining

East Palo Alto Digital Village (East Palo Alto, CA)Southern California Tribal Digital Village (San Diego County, CA)East Baltimore Digital Village (Baltimore, MD)


Figure 1. Six Key Factors for Innovation Dissemination among Nonprofits

Innovation Characteristics: Low Cost, Low

Complexity, High Maturity, High

Relevance

Policy and ProgramSupports

Strength and Density of

Communications Channels

Research on Adoption and Use of Innovations by

Nonprofits

Innovation Champions

CommunityTechnology

Intermediaries

Greater Dissemination of Innovations within the Nonprofit Sector

The six factors for diffusion include:

(1) Community Technology Intermediaries. Thestrength and capacity of organizations thatfacilitate the adoption and dissemination ofinnovations can greatly influence the diffusion oftechnology among nonprofits.

(2) Innovation Champions. Nonprofit employees,volunteers, and board members, as well asadvocates of particular technology tools, can playimportant roles in encouraging organizations toinnovate and in helping them apply technologyto community building practice.

(3) Research on Adoption and Use ofInnovations by Nonprofits. Applied researchand case studies that describe the experiences ofnonprofits using new technologies can informand inspire other nonprofits and spur additionaladoption of technology innovations.

(4) Strength and Density of CommunicationsChannels. Many reliable and high-qualityinformation sources on ICT innovations (such asconferences, print media, and online forums) canhelp nonprofits decide whether to adopt newtechnologies as well as help with theirimplementation.

(5) Policy and Program Supports. Supportivepolicies and programs can help ensure thatinnovation development results in useful tools fornonprofits (making them more adoptable) andcan also provide resources and incentives fororganizations to take the risk entailed inadopting such tools.

(6) Innovation Characteristics: Low Cost, LowComplexity, High Maturity, High Relevance.Technology innovations that are affordable, nottoo complex, mature in their development, andhighly relevant to community building are moreeasily disseminated.

An Agenda for Bridging theInnovation Divide

Addressing the innovation divide within the nonprofitsector requires an approach that is targeted, strategic,and creative. This approach must build upon previousinvestments and the current technology infrastructureamong nonprofits. To be effective, it must discoverwin-win solutions that leverage private-sectorresources.

The following agenda provides a policy roadmap foraddressing the barriers to innovation adoption anddissemination in the nonprofit sector.

1. Establish new federal, state, philanthropic,and corporate funding programs to developand disseminate technology innovationswithin the nonprofit sector. Funding is themost significant barrier to creating anddisseminating technology innovations within thenonprofit sector. The recent elimination of themajority of federal, state, and local communitytechnology funding streams has produced aresource gap that will continue to hinderinnovation development and diffusion.

• Produce new funding opportunities at thenational and state levels for the development,adoption, and dissemination of technologyinnovations in the nonprofit sector.

• Expand private philanthropy grantmaking toinclude resources in all grants specificallyearmarked for developing, using, and sharingtechnology tools.

• Encourage technology sector corporatephilanthropy to support innovation adoptionand dissemination among nonprofits.

2. Create forums and intermediaries—at thelocal and national levels—to facilitate theadoption and dissemination of technologyinnovations. Of the six factors for technologydissemination, strong intermediary organizationsand dense communications channels are arguablythe most important levers for increasingtechnology diffusion among third sectororganizations.


• Support existing intermediaries that workwithin specific nonprofit domains of practice(such as health, housing, or education) inpromoting the dissemination of ICT innovationswithin those domains.

• Establish incentives for nonprofit technical-assistance organizations to develop and refinetechnology tools that are useful for nonprofitorganizations and disseminate best practicesresearch to practitioners.

• Create venues for new partnerships andstrategic alliances whose purpose is todisseminate information about technologyinnovations and their uses by early adopters.

• Support the development and use of public,online repositories of technology tools (such aswww.TechSoup.org).

3. Support universal service reforms thatenable nonprofits to gain broadband accessto best take advantage of ICT innovations.Although broadband technology has rapidlybecome more accessible and less expensive, itremains cost-prohibitive to many nonprofits.There is a need to ensure that nonprofits haveaccess to high-speed Internet connectivity. Inlarge part, this means that the sector must beincluded in the ongoing policy dialogue aboutuniversal service reforms and how they willimpact both access and service provision fornonprofits.

• Advocate for a dynamic definition of “universalservice” that incorporates the uniquetechnology needs of the nonprofit sector andstrives toward technological and regulatoryconvergence in information services.

• Encourage municipal wireless networks tosubsidize and underwrite nonprofit broadbandaccess to these networks.

• Further develop fiber to the home (FTTH) andfiber to the premises (FTTP) efforts, whichenable the provision of multipletelecommunications services including veryhigh-speed Internet access through a singlefiber-optic cable. These technologies couldpossibly further reduce the cost of providingbroadband Internet access at affordable ratesfor nonprofit organizations.

4. Create forums for learning from the privatesector about the adoption and use of newICTs. The private sector maintains a wealth ofknowledge about the adoption and applicationof technology tools. New partnerships should beencouraged between nonprofits and for-profittechnology developers to create technology toolsfor the nonprofit sector. The private sector could:

• Partner with community technologyintermediaries to identify opportunities for ICTtools to improve the efficiency or efficacy ofnonprofits.

• Facilitate the transfer of innovative technologytools and innovative uses from the privatesector to the nonprofit sector.

• Create forums for sharing best practices oftechnology adoption and adaptation toencourage greater collaboration between thenonprofit and for-profit sectors.

5. Establish standards and mechanisms for datasharing and interoperability. The power ofmany new ICTs—such as Geographic InformationSystems (GIS)—relies upon open access to timelyand relevant data from multiple sources.Standards that enable different data-producinggovernment agencies to share data can makethese innovations more applicable to thenonprofit activities and useful for the sector.

• Create a Nonprofit Technology Standards Boardor working committee responsible for updatingexisting standards and establishing newstandards for data sharing and interoperability.

• Further develop emergent technologies thatsupport data sharing and interoperability,including Web Services—web applicationsengineered specifically to allow moresophisticated interactions and interoperabilityamong web applications—and Data Services—intermediary software applications whosepurpose is to aggregate multiple data sourcesor data repositories.


Overview

The nonprofit sector—a diverse assortment oforganizations that deliver services ranging from healthcare to housing, contribute to the development ofculture and the arts, and enable civic participation andadvocacy—has long played a crucial role in U.S. socialand economic life. The sector includes over 1.5 millionorganizations, accounts for 10 percent of the U.S.economy, and employs 11.7 million people.1 It hasbeen growing at a faster rate than the for-profit sectorand can be expected to remain a powerful force.

Continued growth within the sector illustrates itsstrength and importance as well as its resilience in theface of major changes. Over the past 20 years theenvironment in which nonprofits operated has shifteddramatically: demands for services have far outpacedfinancial support from government andphilanthropies, competition from for-profit companieshas increased, funders have demanded greateraccountability and measurable outcomes, publicconfidence has wavered, human resources havedwindled, and technology has advanced rapidly.2

This report focuses on the technology challengefacing nonprofits, which is simultaneously atremendous opportunity. The oncoming of the“information society” and the revolution ininformation and communications technologies (ICTs)that occurred over the past decade has opened newpossibilities for organizations in all sectors. Internetservices (e-mail and web content in particular) anddesktop computer applications enable the delivery ofinformation, products, and services to largeraudiences across much larger geographical areas and

at much lower costs. As these new technologiesdeveloped, private-sector companies were at theforefront of incorporating them into regular businesspractices. Nonprofits quickly recognized thepossibilities created by these new technologies tofulfill their missions with greater efficacy andefficiency, but lagged in their ability to access themand use them effectively. In 2001, PolicyLink describedthe lack of technology capacity among nonprofitcommunity organizations as the “organizationaldivide.”3

Although nonprofits remain technology-challenged,the situation has changed since PolicyLink first beganworking to promote policies and programs thatenable nonprofits to use technology as a tool to buildstrong and healthy communities. Over the pastdecade, nonprofits have begun to embrace ICTs. Theyhave made impressive inroads in gaining Internetaccess, establishing basic technology capacity, andcreating online content. A review of the literatureabout nonprofit technology adoption conducted bythe Institute of Nonprofit Organizational Managementat the University of San Francisco found that Internetaccess rates for nonprofit organizations have attained70 percent and that most organizations with Internetaccess have some basic capacity to use thistechnology.4 In the absence of relevant and usefulonline content for underserved communities,nonprofits have been steadily populating the WorldWide Web with a rich array of local information onjobs, housing, child care, and other services, writtenin a culturally appropriate manner and at a basicliteracy level.5

Beyond these accomplishments in communitytechnology access, capacity, and content, the externalenvironment for nonprofits to use ICTs has become


Introduction

much more supportive. The number and variety oforganizations that play (or can play) such a role hasbecome more extensive; dozens of technology-relatedintermediaries—or organizations whose goals includehelping other organizations access and usetechnology—have sprung up in communities acrossAmerica. In addition, many technology vendors arebeginning to perceive nonprofits as new nichemarkets and to market their products to them.

While nonprofits are making some headway, thetransformative potential of ICTs for the sector remainslargely untapped. A few ICT innovations, such as thewebsites and e-mail, have been widely adopted bythe nonprofit community but are often incompletelyintegrated into organizational practices. Otheremerging or advanced ICTs have been adopted byonly a few nonprofits, even though they havepotential utility for many more organizations. Theexperiences of these “early adopters” of innovationsshow how new ICTs can radically transform everydaycommunications, policy advocacy, data analysis anduse, fundraising, and other key practice areas.

In the spring of 2004, PolicyLink and the Hewlett-Packard Company brought together experts fromcommunity building organizations, philanthropies,and private-sector companies to discuss the mostimportant technology issues facing nonprofits. At theconvening, community technology leaders agreedthat community organizations—and the nonprofitsector more broadly—lacked the technology tools andknow-how needed to support their endeavors. Theyidentified three critical needs: (1) identification anddevelopment of relevant ICT applications; (2)knowledge about how organizations are adoptingand using ICT applications; and (3) sharing ofinformation about new applications and their usesamong practitioners.6

As part of the “Community Building in the DigitalAge” initiative to bring technology resources toorganizations working to promote equity, PolicyLinkcollaborated with BCT Partners—a consulting firmwith extensive experience in nonprofit technology—tounderstand and develop solutions to these challenges.In line with the needs articulated by practitioners andother stakeholders in the community technology field,this report describes the key technology challengefacing nonprofits as the Innovation Divide—the lackof infrastructure and support for developing,

adopting, and effectively using ICT innovationsamong nonprofit organizations and the paucity ofmechanisms for sharing information about them andtheir uses among practitioners.

Research Focus and Methods

To develop a strategic agenda for bridging theinnovation divide within the nonprofit sector—onethat leverages the technology knowledge, skills, andinfrastructure that exist among nonprofits—PolicyLinkand BCT Partners sought to understand howinnovations can become incorporated and used bymore nonprofit organizations. The primary questionsthat drove the research include:

(1) What are the causes of the innovation divide?Why does the nonprofit sector lag in its ability totake advantage of new ICTs?

(2) How and why do nonprofit organizations adoptnew technology innovations and assimilate theminto their work?

(3) What can enable more nonprofit organizations toadopt and use new ICT innovations? What canbe done to speed the diffusion of innovationswithin the nonprofit sector?

To answer these questions, we spoke with peopleworking in the field of community technology,reviewed the literature on innovations and nonprofittechnology, and conducted case study research onorganizations that have successfully adopted ICTinnovations.

We selected the community building field—a smallyet important and vibrant segment of the nonprofitsector—for our case study research because itrepresents the local organizations with whomPolicyLink and BCT Partners work and with whosetechnology needs and capacity we have the mostfamiliarity. The field includes organizations that seekto increase equity through strategies that improve thequality of place and the lives of the people living inlow-income neighborhoods as well as the array oforganizations and vendors (both nonprofit and for-profit) that inform and assist them. This diverse groupincludes multiservice agencies that conduct job


training and provide social services, advocacy andcommunity organizing groups, nonprofit housingdevelopers, and intermediary organizations.

While the nonprofit sector as a whole facesconsiderable technology challenges (as described inthe next section), community building organizations,which are usually small and under-resourced,experience these challenges even more acutely. At thesame time, creative technology innovations oftendevelop when organizations are under pressure toincrease efficiency or efficacy without spending a loton expensive solutions. Their disadvantagesnotwithstanding, many community buildingorganizations have adopted technology innovationsand found ways to integrate them into their work.

Case Study Selection

Cases were selected from four different technologyinnovation areas that correspond with four domainsof community building practice:

(1) Neighborhood Information Systems (NIS). NIScombine data, maps, and data analysis tools intoa single system, usually available online, that

enable community building organizations toobtain, analyze, and apply geographic data.

(2) Electronic Advocacy. E-advocacy incorporatesInternet-based technology tools—websites, e-mail programs, and Flash web animations—intoadvocacy campaigns to influence policy decisions.

(3) Internet-based Microenterprise Support. Anumber of microenterprise-supportingorganizations are adopting Internet-based toolsthat deliver services more efficiently to a greaternumber of dispersed microentrepreneurs.

(4) Digital Inclusion Initiatives. Community-basedtechnology initiatives use technology as a tool forbuilding community, IT access and training, jobtraining, economic development, and education.

Within each technology innovation area, we selectedthree organizations that have successfully adoptedICT innovations and incorporated them into theirwork. Table 1 illustrates the four technologyinnovation areas, their corresponding areas ofcommunity building practice, and the 12 case studyprojects.


Table 1. Technology Innovations, Community Building Practices, and Case Studies

TechnologyInnovation Area

Community BuildingPractice Case Studies

NeighborhoodInformation Systems

Geographic Data Analysisand Use

The Providence Plan (Providence, RI)Neighborhood Data Center (Milwaukee, WI)Neighborhood Knowledge California (CA)

Electronic Advocacy Policy Advocacy Free the Schuylkill River Park Campaign (Philadelphia, PA)Inner Purple Line Campaign (Montgomery County, MD)No on Prop. 54 Campaign (CA)

Internet-basedMicroenterprise Support

MicroenterpriseDevelopment

MicroMentor (National)Count Me In (National)CircleLending (National)

Digital Inclusion Initiatives Technology Access andTraining

East Palo Alto Digital Village (East Palo Alto, CA)Southern California Tribal Digital Village (San Diego County, CA)East Baltimore Digital Village (Baltimore, MD)

Report Organization

Following this introduction, Bridging the InnovationDivide is organized into four sections:

“The Innovation Divide in the Nonprofit Sector”provides a context for understanding the challenge oftechnology adoption and use among nonprofits,describing the processes of innovation development,adoption, and diffusion and outlining barriers totechnology dissemination in the nonprofit sector.

“Findings from the Field: The Adoption of NewTechnologies for Community Building” defines thefour areas of technology innovation and communitybuilding practice and profiles how each of the 12case study organizations successfully adopted andapplied new technology innovations to achievegreater community impact.

“Dissemination: Spreading New Technologies amongCommunity Building Organizations” describes six keyfactors that can facilitate technology innovationdissemination among nonprofits.

“An Agenda for Bridging the Innovation Divide”presents a set of strategic recommendations forbridging the innovation divide and enabling greateruse of innovations within the nonprofit sector.


Why is there an innovation divide in the nonprofitsector? What can be done to overcome thetechnology challenges faced by nonprofits? Someanswers can be found within the body of knowledgeabout innovations—how they are developed, whatfactors enable their adoption and use, and how theyspread throughout society.

The study of innovations is a longstanding area ofacademic and applied research. Although most of thisresearch has not focused particularly on the nonprofitsector, it nonetheless offers insights into the causes ofthe innovation divide. This section first discussesinnovations, then describes the main challenges thatthe nonprofit sector faces in adopting and usingthem.

The Development, Adoption,and Diffusion of Innovations

There are three primary processes that are relevant tothe incorporation of ICT innovations into thenonprofit sector:

• Innovation development

• Innovation adoption

• Innovation diffusion

Innovation Development

Innovation development refers to the process ofcreating innovations. Some of the most importantpoints in relation to the innovation divide are:

Commercial innovation development occurs in stages.Creating innovations generally occurs in six stages: (1)research; (2) development; (3) patenting; (4)production; (5) marketing; and (6) adoption/use.7These stages illustrate how R&D—and the financingof it—are essential to the process. As the speed ofICT innovation development increased over the pastdecade, the private sector invested heavily in R&D tokeep pace with technology changes and stay aheadof the competition.


The Innovation Divide in the Nonprofit Sector

Some Key Terms

Innovations are new or significantly improvedideas, goods, services, processes, or practices.This report focuses on ICT innovations andassociated innovative uses.

Adoption may refer to an event—the physicalacquisition or purchase of an innovation, or toa process—the acquisition and implementationof an innovation.

Diffusion is aggregate adoption, or thespread of an innovation across a population ofpotential adopters.

Users—especially early adopters—play increasinglyimportant roles in the development process. The riseof the Internet—and the increased rate and scale ofcommunication it has enabled—is creating a newdynamic where users play increasingly important rolesin ICT innovation development. ICT innovations arefrequently released as “beta” versions and users areengaged as collaborators in refining the product andcontributing their experiences and intelligence to itsimprovement.8 The increasing importance of userfeedback means that the first users of the newtechnology—or “early adopters”—have a substantialvoice in developing the innovation. In addition, theusers of new technologies often adapt the availabletechnology tool or use it in a manner that itsdevelopers did not intend for it to be used.

Innovation Adoption

Studies of the organizations that adopt innovationshave found that:

Adoption is an organizational process. Adoptionbegins when an organization first hears about aninnovation and continues as the organizationcomprehends and evaluates it, deciding whether toadopt. If the decision is affirmative, then theorganization acquires the innovation and beginsincorporating the new technology into its work. Thisassimilation entails adapting the innovation(technologically or functionally) to the particularneeds of the organization. Once the innovation hasbeen incorporated, the organization can judge itsusefulness for the organization.11

An organization’s decision to adopt an innovation isinfluenced by the technological context and theorganizational context. Three categories of factorsdetermine whether an organization will adopt aparticular innovation:

• Technology-related factors, such as thecharacteristics of the technology itself (e.g.,complexity and cost) and the nature ofinstitutions that seek to propagate thetechnology

• Organization-related factors, including qualitiesof the potential adopter, of the organizationalenvironment or sector in which it operates, andof communications channels/information sources

• Technology-organization combination factors,such as the “fit” between the technology andthe organization, perceptions about theinnovation and the conversation about it amongpractitioners, and the organization’s technologycapacity

Table 2 describes these adoption factors in greaterdetail.


Updating the Classical Model ofInnovation

Innovation research is generally associatedwith the work of Everett Rogers, a sociologistwho, in 1962, outlined what is now known asthe “classical” model of innovation. In thismodel, Rogers described the general factorsthat influence the adoption and diffusion of alltypes of innovations.9 This classical modelprovided the field with many useful conceptsfor understanding innovations.

While a good number of Rogers’ conceptsremain relevant today, contemporaryresearchers have recognized that a singlemodel cannot explain all types of innovationsand all adoption contexts. Accordingly, theyhave adapted the classical model to describemore specific types of innovations—such asICT innovations—or more specific types ofadopters.10


Table 2. Factors that Influence ICT Innovation Adoption12

Technology-relatedfactors

Innovation characteristics The qualities of the innovation—its complexity, cost, relativeadvantage, usefulness, ease of use—make it more or lessattractive and easier or harder to adopt.

Propagating institutions andsubsidies

Propagating institutions such as R&D laboratories, governmentagencies, technology vendors, consulting firms, suppliers, anduser groups influence adoption by communicating about,promoting, and enhancing innovations. These institutions mayalso provide sponsorship and subsidies that reduce the cost (andrisk) of adoption.

Organization-relatedfactors

Organization characteristics Characteristics of potential adopters—size, structure, leadership,and workforce—make them more or less receptive to innovations.Larger organizations are generally more innovative (though sizemay serve as a proxy for scale, wealth, and available resources).Organizations that are less centralized and formal, with lessvertical differentiation are more likely to embrace new ideas andadopt innovations.

Organizationalenvironment/sector

Characteristics such as industry concentration, competitivepressure, profitability/wealth, R&D intensity, IT intensity, and rateof technological change are thought to influence innovationadoption.

Communications channels Organizations that invest in a wide array of information sourcesand communications channels are more likely to learn aboutinnovations and their potential benefits.

Technology-organizationcombination

Technology-organization “fit” Innovations that are compatible with organizational needs,strategies, resources, and capabilities are more likely to beadopted. Wealth/resources and technology capacity play roles indetermining fit.

Innovation perceptions andsocial influence

Perceptions about the innovation’s usefulness and ease of useinfluence the decision to adopt it. These perceptions areinfluenced both by the broader discussion about the innovation(particularly by opinion leaders and change agents) and theinnovation characteristics.

Technology capacity Technology capacity, or the existing means to support andmanage the implementation of an innovation, includes thedegree of top management support, technology championship,training resources, and mechanisms provided by propagatinginstitutions.

Innovation Diffusion

Whereas adoption research looks at how individualorganizations choose to incorporate new technologiesinto their work and the factors that make them moreor less likely to innovate, diffusion research looks atthe population level and focuses on the rate andextent of adoption throughout a given population.This research tends to be more retrospective and hasgenerally considered how innovations diffuse amongpopulations of people rather than populations oforganizations. Diffusion research helps place adoptioninto a larger context and timeframe and has providedthe field with the important concept of earlyadopters. The two key findings are:

Innovations spread gradually, following a typicalpattern. There is a lag between the time aninnovation is introduced and when it becomes widelyused. The process of diffusion begins slowly, “takesoff” as more adopters find out about the innovation,and levels off as the population of potential adoptersdiminishes. This process results in an “S-shaped”diffusion curve (see Figure 1).

Adopters can be categorized based on theirinnovativeness. Those who adopt an innovation fallinto one of five types, depending on the timing of theiradoption: (1) innovators, (2) early adopters, (3) earlymajority, (4) late majority, and (5) laggards. Innovatorsand early adopters represent a low percentage of thepopulation that accepts the innovation shortly after itsintroduction. Early majority and late majority representa much larger percentage of the population thatembraces the innovation and helps establish a criticalmass for its wide diffusion. Laggards represent arelatively small percentage of the population thatincorporates the innovation much later.


Figure 1. The Diffusion of Innovations over Time, by Types of Adopters

Time of Adoption

Early Late

High

LowInnovators

EarlyAdopters

EarlyMajority

LateMajority

Laggards

Perc

enta

geof

Ado

pter

s

Source: Adapted from Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations by BCT Partners, 2006.

The Nonprofit Context: Barriersto Innovation Diffusion withinthe Sector

What are the implications of these understandings forthe nonprofit sector? To answer this question, oneshould keep in mind some of the characteristics ofnonprofits that distinguish them from for-profitcorporations or government agencies. Nonprofitsoperate in a very different manner than otherorganizations because they are fundamentally notdriven by a financial bottom line, but by socialmissions. They tend to be small and have less wealthand resources compared to organizations within othersectors. Moreover, a large proportion of theirfinancing comes from foundations and governments,giving these institutions a large role in shaping theway that nonprofits go about their work.

These defining characteristics add up to a uniquelychallenging organizational context for the adoption ofICT innovations.

Innovation development—and R&D investment—isgeared toward the technology needs of the for-profitsector and less likely to fit the needs and capacities ofnonprofits. Nonprofits are at a significantdisadvantage in the marketplace for technologyinnovations. Three reasons stand out. First, becausethey lack market power, they are not the primarymarkets for technology developers or propagatinginstitutions (vendors and other institutions that seekto spread new technologies). When developers andpropagating institutions do focus on nonprofits, theyoften lack an understanding of how the newtechnology tool can be applied to the organizations’mission-oriented activities.

Second, nonprofits are less involved in thedevelopment of innovations because they are lesslikely to be early adopters, who play an increasinglysignificant role in innovation development andrefinement. This means that those who do not “getinto the game” quickly end up with products that arenot tailored to their needs. By the time nonprofitsadopt new technology tools, they are often doing soto keep from falling behind rather than to move thefield forward in new and interesting ways.

Third, there are few incentives for R&D investment intechnologies geared for the nonprofit sector. ICTinvestments are risky: startup costs are high, andproducts operate in winner-take-all markets whereonly a select few succeed.13 In the private sector,investors take risks because rewards are also high,and they reduce their exposure by diversifying theirinvestments. The same profit motive and ability toreduce risk through diversification do not exist in thenonprofit sector, where investment generally comesfrom philanthropy. While the risk of failed technologyprojects remains present for nonprofit technologyendeavors, there are no mechanisms for “profitable”technology investments to subsidize “unprofitable”ones in the way that is possible in the private sector.

Nonprofit organizations lack resources for technologycapacity and development. Although new ICTs makemany business practices easier, cheaper, and moreefficient, the adoption and implementation of newtechnologies still requires a significant financialcommitment. Investments in equipment and softwarerequire complementary investments in human andorganizational development.14 The rapid pace ofinnovation often leads to increasing costs for training,maintenance, support, and capacity.

For a variety of reasons, nonprofits have a difficulttime obtaining resources to allocate to the adoptionof new information technologies. The nature ofnonprofit finance is one contributing factor. Thefoundations, corporations, and government agenciesthat fund nonprofits tend to reward funding based ona proposal that outlines the activities the organizationwill undertake and the way in which outcomes will beevaluated. This model disincentivizes theentrepreneurship and flexibility needed to adopt newtechnologies and to adapt them to fit the needs ofthe work and hinders the ability of nonprofits torespond quickly to changing conditions.15 In addition,nonprofits are generally funded for specific programsand projects, which rarely include budget lines fortechnology development, rather than generalorganizational development and support—the sourceof funds for technology capacity building.

Beyond the sector’s overall lack of funding fortechnology, the way that nonprofits allocate theirtechnology funds can be myopic. The “80–20 rule”—arule of thumb for technology planning—recommendsthat approximately 80 percent of a technology budget


should be spent on services such as consulting,implementation, training, and maintenance, and 20percent on hardware and/or software. Nonprofits oftenallocate their funding in the opposite manner, with 80percent or more going toward hardware andsoftware, and only 20 percent going towardcomplementary investments. Another problem is thelack of targeted technology investments. Nonprofitsoften scatter investments among several initiatives orprograms rather than making the coordinated,strategic, and catalytic investments that are needed tomaximize a new technology.

Lastly, there is an ongoing tension for nonprofitpractitioners between the use of funds in the shortterm to serve additional residents, organize additionalcampaigns, build additional housing, etc., and the useof funds to invest in long-term capacity buildingendeavors, such as technology innovations, that canenhance the organization’s ability to be more efficientand effective toward achieving these outcomes.

There is a lack of information flow about innovationswithin the nonprofit sector and between thenonprofit sector and the private and public sectors.The external conversation about a particular ICTinnovation plays a large role in determining whetheror not an organization will decide to adopt thetechnology and begin to amass the resources andorganizational capacity to do so. The structure of thenonprofit sector and its disconnection from theprivate and public sectors tend to create barriers tothe open flow of high-quality information about ICTinnovations and the ways in which they are applied tomission-oriented activities.

Nonprofits often must navigate between the mass ofinformation generated by innovation vendors and thedearth of easily accessible information about howsuch innovations might be relevant to their work. Oneof the major barriers to the spread of emerging ICTs isthe lack of information about how innovations couldbe or are being applied to nonprofit activities. Thestories and lessons of nonprofits that do adopt anduse new technologies must be widespread andaccessible to would-be adopters.

Another primary barrier to fluid information flowwithin the sector is the tendency of nonprofits towork in distinct, programmatic areas such as

workforce development, human services, health care,education, and housing. This tendency to work in“silos” can stunt communication about technologyinnovations and their uses among practitioners whomight otherwise be able to apply the sametechnology tools to their different areas of practice. Inaddition, when there are communications channelsthat enable practitioners in different fields to talk toeach other, they tend to be devoted to programmaticbest practices and opportunities for collaborationrather than the adoption and use of technologyinnovations.

Many lessons about technology adoption and usecould be learned from the private and public sectorsthat could be applicable to the nonprofit sector, but alack of communications channels prevents thisexchange of information.

Conclusion

Compared to the private sector, the nonprofit sectoris at a disadvantage when it comes to informationand communications technology. Since the sector isnot fully engaged in a majority of the innovationdevelopment processes, it does not benefit in thesame way from investments in technology R&D by theprivate sector. In addition, nonprofits have limitedresources to devote to technology adoption andimplementation. There is also a lack of informationflow concerning innovations and their application tononprofit activities. Because of the challenges ofadoption, innovations diffuse slowly within the sector,and the potential of technology to aid communitybuilding can go unrealized.


While the nonprofit sector faces significant barriers toadopting and using ICT innovations, a number ofnonprofit organizations have successfully charted newterritory within their domains of practice throughadopting and implementing new technologies. Theirexperiences offer important insights into how theinnovation divide can be bridged.

The adoption of innovations by an organization is amulti-staged process. This process begins when theorganization learns of a new technology andcontinues as the organization decides whether toadopt the technology and, if the decision is to adopt,incorporates the innovation into its programmaticwork. Because innovation development is not gearedtoward the technology needs of the nonprofit sector,nonprofit technology adopters generally need toadapt the newly-adopted technologies to fit theirparticular organizational needs and capacity. To putnew technologies to work effectively, communitybuilding organizations must merge their expertise incommunity building practice with knowledge of howthe new technology tool can be applied to thatpractice.

The twelve case studies of innovation adoptionillustrate how early adopters tailor or adapt newtechnology tools. This process is different within eachof the four innovation/practice areas:

• Neighborhood Information Systems

• Electronic Advocacy

• Digital Inclusion Initiatives

• Internet-based Microenterprise Support

Each innovation area is presented separately, with anoverview of its relevance to community building,followed by three case studies. All case studiesinclude information about the context for theadoption of the innovation, the particular ways inwhich the organization adapted the innovation tocontribute to community building, and the impactthat the innovation has had in the field.


Findings from the Field: The Adoption of New Technologies forCommunity Building

Neighborhood InformationSystems: Facilitating DataAccess and Analysis byCommunity Organizations

As community organizations become more importantplayers in community revitalization, economicdevelopment, and social service delivery, the ability toanalyze and present data is increasingly essential totheir work. At the same time, the IT revolution hasvastly increased the availability of data and improvedpowerful data analysis and mapping technologiessuch as GIS.16 And the Internet now makes it possiblefor the public to access large quantities of data.

Despite this seeming match between the risingsophistication of community change agents and ICTinnovations, there has been a disconnect betweencommunity organizations and the data analysis toolsthat can help them accomplish their goals.Technology applications such as GIS hold greatpotential for community action, yet their cost andcomplexity have left them largely beyond the reach ofmost community organizations.

In the 1990s, a set of institutions—local nonprofitdata intermediaries—emerged to help communityorganizations overcome these barriers.17 Guided bymissions to democratize data, these intermediaries are“hardwired” to spread the benefits of data analysistechnologies. Recognizing the potential of GISmapping for community action, they quickly adoptedand developed expertise in this technology. Since1999, a number of the strongest data intermediariesin the country have participated in a nationalnetwork, the National Neighborhood IndicatorsPartnership (NNIP). NNIP is housed at the UrbanInstitute in Washington, DC and has grown toencompass 27 data intermediaries working in citiesthroughout the country.18

To make GIS and other data analysis tools available tocommunity actors, data intermediaries incorporatedthese technologies into comprehensive Neighborhood

Information Systems (NIS). Though these systems vary,they all contain two essential components: (1) datainputs, or information and indicators of communitylife, and (2) data displays, including maps, tables, andother outputs that organize and display data. Theyare “neighborhood” information systems becausethey organize data by neighborhoods and otherrelevant geographies for community groups.

As early adopters of GIS, local data intermediarieshave played important roles in further developingdata and mapping technologies to meet the needs ofcommunity building organizations. Although this ICTinnovation has been around for over 30 years,commercially-available GIS software is relativelycomplex and does not yet meet the needs ofcommunity building organizations. In the absence ofthis technological development, nonprofit dataintermediaries have played the role of technologydevelopers. Intermediaries often seek to:

• Improve the quality of data available tocommunity builders

• Access additional data from new sources or fromresident surveys

• Integrate separate datasets

• Find ways to produce data displays more quickly

• Improve the quality and variety of data displays

• Reprogram Internet-based GIS to make it moreuseful for non-expert users

• Design user-friendly NIS websites

Data intermediaries are diverse, with differingmissions, contexts, and capacities. These differencesamong intermediaries translate into differencesamong NIS, as the following descriptions of the threecase study intermediaries illustrate (table 3).

The Providence Plan: Data Partnershipsfor Citywide Revitalization

Background and Context

The mission of The Providence Plan (TPP), founded in1992, is to revitalize Rhode Island’s capital city,promoting the social and economic well-being of itspeople and its neighborhoods. To accomplish itsmission, the nonprofit organization builds


partnerships among government agencies, civicgroups, and residents to advance a comprehensiveapproach to problem-solving. The Providence Plan isinvolved in community economic development,housing, early childhood learning, public safety,neighborhood planning, and youth development.

From its inception, The Providence Plan has recognizedthat data and mapping are essential to understandingand devising solutions to urban problems and has usedGIS as a tool to support its revitalization agenda.Seeing that the city lacked a comprehensive dataresource, TPP began working with the Taubman Centerfor Public Policy at Brown University to build a one-stopinformation system. Since then, TPP has become theprimary source of data and mapping for public andnonprofit community builders in the city. Its systemcontains an impressive variety of data, at the smallestscales available, including historical data in the health,

property, and education arenas as well as vital statistics.Much of this data is made available to the public via itswebsite, which includes an interactive mappingapplication. The Providence Plan provides a range ofassistance—from partnerships to technical assistance—to community organizations and government agenciesto help them use these data resources.

Technology Strategy and Approaches

The Providence Plan has excelled at devising solutionsto the challenges of data access and data integration.By developing long-term collaborative relationshipswith data providers, TPP has assembled rich datasetsthat combine property-level and individual-level datafrom previously separate sources. It integrates thesedatasets with resident-collected data and hasdeveloped innovative data displays and Internet-baseddata tools.


Table 3. Key Organizational and Technological Characteristics of NIS Case Studies

The Providence PlanNeighborhood DataCenter

Center for NeighborhoodKnowledge/NKCA

NeighborhoodInformation System

Integrated Citywide InformationSystem

Data Clearinghouse Online Statewide InformationSystem

Organizational Mission Citywide and NeighborhoodRevitalization

Nonprofit Capacity Building Provide Free Data and GISMapping

URL http://provplan.org http://www.nonprofitcentermilwaukee.org/datacenter

http://nkca.ucla.edu

InstitutionalArrangement

Public/Nonprofit Partnership Program of NonprofitTechnical Assistance Provider

Program of University ResearchInstitute

Data Delivery Approach In-House and Internet System In-House System, LimitedInternet System

Internet System

Data Demographic, Socioeconomic,Housing, Property, Health,Education, Crime, PrisonerReentry, Community Assets, Artsand Culture, Historic Preservation

Demographic,Socioeconomic, Housing,Property, Health, Education,Crime, Prisoner Reentry,Community Assets

Demographic, Socioeconomic,Housing, Mortgage Lending,Health

Smallest Scale of Data Parcel, Individual Parcel Block Group

Widest Scope of Data Citywide, Some Statewide Citywide, Some Regional Statewide

Developing Data Partnerships with GovernmentAgencies

To gain access to administrative datasets, TheProvidence Plan developed reciprocal agreements withthe government agencies in charge of health, publicsafety, education, and corrections. These agreementstrade TPP staff’s technical expertise in data analysisand mapping in exchange for access to agencydatasets and payment for services. For example, TPPhelps the local police department integrate GIS crimemapping into its normal policing routine. Thisagreement benefits TPP and area community groupsby providing timely access to crime data, and it alsobenefits the community by making city services (here,police beats) more efficient and better targeted.

TPP’s ability to access and work with governmentagencies can translate into greater access to data foradvocacy groups, as illustrated by the datacollaboration between TPP and the Rhode IslandDepartment of Corrections. Since 2002, TPP has beenhelping the Family Life Center (FLC), a nonprofitorganization working on prisoner reentry issues inProvidence, use mapping for analysis, communications,and policy advocacy. FLC provides direct services toreentrants, educates the community about reentryissues that affect their neighborhoods, and addressessystemic barriers to reentry through policy advocacyand community organizing. To help FLC understand thereentry issue more thoroughly and develop policy andeducational campaigns, TPP collaborated with theDepartment of Corrections to develop a database thatincludes address-level data on ex-prisoners and peopleon probation and parole. With this database, TPPmapped characteristics of reentrants includingresidential patterns, spatial mobility, and access toservices. FLC has used these maps to win a statewideadvocacy campaign to restore public benefits—jobtraining, food stamps, and cash assistance—to peopleon parole and probation for drug-related convictions. Itis also using the maps to develop educationalworkshops on the effects of incarceration and ex-offender reentry on the community.19

Assembling Datasets from Multiple Data Sources

Beyond gaining access to local datasets, TPP hasintegrated previously incompatible datasets obtainedfrom different government agencies. While theseagencies work in different domains (such as housing

and education), community builders recognize theinterrelatedness of these issues and the need for datathat reflect the complexity of urban problems.

One important area of research that requires datafrom different domains of practice is the analysis ofhow community factors impact the health andeducational success of children. In that year,Providence had the highest-known rate of child leadpoisoning in the country, with nearly one-third of thechildren entering kindergarten in 2000 screeningpositive for lead poisoning. TPP and the Rhode IslandDepartment of Health partnered to investigate theissue, creating a new database that combined TPP’sdata on school enrollment with health departmentdata on children’s blood lead levels and educationdepartment data on standardized test results. Withthis database, they analyzed the correlation betweenlead exposure and educational performance, findingthat children exposed to lead early in life—especiallyover extended periods of time—performed poorly inschool. Subsequent mapping of the lead poisoningdata revealed that certain neighborhoods weredisproportionately affected by lead poisoning andneeded remediation and public education efforts.20

Obtaining Data at the Finest Scale and the WidestScope

The Providence Plan is one of the nation’s leaders inproviding data at the finest grain available—parcelsfor place-based data and individual records forpeople-based data—and is also working to expandthe scope of data in its NIS.

Parcel-level data (rather than blocks or census tracts)enable better analysis of property conditions anddevelopment opportunities and allow TPP to easilyaggregate parcels to build new geographies that alignwith the neighborhoods, communities, or marketareas its community partners need to investigate. Forexample, TPP helped the City Council withredistricting following the 2000 Census, quicklydrawing new ward boundaries that incorporated thedecade’s population changes.

Individual-level data are also important for analyzingurban phenomena. For example, TPP uses individualdata to help the Providence School Districtunderstand fluctuations in enrollment and studentbody composition. Armed with a powerful database


that includes data on every student enrolled in theProvidence K–12 system going back to 1987, TPPanalyzes student characteristics such as English-language ability, school mobility, residential mobility,and “churning,” or how students move through theschool system over time.21

In addition to gathering data at the finest grain, TPPis seeking to widen the scope of data contained in itsNIS beyond the City of Providence. In partnershipwith the state economic development agency, TPP isdeveloping a statewide parcel layer that will includeall 39 of Rhode Island’s municipalities. This expandedgeographic scope of data will enable organizations toconduct regional and statewide analyses.

Community Impact

Through its data collaborations and NIS, TheProvidence Plan is moving toward its goal of citywiderevitalization. Some of the impacts include:

• Property databases that provide information ondevelopment opportunities and an “EarlyWarning System” to help predict and preventhousing abandonment

• Neighborhood policing that uses weekly crime-mapping analysis to target efforts

• Information resources to understand,communicate, and advocate for issues aroundprisoner reentry

• Improved data and communications tools forneighborhood and regional action

Neighborhood Data Center: DataDisplay Tools for Milwaukee’sNonprofit Organizations


The Neighborhood Data Center is a program of theNonprofit Center of Milwaukee, an organization thatprovides technical assistance, training, and services tothe city’s nonprofit community. The Data Center’smission is to help nonprofit organizations use dataand information to support their activities. Since1991, the organization has served as a dataclearinghouse, organizing and archiving data from avariety of sources. It receives an important part of its

funding from the Community Development BlockGrant Administration (CDBGA), a public agency thatsupports community development efforts, and usesthis flexible financing source to provide free servicesto its community grantees.

Milwaukee provides a strong environment for dataaccess and GIS use by community organizations.22

The city maintains one of the country’s best propertydatabases, the Master Property File (MPROP), whichcontains over 90 elements of data for each of thecity’s approximate 160,000 properties; it has beenupdated yearly since 1976. MPROP is available to thepublic through an online interactive mapping system,“Map Milwaukee,” and another online data systemprovides even more detailed housing transactiondata.23 The use of GIS has been an integral part ofthe participatory neighborhood revitalization planningprocesses in Milwaukee that began in 1996. The DataCenter assisted with that process, providing technicalassistance to community groups as they incorporateddata and maps into their neighborhood plans.

The Data Center works extensively with the MPROPdatabase and has also gained access to address-leveldata on health, safety, and community assets. Itspecializes in creating useful graphic outputs fromraw data and has developed many customized toolsto facilitate this transformation. The Data Centerworks directly with nonprofit and public clients tomeet their data and mapping needs and does not relyon the Internet to disseminate data and maps.


The Neighborhood Data Center has leveraged itstechnical expertise in information systems andexperience working with community basedorganizations to build tools that capture new data,integrate resident data with institutional datasets,produce data outputs efficiently, and create excellentvisual representations of complex data.

Developing Database Solutions that Prevent Data“Leakage”

Sometimes administrative agencies processinformation that can be extremely valuable forcommunity builders but lack the technology solutionsto capture this information, resulting in a lostopportunity to create important data resources. In a


number of such cases, the Data Center has used itsprogramming expertise to design customizeddatabases with easy-to-use interfaces that alloworganizations to capture, store, and organize data.For example, the city was routinely obtaininginformation on tax foreclosures that could beextremely useful for community organizationsworking to stem neighborhood decline by preventinghousing abandonment. The Data Center designed arelatively simple, access-based database that hasenabled the agency to capture this information. Withthis new database, the agency has catalogued twoyears’ worth of foreclosure data.

Designing Tools to Supplement InstitutionalKnowledge with Resident Knowledge

When it comes to neighborhood conditions,residents’ everyday knowledge is often more accurateand current than information possessed bygovernment agencies. The Data Center designscustomized systems to capture this knowledge andintegrate it into administrative databases. Forexample, the Data Center developed a tool thatallows organizations to update and add data to thecity’s online property database. This tool embeds aweb browser into the database, making it easier tonavigate. With this tool, residents are helping tostrengthen and verify the city’s property data.

Like The Providence Plan, the Data Center has alsohelped community groups incorporate their ownsurvey data into administrative datasets. For the pastfive years, the city’s Housing Coalition has undertakenan annual community survey of housing conditions.With funding from the Department of Justice’s“Community Mapping, Planning, and Analysis forSafety Strategies” (COMPASS) initiative, the DataCenter helped develop a data partnership among theHousing Coalition, the City of Milwaukee, and theCenter for Urban Initiatives at the University ofWisconsin – Milwaukee. To help the partners betterunderstand the relationship between crime andhousing abandonment, the Data Center helped theHousing Coalition integrate its data into the city’sonline property and crime databases. The HousingCoalition has used this database to undertake aneighborhood reinvestment campaign, working withthe city to prioritize actions on boarded-up propertiesand conducting a letter-writing campaign to absenteelandlords to encourage owner responsibility.

Developing Effective Visual Representations of Data

As a direct service provider, the Data Centercontinually seeks to improve the quality and efficiencyof its services. It has applied its technical expertise tothese goals, developing a number of tools thatquickly generate high-quality visual representations ofdata. To produce customized maps for clients at a lowcost (clients pay $10 per map), the Center created a“map generator” template system. This system allowsit to select different display variables and choose from30 different map layouts. The Data Center also madecrime data more usable for community groups bycreating maps that display the number of crimeincidents occurring in census tracts or block groupsacross the city and overlays these maps with a parcelbasemap to better point to the more precise locationof crime in Milwaukee neighborhoods.

The Data Center has also created a standardized datareport template that includes tables, charts, andvisualizations of data to illustrate communityconditions. Using Excel macros, it can generate thisrich community portrait for clients in under 10minutes. Its technology team is also working to createeffective visualizations of historical data and isexperimenting with three-dimensional data displays.

Forming a Citywide Data Collaborative

The Data Center has taken a leadership role increating an organization that is working to improvedata access in Milwaukee. Formed in early 2004, theMilwaukee Data Consortium is a partnership of 20data providers and user groups that seek to build a“virtual data clearinghouse,” enabling the integrationand sharing of data via the Internet. Thisclearinghouse would develop protocols for dataaccess and data sharing to enable data to be housedin cyberspace instead of within a particular institution.

Community Impact

Because of the Data Center’s efforts to supportcommunity action:

• Community groups are incorporating data andmaps in their planning, program implementation,organizing, and advocacy activities

• Communities have better data resources toinform their efforts to prevent housingabandonment


• Information from the Housing Coalition’sannual community survey is now merged withthe city’s online database and available to thecoalition

• Advocates have ready access to high-qualitymaps and data displays that communicateneighborhood conditions

Neighborhood Knowledge California:Online Mapping and Data forAdvocates


Neighborhood Knowledge California (NKCA),launched in December 2002, is a project of theCenter for Neighborhood Knowledge (CNK) of theUniversity of California, Los Angeles. CNK works toformulate and implement urban policy, and developsinformation technology tools to support communitybuilding, including NKCA and four other Internet-based Neighborhood Information Systems.24 NKCA isa statewide system that aims to promote greaterequity in addressing banking, housing policy, andother metropolitan issues. The system assembles avariety of databases into a web-based toolkit that canbe used to document, analyze, and mapdemographic, housing, economic, financial, andhealth indicators.

As the only NIS in the country that includes data andmaps for an entire state, NKCA enables organizationsto gather data and maps to apply to theirneighborhood, regional, and state level work. Thesystem provides data at multiple geographical scalesand makes available home mortgage lending data fora four-year period (1997–2000).25 NKCA’s approach isto create a user-friendly system that makes data andinteractive mapping available to anyone that canaccess its website. To implement this goal, CNKstreamlined its interactive mapping software programto provide users with a few specific and powerful GISfunctions.

Unlike The Providence Plan and the Data Center,CNK’s Neighborhood Knowledge system is designedto assist any community organization within its stateboundaries. This is accomplished, in part, by providingonline training materials and periodically conducting


How Organizations are Using NKCA: LegalServices of Northern California

Legal Services of Northern California’s (LSNC)use of NKCA is an excellent example of hownonprofit organizations can adopt web-baseddata tools. LSNC’s eight offices providerepresentation to low-income clients in 23counties in northern California. Theorganization is committed to using mappingto inform its services and advocacy and hasprioritized its use in community economicdevelopment, fair and affordable housing, andincome stability program areas.

Legal Services found its way to NKCA afterrepeatedly experiencing difficulty with tryingto use desktop GIS. Desiring to analyze anddisplay data from the census and othersources, LSNC was ready to try a differentapproach. After leaders from the organizationattended an outreach event held by NKCA’spartner organization, the California Coalitionfor Rural Housing (CCRH), they decided to useNKCA’s accessible and well-designed tool as asubstitute for desktop GIS.

With CCRH’s assistance, LSNC devised anoffice-wide training strategy to raise employeeawareness of how NKCA could help them intheir work and provide the necessary trainingand assistance. They created their owntutorials and trained 20 of 120 employees inthe use of the site. The office has set upofficewide “My NKCA” accounts andworkspaces. Having developed its capacity touse the site’s advanced functions, LSNC hasbeen uploading client data to the site. Itsattorneys have been using communitymapping to understand patterns of poverty inthe areas in which they work and to analyzetheir outreach and service delivery efforts.

hands-on training sessions in Los Angeles and otherlocations. To reach potential users outside of themetropolitan areas, CNK partners with the CaliforniaCoalition for Rural Housing (CCRH), which is astatewide organization located in Sacramento butworks statewide.


As an exclusively online NIS, NKCA’s adaptationscreate a user-friendly system that provides flexibility,choice, and powerful analytical tools.

Creating User-Friendly Interfaces for Mapping andData Acquisition

To understand how to create an accessible yetpowerful Internet-based dynamic mapping and dataretrieval system, CNK conducted a series of focusgroups soliciting input from users. Based on thisinformation, the Center redesigned NKCA forinteractive GIS mapping to make it more user-friendlyand intuitive, streamlining the application generallywhile increasing its analytical functions in key areas.The result is a well-designed interface, making sitenavigation, data retrieval, and mapping highlyaccessible.

Providing Flexibility and Choice in Data Displays

NKCA’s site provides its users with many choices ofdata displays, including tables, charts, and maps. Thesite’s interactive mapping application can be used formany purposes, from exploratory data analysis tocreating formal presentations. With the NIS, users canproduce simple context maps that illustratecommunity conditions or more complex, analyticalmaps that layer and analyze multiple variables. Theycan tailor their maps by selecting up to two layerseach of thematic data and point data, choose amongnumerous color and data classification schemes, setmap size and scale, and provide their own map title.

Enabling Users to Customize Their Analysis

Commercially-available Internet mapping applicationsare often not user friendly, and they often lack someof the most useful and powerful functionalities ofdesktop GIS that allow users to customize theiranalysis. NKCA has reprogrammed ArcIMS GIS-mapping software to provide system users with threeimportant functions:

• With the “Neighborhood Selector” tool, userscan combine census tracts to define and retrievedata on their own community.

• The “Data Uploader” tool allows site users toupload and map their own address datacontained in Excel or Access spreadsheets.

• The “My NKCA” area of the site enables users toset up personal accounts. Account holdersreceive free server space (currently with unlimitedcapacity), where they can save their datasets,map templates, geographies created with the“Neighborhood Selector” function, settings, andfinished maps.

Expanding the Scope and Variety of Data

As noted earlier, NKCA was the first NIS in thecountry to provide tract-level data for an entire state.In addition to census data, the system provides HomeMortgage Disclosure Act data—applications anddenials—by race, type of loan, and prime versussubprime lenders. With these data, users can trackand analyze lending disparities across theneighborhoods of a city and the cities in a region.

Community Impact

NKCA is providing the online public with powerfuldata and mapping tools to support communitybuilding efforts. As a result of the system:

• The public has access to:

° Census and mortgage lending data for everycensus tract in California

° Data on the location of check-cashingestablishments and brownfields

° A user-friendly NIS that enables easy dataand mapping retrieval and powerful GISfunctions

• Community organizations and governmentagency employees are adopting NKCA as theirprimary data analysis and mapping tool tosupport their programs and advocacy efforts.



The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center: Responding to the Community’sInformation Needs with User-Centered Design

The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center (GNOCDC), a relatively new data intermediary, has quicklybecome known in the field for its expertise in the design of user-friendly Web-based tools for accessing andusing local data. Their team takes an approach—user-centered design—that is well-established in other sectorsbut unique among data intermediaries.

In creating an online NIS for New Orleans' nonprofit community, the organization's goal of meeting their users"where they are" is guided by three underlying principles:

1) Understand the skills, knowledge, motivations, and needs of the audience;

2) Use the simplest possible technology to support the intended use of the system; and

3) Integrate contextual content into the system for just-in-time learning.

With a TOP grant, GNOCDC has added dynamic mapping to their NIS, which currently contains static maps andtables. The organization is undertaking a number of innovative strategies to maintain their commitment todeveloping a user-friendly, intuitive site while adding new functionality.

„ Incorporating lessons from other disciplines: Borrowing concepts from the field of human-computerinteraction (HCI), GNOCDC is methodically evaluating interactive mapping sites—ranging commercialproperties in Massachusetts, plant disease in California, and tourist sites in Europe—for usability. Thisevaluation, combineÏd with best practices research from the fields of e-commerce and instructionaldesign, is guiding their development of their emerging interactive system.

„ Understanding their user community: To better understand how data and mapping can be applied in thefield, GNOCDC is working closely with coalitions in two nonprofit sectors—after school programs andliteracy—as it develops its NIS. These partnerships are helping GNOCDC incorporate the relevantgeographies and data for these users. They also provide the intermediary with access to many communitygroups. See http://afterschool.gnocdc.org and http://literacy.gnocdc.org.

„ Including resident voice and knowledge: GNOCDC is interviewing residents in 20 of the city's 73neighborhoods to elicit community residents’ explanations of data about their neighborhood, asking themhow it came to be that way, the effect it has, and what they think should be done about it. Thisinformation aims to help decision-makers, including collaboratives and agencies, understand thecomplexity of the neighborhoods beyond just the numbers. The Lower Ninth Ward was the firstneighborhood for which these resident explanations were posted.

With the devastation and displacement caused by Hurricane Katrina, conditions have changed so quickly thatmuch of GNOCDC’s data has become obsolete. Through the crisis, the organization continued to serve as animportant information resource for the community and the media. Since the flooding, GNOCDC has beenworking to provide relevant information on current conditions, publishing maps that depict elevation, extent offlooding, areas of high ground, and concentrations of historic housing outside the protection of federal historicdistricts. As it rebuilds its datasets, GNOCDC is also lending its expertise in designing user-friendly online systemsto the development of web-based information resources that provide members of the New Orleans diasporawith information they need to begin rebuilding their lives after the disaster.

For more information, see www.gnocdc.org.

E-Advocacy: UsingInformation Technology forPolicy Change

For years, nonprofits have been using telephones,printed materials, and fax machines to disseminatetheir messages and mobilize public will around issuesthat concern their constituencies. More recently, theInternet has become increasingly important in politicaland advocacy campaigns across the country, withInternet technologies increasingly becoming the“price of admission” to impact policy. Stories aboutthe successful use of the Internet in campaigns—suchas MoveOn.org’s activities, Amnesty International’sformation of an online network of human rightsadvocates, and the Dean for President Campaign—have spurred community and advocacy organizationsto think more seriously about the power of theInternet in promoting social change. According to asurvey conducted in 2000, 63 percent of nonprofitorganizations that do policy work used e-mail,although smaller organizations were less likely toaccess and use internet-based tools.26

E-advocacy—bringing together Internet strategy andadvocacy practice—is empowering new forms of civicparticipation among community organizations andindividuals alike. Although definitions of “e-advocacy”in the nonprofit field can vary, what is meant by theuse of the term here is the practice of Internet-supported advocacy, which involves two distinct areasof technical competence: Internet Strategy andAdvocacy Strategy.

• Internet Strategy concerns knowing what type oftechnology tools exist, how and when theyshould be deployed, and what combination oftools can be integrated. Developing an internetstrategy can include building an online presence,developing and implementing outreachstrategies, using technology applications tofacilitate user engagement and promoteinteraction (through mechanisms such as online

discussion forums, blogs, or “tell-a-friend” tools),and controlling website traffic through online adbuys and search engines.

• Advocacy Strategy involves effectively framingpolicy problems; researching, proposing, andsupporting solutions; organizing constituents andactivists; building coalitions; lobbying publicofficials; and interacting with the media.

E-advocacy combines these two distinct forms ofexpertise into a coherent, overall approach,integrating a wide selection of informationtechnologies into offline advocacy methods.

As the following case studies illustrate, it is thestrategic and tactical rationale of the particularadvocacy campaign that determines the nature ofe-advocacy tools that a nonprofit organizationchooses to adopt and implement. Key decisionsinvolved in the adoption process include selectingwhich communications tools to use, when to usethem, which audiences to target, how to target them,and how to evaluate the campaign. Table 4 presentsthe campaign goals and Internet strategy for eachcampaign.

Free the Schuylkill River ParkCampaign: Using the Internet toAmplify Resident Voices to Pressurefor Policy Change


The Free the Schuylkill River Park Campaign is anongoing advocacy effort led by neighborhoodresidents living near Schuylkill (pronounced“Skookle”) River Park in central Philadelphia. Thecampaign has combined an effective advocacystrategy and powerfully inventive use of the Internetto pressure CSX the largest rail transport provider inthe eastern United States—to provide neighborhoodresidents with street-level access to the recentlycompleted Schuylkill River Park Trail, currently blockedon a regular basis by CSX freight trains. Thecampaign began as an ad hoc committee of theLogan Square Neighborhood Association and


eventually expanded into a coalition with otherneighborhood associations as well as communityorganizations from across the city.

Many of the resident volunteers who initially becameinvolved in the Schuylkill River effort wereexperienced organizers, including Rob Stuart, the leadInternet strategist for the campaign who lived in aneighborhood prevented from accessing the parktrail. A former lobbyist with 15 years’ experience whonow works on developing public relations Internetstrategies as the Vice President of Strategic Relationsfor Advocacy Inc., Stuart spearheaded the campaign’sdecision to use the Internet and, along with anothercampaign coordinator, was primarily responsible forselecting and physically interacting with all of thetechnology tools involved. As a result, the learningcurve for adoption of the technologies used in thecampaign was substantially shortened.

From its outset, the campaign saw residentengagement and mobilization as central to theadvocacy strategy. Because of limited initial resources,the campaign relied heavily on the use of the Internetto build and nurture an online community of engaged“virtual” activists who could help the campaign toexploit strategic pressure points among several keypolitical actors. Over time the Internet strategy wouldprove not only essential to the campaign, but alsoextraordinarily effective.

In addition to being used to pressure CSX directly, theInternet was also used to help secure the support ofan array of secondary actors—the local parkscommission, city council members, the Mayor ofPhiladelphia, U.S. Senators from Pennsylvania, andlocal media—to apply pressure indirectly to CSX. Theprimary target audiences of the onlinecommunications for the campaign are local residentsliving near the Schuylkill River Park Trail in particular,as well as residents from across the city.


Table 4. Key Organizational and Technological Characteristics of E-Advocacy Case Studies

Free the Schuylkill River ParkCampaign Inner Purple Line Campaign No on Prop. 54 Campaign

Goal of theCampaign

To pressure the CSX rail transportcompany to provide convenientaccess to the Schuylkill River ParkTrail for local community residents.

To pressure federal, state, and localelected officials to approveconstruction of the Inner PurpleLine transit line from Bethesda toNew Carrollton, MD.

To persuade California voters tovote against Proposition 54 on theOctober 2003 statewide ballot.

Organization Logan Square NeighborhoodAssociation - 501(c)(3) NeighborhoodAssociation

Action Committee for Transit (ACT) - Nonstock MembershipCorporation

American Civil Liberties Union ofNorthern California (member ofstatewide coalition)- 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4)organization

URL http://www.freetheriverpark.org http://www.innerpurpleline.org No longer available

InternetStrategy

From the outset, the Internet wasutilized as a central component formobilizing constituents to pressurepolicy-makers and key decision-makers to ensure local residentshave access to the Schuylkill RiverPark.

The Internet strategy incombination with the mediastrategy was used to help reframethe media debate surrounding theconstruction of the Inner PurpleLine.

Using a sophisticated onlinecommunications platform, theInternet strategy was critical tohelping the campaign targetunique messages to keyconstituencies among voters acrossthe state.


Building an Online Constituency

To launch a communications outreach strategy on alimited budget that would get community residentsinvolved, the campaign used an online electronicletter-writing tool known as CitizenSpeak(www.citizenspeak.org; see the text box), combinedwith an online faxing service called Greenfax(www.greenfax.com). The electronic letters provided aconvenient way for local residents not only to takeaction in support of the campaign, but also to expresstheir own voice by tailoring prewritten campaignstatements to reflect personal experiences andconcerns. The combination of CitizenSpeak and theGreenfax service made the letter-writing campaign asconvenient as possible for local residents, and yetensured that the letters reached CSX and localofficials in an effective way. E-mail letters created withCitizenSpeak would be sent as e-mails directly fromthe website to Greenfax, which would then forwardthe messages on as faxes to a single or severalspecified fax numbers. The initial targets using thissystem included CSX and the local parks commission.

Activating Viral Dissemination

CitizenSpeak lets constituents forward e-mails to theircircle of friends, allowing messages to be “virally”disseminated across the community. With this actionsystem in place, the critical task for the campaignbecame generating “viral” action and building an e-mail list to begin developing and nurturing an onlinecommunity of engaged activists. The initial campaignlist began with approximately 50 to 60 e-mailsmaintained by the Logan Square NeighborhoodAssociation. When e-mails containing links to theweb-based CitizenSpeak letter campaign were firstsent, viral action began to develop slowly. Thisprecipitated the campaign to use an offlineapproach—tabling in the Schuylkill River Park—togather signatures and e-mail addresses on a paperpetition. Within weeks the campaign had more than150 signatures and e-mail addresses. Armed with thisnew constituent list, the campaign used CitizenSpeakto begin generating precipitous viral action thatproduced an e-mail contact list that currentlynumbers greater than 750 people.

Using Constituent Feedback to Refine CampaignStrategy

Unlike offline letter-writing campaigns that rely onconstituents independently sending letters by mail, theCitizenSpeak tool allowed campaign organizers to seewhat their constituents had to say. By reviewing letterssubmitted by campaign constituents, campaignorganizers could see how the park trail mattered toresidents in their own words. They could get freshinsights and perspective about what the communityreally cared about and why. In addition, statisticalreports allowed the campaign to see a variety ofinformation about how the campaign was doing. Itcould review the total number of e-mails sent and,through the address information provided by users, thezip codes of where those constituents lived. This waythe campaign could do a rough geographic tracking ofwhere its online support in the city was coming from.

The ability to garner this type of direct feedbackproved helpful when the campaign began to generatelocal media coverage. When a reporter from thePhiladelphia Inquirer contacted the campaign to writea story about the effort and sought the perspective ofan actual park user, Rob Stuart, the lead Internetstrategist, reviewed the many e-mails submitted byconstituents through CitizenSpeak to find a neighborwho was particularly articulate and passionate aboutthe issue. He then put the reporter in touch with theconstituent, whose personalized account wasincorporated into a story that ran on the front pageof the local news section of the newspaper.

Coordinating Online and Offline Tactics

Following the local media coverage, the campaigndecided it needed a website for posting thenewspaper article, photos, and other informationabout the campaign. Stuart elected to create a blog(www.freetheriverpark.typepad.com), using theTypePad weblogging service (www.typepad.com).Later, a campaign website was developed that ishosted at www.freetheriverpark.org.

To send out alerts and updates to its e-mail list, whichhad grown to more than 500 people, the campaignbegan using “ConstituentMail,” a mass e-mailingsoftware service hosted by Advocacy, Inc.(www.advocacyinc.com). ConstituentMail allowed thecampaign to send rich-text and HTML-formatted


e–mails as well as to monitor how many peopleopened the e-mails and whether they forwardedthem to others. This tool led to the discovery thatover 70 percent of people receiving campaign e-mailsactually opened them, and that 80 percent of thosewho opened e-mails took the action requested ofthem. This insight precipitated the decision to hold acampaign rally that, despite the fact that it occurredon a below-freezing day, turned out over 100 people.To document the event, the resulting televisioncoverage of the rally was recorded on VHS, convertedto the MPEG video file format suitable for web-basedvideo, and made accessible online via a link from thecampaign’s main website. Perhaps the mostinnovative feature of the campaign website was theuse of streaming video feeds, available 24 hours aday, showing whether CSX trains are blocking streetentrances to the Schuylkill River Park. Through thisfeature, residents are empowered with informationthey can then use to submit a complaint to CSXe-mailed directly from the website.

The use of tabling to jumpstart the viral action aroundCitizenSpeak, the surveying of electronic letters fromconstituents to find a personalized community voice tospeak for the campaign, and the monitoring ofindirect feedback in the form of e-mail “open rates”and other metrics to decide when to have a rallydemonstrate how the campaign effectively integratedelements of its offline and online tactics and strategiesso that they reinforced each other. The campaign usedits website and e-mail to inform constituents about itsplanned rally in the park. At the rally it both promotedits website address and took many photos todocument the event for later posting to the website.Similarly, at a news conference held by the campaign,it prominently displayed its web address and tookphotos to post to the website. While gathering e-mailson location was not effectively implemented at first,the website address was effectively promoted atoffline events throughout the campaign.

Empowering the Grassroots with Decision-MakingAuthority

The goal of the advocacy strategy for the SchuylkillRiver campaign was to create an engaged onlineconstituency that was informed, in regular contact,and empowered with individual and collective voiceto shape the strategic and tactical decision-making ofcampaign leaders. The campaign organizers knew this

goal had been achieved when they were able to pollconstituents (using ConstituentMail) to determinehow to respond to a proposed agreement with CSXbeing brokered by U.S. Senator Arlen Specter.Specter’s office had been contacted by the leadcampaign strategist to lend support to the campaign,which led to a proposed compromise. Within twodays, the campaign polled its constituents forfeedback on the proposal. Based on a response rateof 50 percent, an overwhelming 91 percent ofconstituents opposed the offer. The campaign leadersinformed Specter’s office that they could not acceptthe deal, using the poll to articulate the problems thatthe proposal presented to the community. The e-advocacy strategy enabled informative and extremelytimely community decision-making.


CitizenSpeak: A Tool for Electronic Letter-Writing Campaigns

CitizenSpeak is a free electronic letter-writingtool that allows campaign organizers toprovide constituents with prewritten lettersthat they can supplement with personalstatements to be e-mailed from theCitizenSpeak website directly to targetedpolicymakers or organizations. The tool is veryeasy for organizations to set up and very userfriendly and convenient for constituents. Inaddition, CitizenSpeak includes “tell-a-friend”functionality, which allows campaigns to useviral action to build their e-mail list by makingit easy for constituents to tell their friends andfamily about the campaign. The application’sgreatest asset, however, is its ability to createreports monitoring interaction with onlineconstituents in the form of the content oftheir letters, collecting their contactinformation, and tracking how many messageshave been sent from different zip codes in acity.

For more information, visit www.citizenspeak.org.

Community Impact

The Schuylkill River Park Trail campaign has beenextraordinarily successful. Not only has it garneredsubstantial political support, including a city councilresolution in support of the campaign, but CSX hashad to resort to going to the federal district court toattempt to thwart the political alliances forged by thecampaign. As the battle to secure street-level accessto the Schuylkill River Park Trail moves forward, thecampaign is also carving out a long-term role as thecommunity voice on park issues. With an engagedand activist online community of local residents inplace, the campaign is poised to advocate for newissues in new and evolving ways.27

The Inner Purple Line Campaign: Usingthe Internet to Help Reframe theMedia Debate


The Inner Purple Line Campaign is an ongoingadvocacy effort based in Montgomery County,Maryland. Launched in the early 1990s by anadvocacy organization called the Action Committeefor Transit (ACT), the campaign has expanded to abroad “Inner Purple Line Coalition,” comprised of anumber of civic and community organizations. For thepast few years, the coalition has advocated for theconstruction of a light-rail transit line that wouldconnect the cities of Bethesda and New Carrollton inMontgomery County and Prince George’s County,respectively, to provide access to employment centersfor a number of inner-ring suburb and transit-dependent communities. The campaign facesentrenched opposition by the well-financed and well-connected Columbia Country Club, located in thetown of Chevy Chase that, because of the proximityof the proposed line to its golf course, has launched asweeping NIMBY (“not-in-my-back-yard”) campaignto block the project. The country club, according toresearch conducted by ACT, has assumed more thanhalf a million dollars in lobbying-related expendituresto prevent the Inner Purple Line from beingconstructed.

Founded in Montgomery County in 1986, ACT is anall-volunteer nonstock membership corporation withapproximately 600–700 dues-paying members.28

Similar to the Free the Schuylkill River Park TrailCampaign, a single individual was instrumental inconvincing campaign leadership to develop anInternet strategy to complement its offline advocacyefforts. ACT and the Inner Purple Line campaign hadcreated websites, but it took the vision, knowledge,and experience of neighborhood resident MartyKearns, who had previously used technology fororganizing and advocacy, to develop an e-advocacystrategy. Conversations with his neighbor, an activemember of ACT, led Kearns to begin self-financedexperimentation with inexpensive Internet tools.

The central campaign strategy, in addition to directlobbying of politicians, has been to persuadecommunity residents to pressure their local, state, andfederal elected representatives—county councilmembers, the county executive, state legislativerepresentatives, the governor, and the district’s U.S.congressional delegation—to support construction ofthe rail line.

For years, the core outreach strategy of the campaignfocused exclusively offline, using printed fliers andletters to reach out to community members. At Metrostations throughout the county and in localneighborhoods, the campaign has hand-distributed ormailed nearly 100,000 pieces. The fliers askedconstituents to take action on the rail expansion anddonate to the campaign. This technique forcommunicating with constituents and mobilizingaction has been effective on a number of occasions inpressuring key political actors at decisive moments inthe campaign. The incorporation of an Internetstrategy, however, has effectively met campaign goalsin ways not possible with the flier strategy alone.

Through support of activities by allied organizationsand lobbying of elected officials, the opposingColumbia Country Club has helped generate anegative media portrayal of the Inner Purple Lineproject. For years opponents had argued that theproject would destroy the Capital Crescent Bike Trailrunning near a proposed section of the line. Overtime the story gained traction in the media, paintingthe picture of a zero-sum game that pitted thebenefits of mass transit against the benefits of the


existing bike trail. Viewing the “save the trail”campaign by opponents of the Inner Purple Line as amisleading, but nevertheless effective, red herring, thetransit campaign began developing an Internetstrategy to help shift the public debate to the realmerits of the transit project. Kearns became involvedin the ACT campaign around this time, deciding thatthe trail issue was undermining the effectiveness ofthe campaign in building public support for theproject.


Creating an Enhanced Campaign Website

Updating the campaign website was the first elementof the Internet-enhanced advocacy strategy. The firststep was to add to the campaign’s website a body ofinformation that ACT held but was not availableonline. This material included a detailed explanationof the benefits of the Inner Purple Line, combinedwith arguments debunking misleading claims in themedia about the project. The campaign alsopurchased the Innerpurpleline.org,Innerpurpleline.net, and Innerpurpleline.com domainnames to control the primary web addresses makingdirect reference to the project. New informationadded to the campaign website included positionstatements and research demonstrating the benefitsof constructing the Inner Purple Line, links to newscoverage about the project on the Internet, a list ofgroups and individuals endorsing the campaign and alist of key opponents, and a breakdown of financialcontributions given by the central opponent of theproject, the Columbia Country Club, to electedofficials across the state.

Using the Media Strategy to Support the InternetStrategy

In addition to securing the three primary domainnames and broadly documenting the campaign,another major element of the Internet strategy was adisciplined offline communications campaign thatdeliberately referred to the “Inner Purple Line” in allmedia interactions, including statements to themedia, op-eds, and letters to the editor, as well asregularly mentioning the web address for thecampaign in external communications. This helpedensure that any discussions of the project in themedia and elsewhere were tied to the name “Inner

Purple Line,” to drive traffic to the campaign website.The project had previously been referred to bydifferent names in the media, making it crucial toengender a single reference. To further supportdriving online traffic to the website, the campaign—spearheaded by the President of ACT—utilized theonline ad services of the Google search engine. Byusing the Google AdWords service, when certainkeywords were entered into the Google searchengine, such as “save the trail,” a link to the ACTwebsite with a short description would be displayed,along with the other search results.

Community Impact

The overarching goal of the Internet strategy was todrive traffic to the campaign’s website, where visitorscould find evidence debunking misleading depictionsof the project that had emerged in the media. In thatpursuit, the Internet strategy was effective. Throughthe use of its website, the campaign was able to shiftthe public debate around the rail line away from thetrail issue and towards the Columbia Country Club.29

Even Maryland’s then governor, Robert Ehrlich—whoopposed the transit project—tried to shift thecampaign’s focus by renaming the project the “Bi-County Transitway” (BCT).30 Despite his efforts,references to the BCT—both online and in the offlinemedia—usually noted that the project is also knownas the “Inner Purple Line.”

This case study highlights the importance of a mediacommunications strategy that can reinforce or retardefforts to drive online traffic to a campaign’s website.In this instance, the control the campaign exercisedover domain names referring to the project allowed itto enjoy the benefit of spikes in traffic—even whenthe project was discussed negatively in a mediareport. By controlling a domain name that includeskey words that online information seekers are likely tosubmit to search engines, a campaign can use itsonline presence as its own media center to refuteerroneous claims that may arise elsewhere.


No on Prop. 54 Campaign: UsingInternet Technologies for TargetedGrassroots Mobilization


The No on Proposition 54 campaign in California wasan advocacy effort led by a coalition of civil rightsorganizations to oppose an initiative placed on thestatewide ballot in October 2003. Named Proposition54, but also known in the media as the “RacialPrivacy Initiative,” the proposed state Constitutionalamendment would have effectively banned thecollection of data identifying individuals by their race,ethnicity, or national origin in a wide array of stateoperations. The coalition—concerned about theramifications of such an initiative on public healthresearch, discrimination, and education—quickly cametogether to organize opposition to the ballotmeasure.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) ofNorthern California was one of the anchororganizations in the “No on Prop. 54” campaign fromits inception. Maya Harris, Director of the RacialJustice Project at the ACLU of Northern California,was the Northern California political director for thestatewide campaign. Harris, along with leaders fromother coalition organizations, sat on the executivecommittee of the campaign, which served as itsprimary decision-making and fundraising body. Thesingle most important strategic priority that emergedout of deliberations of the executive committee interms of the overall communications strategy was toraise enough money to pay for a variety ofadvertising, particularly on television.

It was clear to everyone in the campaign that theyhad to have a website, but beyond a simple webpresence, the campaign leadership did not prioritizeInternet advocacy. E-mail and a website were largelyviewed as a method of disseminating information andcommunicating with coalition members and allies, butnot as tools fundamental to supporting the strategicgoals of the campaign. The impetus for forging amore comprehensive and coherent Internet strategyemerged from a group of campaign members whowanted to increase field operations and grassrootsorganizing efforts. This group viewed the Internet as

a powerful way of leveraging limited resources andexpanding grassroots operations, and they convincedkey campaign leaders to develop an Internet strategy.

Executive Committee members Harris and StevePhillips, president of a political action organizationknown as PowerPAC.org, partnered with David Chiu,a strategic Internet political consultant and SeniorVice President of Grassroots Enterprise, to developand implement an Internet strategy that would raisemoney for the campaign and provide a new avenuefor spreading the advocacy message. They developeda plan and foundation proposal for revamping thecampaign’s website and developing Flash animationto disseminate through the Internet. PowerPAC.orgcreated an updated version of the campaign website,and Harris and Chiu, along with a team at GrassrootsEnterprise, developed the Flash e-mails for thecampaign. A fast-tracked grant from the CommunityTechnology Foundation of California received justweeks before the October election provided thecritical infusion of money necessary to launch thecampaign’s remarkably innovative and successfulmultimedia Internet strategy.

As a ballot initiative campaign, the target audience ofthe No on Prop. 54 campaign’s media strategy was thevoters who could approve or deny an amendment toCalifornia’s constitution. While the campaign websitefeatured a wide variety of background information,the most engaging aspects of the campaign’s Internetstrategy did not get underway until a few weeksbefore the election. Up to that point, the coreelements of the communications strategy had beenimplementing a comprehensive “earned” mediastrategy (thematic news conferences, editorial boardvisits, opinion-editorials, and letters to the editor) anddeveloping the “paid” media strategy (television andradio advertisements). This communications work,combined with grassroots activity and prominentendorsements of the No on Prop. 54 campaign fromacross the political, professional, and constituencyspectrum, had the gradual and sustained effect oferoding support for the initiative. However, just a fewweeks out from the election, support for theproposition was still ahead in the polls.

Although polling data suggested that one of thecampaign’s core messages—that Proposition 54would ban information that doctors use to save


lives—resonated broadly with voters in general,targeted messages were essential to mobilize differentcommunities of color. With limited resources tocomprehensively tap into ethnic media outlets anddesiring the broadest dissemination of targetedmessaging to voters within communities of color, a“viral” multimedia Internet strategy was developed asan additional targeting mechanism across the state.


Framing Unique Messages to Different ConstituentGroups

Grassroots organizing had received limited resourceswithin the strategic priorities of the campaign leadingup to the weeks prior to the election. The Internetstrategy team realized that using the Internet couldbe a cost-effective way of mobilizing voters to spreadthe campaign’s key messages to other voters. Inaddition, it was hoped, the Internet strategy couldprovide a means to make more extensive re-use ofthe content contained in television and radio adsalready developed. The team decided to create aseries of short Flash animation pieces that wouldframe the campaign message in an effective and acompelling fashion and that would be targeted toresonate with the issues that different ethnic or racialcommunities in the state cared about. In this way thecampaign could segment California voters into racialand ethnic audiences and then communicatecustomized messages that would appeal to them. AFlash piece modeled on the general voter message,along with videos tailored to African American, AsianAmerican, and Latino voters, was developed. TheseFlash pieces were placed on the web and integratedwith the Grassroots Multiplier advocacy platform sothat “indirect feedback” about what actionsconstituents were taking with the online campaigncould be tracked.

Targeting Campaign Messages through OnlineCommunications

While the campaign developed compelling Flashvideos that could selectively frame the campaignmessage to targeted groups in the state, the problembecame one of how to disseminate the videos to theracial and ethnic communities themselves. Thecampaign had only a small initial list of e-mailaddresses with which to begin building the type of

“viral” dissemination required to get the custom-framed messages to their targeted recipients. Inaddition, the campaign was heavily constrained interms of how much it could rely on “viral” actionfrom such a small list to develop right before theelection. E-mail addresses do not come with racial orethnic descriptors allowing the campaign to easilytarget the tailored messages it had created for thecommunities it was trying to reach. The solution thecampaign adopted relied on the offline collaborationamong several organizations. It requested access tothe e-mail lists of allied organizations representingparticular racial or ethnic communities; such listswould jumpstart the targeted dissemination of theFlash pieces across the state. Large organizations withextensive e-mail lists, however, often have proprietaryor privacy concerns about sharing them. As a result,some organizations supplied their lists to thecampaign and other organizations and individualsagreed to forward the Flash pieces to their own lists.Within two weeks, the campaign sent out sixdifferent e-mail “blasts” to 40-50 e-mail lists of alliedorganizations. In addition to containing links to theFlash pieces the campaign developed, some of thee-mails contained links to web-based streaming videowith a digitized version of the television ad thecampaign was using in its larger media strategy.

Facilitating and Tracking Constituent Action Online

Building on its starting point, the e-mail-integratedFlash campaign generated enormous “viral” actionduring the three weeks before the election. Usingonline metrics that could be tracked through theGrassroots Multiplier platform, the campaign was ableto generate a great deal of helpful, indirect feedback.These metrics included: the percent of recipients whoopened the e-mail messages containing links to theFlash videos; the percent that “clicked through” andviewed the videos; and the percent who forwardedthe message on to others. With those data, thecampaign determined after the election that for eachinitial recipient of the video piece targeted to AfricanAmericans, the video was viewed 60 times; the piecetargeting Latinos was viewed 20 times; the piecetargeting Asian Americans was viewed seven times;and the “mainstream” piece targeting all voters wasviewed 1.5 times. These numbers illustrate howimportant “viral” action can be in disseminating amessage to targeted constituencies.


Community Impact

On October 7, 2003, Proposition 54 was defeated bya landslide margin. For leaders of the Internetstrategy, a number of important lessons andquestions emerged. In particular, it becameincreasingly apparent that the Internet must beprioritized as a core advocacy strategy in thecampaign early enough to maximize its effectiveness,especially as it relates to building “viral” action.Moreover, a key question going forward is howtraditional civil rights and progressive organizationscan build large, targeted e-mail lists that can bemanaged and shared to harness support necessary torespond to key strategic opportunities.


Internet-basedMicroenterprise Support:Developing Online Tools forMicroentrepreneurs

The cultivation of entrepreneurship and smallbusinesses is an important area of communitybuilding practice: a thriving small businessenvironment contributes to community economicdevelopment by providing job opportunities andcirculating money in the local economy. The field ofmicroenterprise support emerged in the 1980s,largely out of the efforts of women’s organizationsthat saw business ownership as an essentialcomponent of economic improvement andempowerment for low-income women.Microenterprise programs provide business advice,skills training, and credit to very small, buddingbusinesses with the goals of building the assets oflower-income people and fostering neighborhoodrevitalization in disinvested communities.

Today, over 500 microenterprise developmentprograms around the country provide services tomany diverse and traditionally underservedcommunities, including immigrants and refugees,people of color, veterans, individuals transitioning offof welfare, and persons with disabilities.31

Microentrepreneurship has grown tremendously, asindicated by the burgeoning number of micro-businesses. The Association for EnterpriseOpportunity, the national trade association formicroenterprise programs, estimates that 20 millionmicroenterprises in the United States account foralmost 17 percent of total private-sectoremployment.32

Although the microenterprise support field has grownrapidly, its infrastructure remains insufficient vis-à-visthe needs of microentrepreneurs. Microenterpriseprograms serve roughly 100,000 people per year—about one percent of the potential market.33 Tomaximize impact, the microenterprise field has togrow, yet attaining a greater scale has proven to be

challenging for the field. Only a few of the largestmicroenterprise programs have the organizationalcommitment and capacity to expand their programservices. Most programs remain relatively small,serving fewer than 100 individuals annually andmaking fewer than 40 loans per year.34 At this smallscale, the cost of maintaining these services on a per-loan or per-client basis is considerable.

The second major challenge facing microenterpriseprograms is program sustainability. As programs beginto serve larger numbers of clients, they often gainscale efficiencies and their per-client cost decreases.But such scale efficiencies may be countered by theincreased cost of operating a larger program. Most—though not all—microenterprise programs arenonprofits and rely on foundation grants orgovernment funds to subsidize their services. Absentinnovations that enable more efficient service delivery,increasing a program’s scale requires additionalfundraising and may impinge on long-termsustainability.

A 2005 report on the future of the microenterprisefield asserted that the use of information technologyis a key strategy for viability and impact.35 Internet-based innovations can enable microenterprise supportprograms to deliver new and vital services to moremicroentrepreneurs at lower per-unit cost. Thedevelopment and dissemination of these innovationscan help the microenterprise field as it wrestles withthe persistent question of how to achieve greaterscale and sustainability. MicroMentor, Count Me In(CMI), and CircleLending exemplify howmicroenterprise support organizations are adopting,reconfiguring, and applying Internet-based tools—andsupplementing them with phone and e-mail supportservices—to meet the challenges of widely dispersedmicroentrepreneurs. Two of these case studies,MicroMentor and Count Me In, are nonprofitorganizations, and CircleLending represents a for-profit microenterprise support organization whosetechnology model offers some insight for thenonprofit sector. Table 5, following, describes some ofthe key characteristics of the case study organizations.


MicroMentor: Internet-basedMentoring for Microentrepreneurs


Microentrepreneurs lack access to business and socialnetworks, market information, capital, and businesssavvy—essential resources for business success.MicroMentor, an online microenterprise supportintermediary, was founded with the goal of connectingmicroentrepreneurs in underserved and disadvantagedcommunities to these resources through thedevelopment of mentoring relationships withindividuals who have successfully navigated businessownership or management in the same industry.

The idea for MicroMentor came out of a three-yearlong study of microenterprises conducted by theAspen Institute, which described expert mentoring asa key need of microentrepreneurs. The same studyfound that the high cost of expert business consultingservices made it cost-prohibitive for localmicroenterprise support organizations to provide thisservice and that the most cost-effective approachwould be to establish a national intermediary toprovide such services. This suggested a business modelwell-suited to the Internet, if an appropriate onlinesystem of matching prospective protégés(microentrepreneurs) and mentors (industry expertswith business savvy) could be developed and


Table 5. Key Organizational and Technological Characteristics of Microenterprise Support Case Studies

MicroMentor Count Me In (CMI) CircleLending

PrimaryTechnologyInnovation

Online matching software toconnect protégés and mentorsfrom within similar business sectorsor industries

Internet-based model for creditscoring and lending to womenwith poor credit

Web-enabled loan-servicingsoftware for interpersonal,informal credit market

Tax Status Nonprofit Nonprofit For-profit

URL http://www.micromentor.org http://www.count-me-in.org http://www.circlelending.com

Scale orSustainabilityGoal

To make 6,000 matches betweenmentors and protégés

To reduce the cost ofmicrolending and maintainportfolio quality

To serve interpersonal lendingmarket at a profit

Interactivity ofWebsite

Moderate: users can volunteer tomentor or request a mentor

High: users can apply for a loan,ask questions, take workshops,join discussion groups, anddonate to CMI

Moderate: users can downloadfree materials and purchase someproducts and services

TechnologyInnovations

• Mentors can choose protégés

• Protégés can find mentors

• System enables multiplematches

• Message board, listserv,discussion groups, onlineseminars

• Adapted a FICO credit-scoringmodel

• Added a credit bureau reportand CMI’s own questions tosupplement loan application

• Created a credit-scoring modeldesigned for lending towomen

• Tailors repayment schedules foreach client

• Keeps costs low by usingAutomated Clearing House(ACH) system of directdebit/deposit

• Allows clients to reportpayment information to Equifaxto build credit history

implemented. The national intermediary could developrelationships with local microenterprise supportorganizations to facilitate the use of its online services.

Staff at the Aspen Institute’s FIELD (TheMicroenterprise Fund for Innovation, Effectiveness,Learning, and Dissemination) program, with thesupport of grants from the Technology OpportunitiesProgram (TOP) grant and the Charles Stewart MottFoundation, began developing an online matchingapplication that would become known asMicroMentor Online Matching Application, or MOMA.

With the matching technology in place, MicroMentorwas officially launched in 2001 in collaboration withthree California-based microenterprise programs thathelp identify and prepare protégés to participate inMicroMentor. The program, has establishedpartnerships with over 26 microenterprise agenciesacross the country in order to meet its goal of making6,000 mentoring matches. Additional support from theHewlett-Packard Company and others is currentlyenabling MicroMentor to move toward this goal and tocreate an active community of mentors and protégés.


The vision for the MOMA application was to facilitatean automated matching process that requiredminimal staff intervention. Developing such anapplication turned out to be challenging and time-consuming. It took two years to develop the firstversion of MOMA (1.0), during which timeMicroMentor staff made mentoring matches by hand.Initial feedback from users of MOMA 1.0 wasincorporated into an improved application, MOMA 2.0.

From One-to-One to Many-to-Many MentoringMatches

MOMA was initially designed to automatically matchone microentrepreneur to one mentor. These matcheswould be based on information entered into itssystem that identified the business problems andgoals of prospective protégés with the expertise ofpotential mentors. As MicroMentor beganimplementing its matching tool, the organizationlearned that mentors were able and willing to assistmore than one protégé, and that protégés sometimesneeded more than one mentor to assist with themyriad business issues and constraints they faced. To

make its online system more responsive to the needsand preferences of its users, MicroMentor revisedMOMA’s matchmaking capabilities to permit eachmentor to work with multiple protégés and alloweach protégé to select multiple mentors.

Enhanced Protégé and Mentor Selection

MicroMentor also learned that most mentors want tohave an active role in selecting the small businessowners with whom they are matched. The firstversion of MOMA automatically made matches basedon mentor and protégé application data: matcheswere made, approved by MicroMentor staff; mentorsand protégés were told they had been connected andencouraged to correspond and begin the mentoringrelationship. This first version of MOMA (1.0)effectively took most of the “romance” out of thematching process. Instead of this “arrangedmarriage” approach, MOMA 2.0 gives mentors,based on their mentor application data, a list ofpotential protégé matches. With this list ofcandidates, mentors can ask MOMA for moreinformation to choose which protégé or protégés tomentor. Likewise, MOMA 2.0 allowsmicroentrepreneurs to search its database of mentorsto find those with the skills, experience, or other traitsthey are seeking and send a query to a mentor aspart of the initial matchmaking process.

Greater Interactivity and Online Community Building

MOMA 2.0 also includes website features thatencourage more interaction among mentors andprotégés. The enhanced site includes a messageboard, listservs, discussion groups, and videostreaming of industry-specific and general businessadvice (an example is a 30-minute seminar on cashflow management).

Community Impact

MicroMentor is delivering a critically needed piece ofinfrastructure that local microenterprise supportinstitutions could not afford to create on their own. It isalso increasing the use of technology amongmicroentrepreneurs. Ninety-six percent of theentrepreneurs enrolled in MicroMentor reportedincreased familiarity with and comfort in usingtechnology tools such as Excel, Quicken, and othercommonly accepted technology tools that enhance


business efficiency. In addition, a quarter of microentre-preneurs in MicroMentor have built websites andexplored e-commerce, web marketing, and web linksfor the first time to market their goods or services.

Count Me In: Online Lending forWomen Microentrepreneurs


Founded by women leaders with extensive experiencein communications and the women’s movement,particularly in women’s economic empowerment,Count Me In (CMI) is the first online microlendingprogram dedicated to helping women. The nonprofitorganization uses a unique woman-friendly creditscoring system to make business loans of $500 to$10,000 available to women. In addition, theorganization provides access to business networksthat expand the contacts, markets, skills, andconfidence of these microentrepreneurs.

Begun before the dot-com crash in the late 1990s,when it was more expensive than it is today todevelop an Internet-based business model, thefounders of Count Me In conducted intensive marketresearch to discover the potential of offering a loanproduct through the Internet. They saw the Internetas a way to reduce the cost of extending loans tomicroentrepreneurs and to deliver a good creditproduct to women who lacked access to mainstreamfinancial services.

Count Me In wanted to test the idea that you canmake a good assessment of a woman’screditworthiness without sitting down for a face-to-face interaction. In the context of the vast majority ofmicroenterprise lending, this idea is a radicaldeparture from accepted practice. To put this idea inpractice, CMI developed an original credit-scoringmodel that was based on the most commonly usedcredit-scoring model in the U.S., FICO (a name takenfrom the corporate developer of the model, Fair Isaacand Company).36 Their adapted model blendsestablished industry standards with their knowledgeof the needs and characteristics of their targetborrower population.

CMI’s system has been working well for the past twoyears, and it has had to make only minor adjustmentsto its scoring system to account for the economicrecession that began in 2001. CMI needs to provide3,000 loans to have a large enough database toformally test how well its tailored credit-scoringmodel predicts borrower behavior. To achieve thislevel of lending and test its model, CMI is partneringwith local microenterprise agencies and technicalassistance providers to reach potential borrowers.


To adapt a FICO credit-scoring model to the needs ofwomen microentrepreneurs, CMI had to undertakeextensive programming to integrate the differentelements of its model into a report that staff can useto make lending decisions. CMI also had to addressissues of data storage and security. It took one year toget CMI’s credit-scoring model online, and CMI spentan additional two years post-launch experimentingwith and tailoring its model.

Incorporating Expertise from the Private Sector

Before adapting the FICO credit-scoring model toserve its needs, Count Me In staff learned a greatdeal about how the FICO model was typically used inprivate-sector lending. The nonprofit worked withboth Fair Isaac and Company and American Express.CMI’s Chief Credit Officer observed first-hand howAmEx did its own credit scoring. CMI also hosted aretreat where leaders in the credit-scoring industryagreed to share some of their credit application formswith CMI. The first CMI loan application was a mix ofthese forms and questions developed by CMI. Inaddition, CMI pays for a credit bureau report on eachapplicant. Loan decisions are based on data fromthese two sources.

Creating a Woman-Friendly Credit Scoring System

The loan application developed by CMI adjusted themainstream credit rating tool to more accuratelycapture the creditworthiness of women by eliminatingits gender bias. One source of bias relates to theeffect of divorce on a woman’s credit. Divorce oftenresults in women having poorer credit but bears norelationship to creditworthiness. Recognizing that themainstream credit-scoring model does not account forthe effect of divorce, CMI asks its applicants about


their marital status and adjusts the rating based onthat question. CMI expects to demonstrate thatdivorced women with low credit scores should beconsidered less risky than others with the same score.

CMI also believes there is a bias inherent in mostexisting credit-scoring models that ask about anapplicant’s business experience in terms of years ofbusiness “ownership.” Questions worded in thismanner often fail to account for many women whohave years of experience making and selling aproduct yet do not think of themselves as businessowners and consequently respond in a way thatlowers their score. CMI’s adaptation is to ask aboutthe extent of a woman’s experience making andselling her product and to score her on business“experience” rather than business “ownership.”

CMI also streamlines the application process by notasking for the submission of a complete business planor other attachments (applicants are asked whetheranyone else has read their business plan, and thisquestion is scored). Count Me In estimates that ittakes a woman from 15 to 30 minutes to completethe loan application, which contains 30 questions.

Community Impact

CMI has demonstrated to the microenterprise industrythat an Internet-based lending model, combined with acredit-scoring model that incorporates an analysis of thespecific lending population—in this case, femaleentrepreneurs—can dramatically lower the cost oflending in the industry. So far, CMI’s portfolio quality isroughly in line with the rest of the U.S. microcreditindustry. Its loan loss rate is 10 percent, about 4 percenthigher than the average loan loss rate reported by 31microenterprise programs.37 And its lending costs, at$300 per loan, are dramatically lower than face-to-faceprograms, approximately $7,000 per loan.38

Count Me In has also made strides in serving largernumbers of borrowers than most other microlendingprograms in the United States. Count Me In hasestablished statewide partnerships in 14 states. Thesepartnerships include strategic alliances with groups ofmicroenterprise agencies that help connect womenentrepreneurs in need of credit to Count Me In’sservices. If CMI continues to attain these outcomes,

mainstream financial institutions may be encouragedto tailor their own loan products to the needs ofwomen engaged in microenterprise.

CircleLending: Structuring andServicing Interpersonal Loans


CircleLending (CL) is a for-profit business that mergesinformal and interpersonal lending withmicroenterprise development. The company wasformed in 2001 to respond to the huge unmetdemand for financial products by individuals engagedin informal, interpersonal lending. The organizationadapted commercially-available web-enabled loan-servicing software for the interpersonal lendingmarket. Working with a team of graduate studentsfrom the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)and initial financing of $20,000, CircleLendingcreated the first loan-servicing software to handleunsecured loans between family members or friends.The corporation has subsequently invested over $2million in software and loan product development. Bystructuring these loans and working with clients,CircleLending is demonstrating that the default rateon interpersonal lending can be dramatically reduced(from 14 percent to 5 percent) and that a huge andan untapped market awaits this type of service.


The technology model of CircleLending is a web-enabled, loan-servicing tool built for interpersonalloans—loans between individuals. CircleLendingcreated its loan-servicing model from scratch, and it isin its fourth version.

Tailoring Loan-Servicing Software to InterpersonalLending Scenarios

CircleLending’s loan-servicing software was built tohandle the fluctuating conditions of loans betweenindividuals. The flexible technology enables clients torestructure loans as the borrower’s needs andcapacities change. In addition, the system is able togenerate nontraditional payment schedules to suitborrowers and lenders. One popular use of thisfunction is the creation of graduated repaymentschedules where loan payments increase in size as the


borrower’s capacity to repay grows. This adaptationhas been critical to CircleLending’s success in lendingto microentrepreneurs, since repayment schedules thatgrow as a business grows is precisely what most start-up businesses need and are unable to get elsewhere.

Building the Credit of Borrowers through CreditReporting

CircleLending also helps its clients build their personalcredit by providing borrowers with the option ofreporting their loan repayment activity to the Equifaxcredit bureau. Informal loans between two individualsare normally not reported to credit bureaus such asExperian, TransUnion, and Equifax. Consequently, thesuccessful repayment of a personal loan does notbecome a positive part of the borrower’s personalcredit history. The lack of a positive personal creditrecord can make it difficult for people who rely oninformal sources of credit to access mainstream bankloans on favorable terms.

Incorporating credit reporting into its system requiredan additional investment in human and financialresources. To provide Equifax all the data it needed,CL had to rework its software’s reporting capability tocapture different data than it had been collecting. CLhad to hire two full-time programmers for a fullquarter to make its loan-servicing software complywith Equifax’s data reporting requirements.

By reporting personal loans to a credit agency, CLhelps its clients boost their credit ratings. The serviceis voluntary, and forty percent of CL clients currentlytake advantage of the credit reporting service.CircleLending expects this option will become morecentral to its business model as it grows.

Community Impact

CircleLending has clients in 40 states and wants togrow to every state. It already services over $18 millionin loans and, impressively, has grown at about 25percent per quarter for the past 12 quarters. CL buildsrelationships with local microenterprise agencies byattending industry conferences. It has also publishedand distributed a small business lending guide to 25microlending programs. To reach a broader audience,CL has an agreement with the makers of Biz Plan Prosoftware (in Office Depot), who distribute CL materialswith every software box. CircleLending’s business

model has broadened the notion of what constitutesservice to the microenterprise industry. Perhaps mostimportantly, its success to date demonstrates that themicroenterprise industry should be taken seriously as amarket where thoughtful for-profit firms can succeed.


Face-to-Face vs. Internet-based:Microentrepreneurs Describe the Benefitsof Online Support

Those concerned with the use of Internet-based services in community building activitiesoften note the continued importance of face-to-face interactions alongside Internet-basedefforts. While the main interventions ofmicroenterprise support programs such asbusiness planning courses, reviewing loanapplications, and technical assistance involveface-to-face interactions, the organizationsprofiled in this section illustrate how Internet-based services can help reach moremicroentrepreneurs and deliver differentservices.

Anecdotal evidence from MicroMentor andCount Me In also suggests that—at least insome cases—clients actually have a preferencefor the more anonymous interactions enabledby these online services. MicroMentor’sprotégés say that online mentoring is moreefficient, allowing them to focus on obtainingthe advice needed to solve very specificbusiness problems. They also describe feelingmore comfortable not sitting down face toface with their mentors, saying that thisanonymity results in more frank and openexchanges. Similarly, Count Me In’s onlinecredit-scoring model is explicitly testing theidea that a credit officer does not need to sitdown with every microloan applicant to gaugecreditworthiness. Clients say they appreciatethe flexibility of CMI’s approach, which enablesthem to complete the loan applications andrequest technical assistance whenever theirschedules allow.

Digital Inclusion Initiatives:Empowering Communitieswith Technology Access andTraining

Since the 1990s, policy solutions to the digital dividehave sought to end the isolation of the technology“have-nots” by creating physical places of connectionto IT resources within low-income communities. Outof this access-based policy paradigm emerged acommunity technology movement that focused onbuilding points of access and training—communitytechnology centers (CTCs)—in underservedcommunities.39 As the movement has matured, newpolicy initiatives have recognized that meaningfulaccess means more than just access to computers andthe Internet, but also supportive resources, such asrelevant content and education.40

The Digital Villages Program of the Hewlett-PackardCompany is a keystone of this new generation ofdigital inclusion initiatives. The central goal was totransform low-income and technology-deprived

communities from spaces of exclusion to spaces ofinclusion by infusing them with technology resourcesand training in their use (see inset).

HP’s comprehensive approach, communitypartnerships, and substantial investment of time andresources resulted in a unique corporate philanthropicendeavor. The combination of community andcorporate knowledge and resources led to thedevelopment of an innovative technology approach aswell as to a number of innovative technologyinterventions. Each site developed technology projectsthat addressed a comprehensive array of communityissues including access and training, education,economic development, and job training. Out ofthese projects, one or two became signature projects,which offers many lessons for future digital inclusioninitiatives. Table 6 (following page) describes the keycharacteristics of the Digital Villages, including itssignature innovations. Tables 7, 8, and 9 describe thevarious programs of each Digital Village site.

East Palo Alto Digital Village: Buildinga Strong Community TechnologyInfrastructure


In the late 1990s, East Palo Alto epitomized thecontradictions of the digital age. Located in the heartof Silicon Valley—the epicenter of the technologicalrevolution—the 30,000-person community was anisland of poverty in a sea of prosperity. Many EastPalo Alto residents, primarily immigrants and peopleof color, lacked the education and skills to competefor jobs in the region’s high-tech sector. At the sametime, housing costs were on the rise, increasing theburden on poor families.

To overcome these barriers, HP chose East Palo Altoas its first Digital Village in April of 2000. Theinitiative built on the foundation laid by One East PaloAlto, a $4.5 billion, six-year comprehensiveneighborhood-revitalization project led by the Williamand Flora Hewlett Foundation. A core group oftechnology leaders had already emerged within theinitiative. This group—TechCollab—became theprimary partner for the Digital Village.41


Digital Villages: Bringing a Concept to Life

The concept: A Digital Village is a communityin which all people can benefit from digitalresources and use information and skills tocontribute to society.

The initiative: Digital Villages were part of theHewlett-Packard Company’s “e-inclusion”philanthropic portfolio. Each of three communitiesreceived $5 million in products, consulting, andservices over a three-year period to create andimplement its vision of a Digital Village.


The vision of East Palo Alto Digital Village (EPA DV)was to deploy technology, brainpower, andcollaborative energy to create an informed,connected, and empowered community. The initiativeincludes a number of projects that address each ofthe four areas of community need described in Table7. Its premier innovations are its Community Networkand its Small Business Development Initiative.

Community Network

The Community Network provides the physical,organizational, and educational resources to enableneighborhood residents to use technology to obtaininformation and apply it to personal and communitydevelopment. The network includes four elements: (1)an online community resource center (EPA.net); (2)

technology access points; (3) technology-equippedcommunity organizations; and (4) urban wirelessconnectivity.

EPA.net, launched in 2002, provides residents andorganizations with information and online tools thathelp them engage in community change. The websitecontains a directory of community resources, online“public forums” where visitors can participate indiscussions on subjects ranging from community lifeto politics, and community reports on local issues,history, and culture. Residents provide much of thecontent, and over 60 volunteer writers havecontributed articles. More than 1,200 users haveformally registered on the site, which receives overone million hits per year.


Table 6. Key Organizational and Technological Characteristics of Digital Villages Case Studies

East Palo Alto DigitalVillage

Southern CaliforniaTribal Digital Village East Baltimore Digital Village

Community Size 30,000 8,000 36,000

Community Partner TechCollab Southern California TribalChairmen’s Association

Maryland Center for Arts andTechnology

Existing CommunityTechnology Initiative

One East Palo AltoNeighborhoodImprovement Initiative

HPWREN WirelessInfrastructure

Federal Empowerment ZoneDesignation, and High-tech FocusedLocal Economic Development Strategy

Vision A Community Informed,Connected, Empowered

A Digital Network thatConnects Rural TribalCommunities

Technology as a Part of Everyday Living

Signature Innovations • Community Network

• Economic Development

• School Technology

• Wireless NetworkInfrastructure

• Economic Development

• Culture

• Residential Access

• Community Access Points

• School Technology

URL http://www.epa.net http://www.sctdv.net http://www.baltimoredigitalvillage.org

Grant Period April 2000–April 2003 March 2001–March 2004 June 2001–June 2004

Ten technology access points offer places for residentsto learn to use computers and the Internet, obtaininformation from the web, and use IT tools forcommunity action. The access points were created inplaces that are safe, welcoming, and easily accessibleto schools, senior centers, and churches. Eachcomputer laboratory hosts a community leader whoserves as a technology “resource navigator” for labusers. These locations have vastly increasedtechnology access in the community. In the past threeyears, the number of publicly available, Internet-connected computers in East Palo Alto has increasedby 700 percent.42

Two smaller yet important components of thenetwork included the community grants program,which provided HP computers and equipment to 30small nonprofit organizations to increase theirtechnology capacity, and an urban wireless network,which provides high-speed Internet access throughoutthe community.

The Community Network continues to grow. PluggedIn, a community technology center located in EastPalo Alto, oversees the network. The organization isdeveloping more resident skill-building programs,including a new journalism course for EPA.netcommunity writers, and an expanded “YoungProducers” program, which trains youth in web,graphic, and video production.

Small Business Development Initiative

The Small Business Development Initiative (SBDI) usedtechnology to help local small business owners launchand grow viable, sustainable, and profitableenterprises. The effort was managed by Start Up,which is a local microenterprise developmentintermediary that provides training, technicalassistance, and start-up capital to entrepreneurs (thefollowing section of the report described Internet-based microenterprise support organizations). Thelocal Chamber of Commerce and the Rainbow/PUSHSilicon Valley Project, which seeks to createopportunities for people of color in the high-techindustry and increase IT access in communities, werealso project partners.

The initiative helped Start Up strengthen itstechnological infrastructure and build a computeraccess and technology training hub that serves small

business owners and community residents. With theseupgrades as well as HP’s hardware donations, StartUp has provided 70 small businesses with newequipment and technology training. These businesseshave generated almost $3 million in revenues andapproximately 160 jobs. Start Up is also helping thesebusinesses incorporate e-commerce practices, usingthe web to manage and market their businesses.

Community Impact

EPA DV has created a community technologyinfrastructure of hardware, software, connectivity, andcommunity institutions. This infrastructure providesresidents with meaningful access to IT resources. As aresult of the initiative, the community now has:

• Increased community access to computers andthe Internet as well as training in their use

• A website that provides relevant content andopportunities for residents to produce thecontent

• Increased technology capacity of communityorganizations


Table 7. East Palo Alto Digital Village Projects

Areas of CommunityNeed Projects

IT Access and Training • Community Network,including:

° Internet Portal

° Ten IT Access Points

° Community Grants

° Wireless Network

Education • Increase TechnologyCapacity in One School

Economic Development • Support Small BusinessDevelopment

Job Training • Plans to Build a CommunityJob Training Center

• Expanded community technology center (Plugged In)

• New technology-savvy community businesses

• Technology-infused middle school

• Wireless connectivity

Southern California Tribal DigitalVillage: Connecting and EmpoweringNative Rural Communities throughWireless Technology


The Southern California Tribal Digital Village (TDV)community consists of approximately 8,000 residentsliving in 18 remote and scattered reservations thatstretch over 150 square miles from the California-Mexico border into Riverside County. Over a centuryof government policies toward Native Americanscreated this patchwork of reservations that lackhealthy, diverse economies. Poverty is widespread,unemployment is high, and high school graduationrates are low. These are some of the mosttechnology-deficient areas in America, often withouteven basic infrastructure such as electricity andtelephones.

Despite these impediments, this community hasvigilantly sought to overcome isolation and to harnessIT to catalyze economic growth as well as to restorecultural ties. Though each of the tribes is its ownsovereign government, a regional government—theSouthern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association(SCTCA)—coordinates some of their activities. Amongits many functions, SCTCA has sought to improvetechnology infrastructure in the reservations. In 2000,SCTCA partnered with the University of California,San Diego (UCSD) on a project funded by theNational Science Foundation called the “High-Performance Wireless Research and EducationNetwork” (HPWREN) to create a noncommercialprototype, a wide-area wireless network for researchand education in remote, underserved communities.The project connected three reservations tobroadband Internet.


The aspiration of TDV is to create a digital communitythat “mirrors and amplifies the community andkinship networks that have historically sustainedNative communities.”43 Since it was selected as aDigital Village in the spring of 2001, the communityhas used HP’s resources to leverage the HPWRENproject, with plans to extend the wireless network tothe remaining reservations.

This wireless technology infrastructure is TDV’s mostimportant innovation. Its powerful Internetconnectivity makes possible an array of programs thatcreate economic, educational, cultural, and civicopportunities for community members. Theseprograms address each area of community need (seeTable 8). Another important innovation is itsTechnology Business Development program.

Wireless Community Network

The high-speed wireless network built by the TribalDigital Village in partnership with UCSD spreads over2,500 square miles and may be the largest wireless


Table 8. Southern California Tribal Digital VillageProjects


IT Access and Training • Wireless Network

• Internet Portal

Education • Distance Learning Programs

• Cultural and LanguageEducation

Economic Development • Incubate TechnologyBusinesses

Job Training • Train Youth in Web Design

• Train Community Membersin Wireless Installation andMaintenance

backbone in the world. Fifteen of the 18 reservationsare now linked to the backbone, connecting over1,000 computers in over 56 buildings—including 20computer labs—to the network’s 45-megabytes-per-second of transmission power. New sites arecontinually connected to the network, working on“last mile” distribution within each reservation. Eachtribe was given a grant and equipment to create aninitial point of access in their community and to buildawareness and motivation for future communityinitiatives.

The network is impressive not only because of therarity of broadband access in rural Nativecommunities, but also because of the extent of tribalinvolvement in its construction and SCTCA’sownership of the network. Community membersdesigned, built, and implemented the network. TDVworked in partnership with UCSD to overcome thetechnical challenges of extending the network and tobuild its own capacity to maintain the infrastructure.The network builders had to negotiate San Diego’smountainous backcountry to set up the wirelesstowers, antennas, and relays that connected theremote and isolated tribes to the network. In manysites, there was no electricity, necessitating solarpanels to be used to power the microwave antennas.

TDV used the construction and maintenance of thenetwork as an opportunity to build the skills of tribalmembers. In the summer of 2001, youth internsmapped the terrain with handheld GPS devices tosurvey and identify potential sites for the wirelesstowers. The following summer, new youth internsinstalled the towers. During these internships, theyouth also learned other technology skills, includingwebsite design.

The wireless network provides the technologicalbackbone for information and communicationsresources that serve tribal community members,including an Internet Portal (scdtv.net), an e-mailapplication (Rez-mail), a TV channel (Rez-TV), videoconferencing and web-cams, distance learningprograms, and multimedia cultural and languageresources.

Technology Business Development

In line with its goal to diversify its economic base, TDVhas sought to develop technology-based businesses.Its most successful business venture is Hi Rez DigitalSolutions, a digital imaging and printing businesslaunched in October 2003. HP donated a commercialIndigo 3000 digital printing press—worth $500,000—as well as service and support to help launch thebusiness. SCTCA funded the business’s start-up phaseand researched the market for printing services in SanDiego County, finding that there were few digitalprinting businesses. Digital printing technology enablesfast turnaround for small print jobs and individualizeddocuments through variable data printing. Byproviding these services to the Southern Californiamarket, Hi Rez fills an unmet market niche. As a fully-owned subsidiary of SCTCA, its profits are returned tothe community through SCTCA’s activities.

Community Impact

The community-owned wireless network has linkedthe Native reservations to the Internet and providedopportunities for many other programs that harnesstechnology for community empowerment. Outcomesinclude:

• A community information portal that includes awebsite that provides relevant communitycontent and e-mail services for residents

• Community access to computers and high-speedInternet, and training in their use

• Increased inter-tribal communication

• Technology-empowered tribal governments

• Youth development and skill-building intechnology infrastructure development and use

• Opportunities to connect with educationalresources through distance learning

• Cultural and language preservation programs

• New technology-based businesses


East Baltimore Digital Village:Integrating Technology into EverydayLiving


East Baltimore is a low-income, primarily AfricanAmerican community located in a city that has beensteadily losing population and economic strength forthe past 50 years. Over 40 percent of its residents livebelow the federal poverty line, and residents faceinequities in access to resources and infrastructure,including technology. A 2003 survey found that 25percent of the people living in the community usedthe Internet, compared to 63 percent nationwide.44

The community was part of Baltimore’sEmpowerment Zone, a federal economic developmentprogram that lasted from 1994 through 2002. Themomentum from that initiative, as well as the city’scurrent economic development strategy focused onhigh-tech, provided an impetus for the Digital Villageinitiative.


East Baltimore Digital Village (BDV) seeks to create aculture of “e-living” where technology is a part ofeveryday life for residents who do not currently usecomputers and the Internet. BDV saw a need for asubtle approach, given the community’s lack oftechnology. In line with this philosophy, the ideabehind its programs was to weave IT into theirexisting social infrastructure.

BDV launched programs that address each area ofcommunity need (see Table 9). The most successfulinnovations of the initiative have been the ResidentialAccess Program, its Community Network oftechnology access points, and its effort to improvetechnology standards in area schools.

Residential Access Program

BDV launched a residential access program to helpcommunity members use IT tools to access localresources—personal and family health care, cityservices, and educational and career opportunities—and to improve communication with their schools,churches, and community organizations. Three

hundred residents received an HP computer and all-in-one printer, fax, and scanner as well as a 10-hourtraining in computer skills. BDV selected residentsbased on need and demonstrated commitment; itchose people who were in job training programs,who had school-age children, and who were involvedin the community. In exchange for the equipment,recipients pay $180 for a year’s worth of Internetservice. The program has been extremely successful:all of the grantees have e-mail addresses and therehas been 100 percent retention on the computers.

Community Access Points

As with the other Digital Villages, BDV sought toaddress the technology void in the community bycreating community technology access points thatprovide opportunities for computer and Internetaccess and training. It chose six different sites wherevarious segments of the community were alreadygoing to obtain services and gain skills and education:the Chance Center, the Door, Education Based LatinoOutreach (EBLO), the Great Blacks in Wax Museum,Kid’s Scoop, and the Perkins Community Powerhouse.Each of these sites meets the needs of a particularsegment of the community. EBLO, for example,provides bilingual computer training services to EastBaltimore’s Spanish-speaking community, includingnewly arrived immigrants.


Table 9. East Baltimore Digital Village Projects


IT Access and Training • Six IT Access Points

• Resident Computer Access

• Internet Portal

Education • Increase TechnologyCapacity in Six Schools

Economic Development • Support Small BusinessDevelopment

Job Training • Link Employers withEmployees

School Technology Program

BDV sought to increase the technology capacity ofcommunity schools. The initiative worked with sixschools, providing 185 teachers with a laptop andcomputer training to integrate into their classroomcurriculum. Recognizing that technology is constantlychanging and therefore teachers need continualsupport, BDV hired a technology support teacher towork in the library of each school. The schools alsoreceived HP desktops, printers, projectors, scanners,and digital cameras. As a result of this program,technology is now an integral part of the students’learning experience. In 2003–04, these schools usedthe new technology to create their science fairprojects, and five students qualified to go to the statecompetition.

Community Impact

BDV’s subtle approach to bringing technology into anunderserved community has had some powerfuleffects. Through its programs:

• Nearly 10 percent of community residents havebenefited from the program

• Participating schools now exceed state standardsfor technology

• A website provides residents with information onchildcare, employment, and health

• Local entrepreneurs have received computertraining and equipment through the SmallBusiness Development Institute

• The community has increased access tocomputers and the Internet through sixcommunity access points and 300 computers inpersonal homes

• Workforce development programs have linkedresidents with employment and trainingopportunities


The 12 case studies illustrate how early adopters ofICT innovations are successfully adapting newtechnologies to meet the needs of communitybuilders, with tangible impacts within their specificdomains of practice. The key question amongpractitioners who have not yet adopted these andother ICT innovations is: how can they, too, accessand use these new tools?

As described in the section of this report, a numberof characteristics of technology innovations and ofthe nonprofit sector hinder the spread of innovationswithin the sector: innovations are often not tailoredto their needs, the sector lacks resources fortechnology adoption and capacity, and there is a lackof information flow about innovations. Despite thesechallenges, our case study research revealed that anumber of structures within the nonprofit sectorprovide organizations with information, support, andresources for adopting and implementing newtechnologies.

This infrastructure can be summarized as consisting ofsix key components, or factors for diffusion (see textbox following page). Following is a description of eachfactor, with descriptions of how the factor plays outamong the four innovation areas. While the factors arereviewed independently, in practice they act together tohelp disseminate innovations, as illustrated in Figure 2.

This incipient nonprofit technology infrastructureprovides insight into the potential levers for increasingthe rate and speed of technology adoption—andeffective use—among nonprofits. The factorsrepresent a starting point to consider future policyand programs to encourage dissemination.

1. Community Technology Intermediaries—Organizations that explicitly facilitate theadoption and use of new technologies bynonprofits

In the private-sector context, a host of propagatinginstitutions—R&D laboratories, technology vendors,and consulting firms—influence the adoption of newtechnologies by communicating, promoting, andenhancing innovations. In the nonprofit sector, thereare unique types of propagating institutions—community technology intermediaries—that facilitatethe adoption and use of new technologiesthroughout the field. These intermediaries take variedapproaches such as providing technical assistance orbuilding the technology capacity of organizations.They also help frame new technologies as tools thatcan solve particular problems of nonprofits andspread this information in the field. To promote andfacilitate the adoption and use of technology tools,intermediaries start and maintain networks, shareinformation, advocate for supportive policies andprograms, promote technology tools, and advancespecific aspects of community building practice.

The maturity, strength, and influence of communitytechnology intermediaries varied among the four casestudy innovation/practice areas analyzed in this report.Both the Neighborhood Information Systems and theMicroenterprise Support areas have sophisticated andpowerful intermediaries that facilitate the exchangeof information and knowledge among practitionersacross the country. The e-advocacy area, in contrast,lacks intermediaries, yet the field is abundant withtechnical assistance institutions. In the case of theDigital Inclusion Initiatives, the Hewlett-PackardCompany has played a substantial role in enabling the


Dissemination: Spreading New Technologies among Community Building Organizations

adoption and use of technology tools among thethree Digital Villages, but has not yet reached out toother U.S. communities in the same in-depth manner.

2. Innovation Champions—Key change agentswho promote the use of technology within theirorganizations and share their innovationknowledge with other organizations

How an organization perceives a new technology, andits applicability and relevance to the organization’swork, plays an important role in its decision whetherto adopt the innovation. Individual “innovationchampions,” or change agents, often influence theperception of a new technology and the ease andvalue of its adoption. Innovation champions may be

internal or external to the organization. They not onlypush organizations to adopt technologies but are alsocritical to guiding their implementation. In addition,they often become spokespersons for the innovation,inspiring other organizations to adopt similartechnologies and providing the technical know-howto help organizations implement them effectively.

Of the six factors for dissemination, change agentsare the most common ingredient in all of theinnovation/practice areas. In all 12 of the case studies,change agents served as primary catalysts in theadoption process.


Six Key Factors for Innovation Dissemination among Nonprofits

1 CCoommmmuunniittyy TTeecchhnnoollooggyy IInntteerrmmeeddiiaarriieess——The strength and capacity of organizations thatfacilitate the adoption and dissemination of innovations can greatly influence the diffusion oftechnology among nonprofits.

2 IInnnnoovvaattiioonn CChhaammppiioonnss——Nonprofit employees, volunteers, and board members, as well asadvocates of particular technology tools, can play important roles in encouraging organizations toinnovate and in helping them apply technology to community building practice.

3 RReesseeaarrcchh oonn AAddooppttiioonn aanndd UUssee ooff IInnnnoovvaattiioonnss bbyy NNoonnpprrooffiittss——Applied research and casestudies that describe the experiences of nonprofits using new technologies can inform and inspireother nonprofits and spur additional adoption of technology innovations.

4 SSttrreennggtthh aanndd DDeennssiittyy ooff CCoommmmuunniiccaattiioonnss CChhaannnneellss——Many reliable and high-qualityinformation sources on ICT innovations (such as conferences, print media, and online forums) canhelp nonprofits decide whether to adopt new technologies as well as help with theirimplementation.

5 PPoolliiccyy aanndd PPrrooggrraamm SSuuppppoorrttss——Supportive policies and programs can help ensure thatinnovation development results in useful tools for nonprofits (making them more adoptable) andcan also provide resources and incentives for organizations to take the risk entailed in adoptingsuch tools.

6 IInnnnoovvaattiioonn CChhaarraacctteerriissttiiccss:: LLooww CCoosstt,, LLooww CCoommpplleexxiittyy,, HHiigghh MMaattuurriittyy,, HHiigghh RReelleevvaannccee——Technology innovations that are affordable, not too complex, mature in their development, andhighly relevant to community building are more easily disseminated.


Figure 2. Six Key Factors for Innovation Dissemination among Nonprofits

Innovation Characteristics: Low Cost, Low

Complexity, High Maturity, High

Relevance

Policy and Program Supports

Strength and Density of

Communications Channels

Research on Adoption and Use of Innovations by

Nonprofits

Innovation Champions

Community Technology

Intermediaries

Greater Dissemination of Innovations within the Nonprofit Sector

3. Research on Adoption and Use ofInnovations by Nonprofits—Applied researchand case studies on how nonprofit organizationsadopt new technology tools and apply them totheir work

Applied research is essential for disseminatingtechnology innovations. Researchers play a vital rolein finding, recording, organizing, and formalizing thestories about what organizations do with technologyand developing them into a form that can becommunicated and shared. Research must be tailoredfor practitioner audiences so that it can promote thespreading of technology innovations. Adoptionresearch, case studies of promising practices, andcommunity development research that focuses ontechnology use are examples of research that can beuseful in the field.

Research has greatly boosted the sharing ofinnovations in the NIS and Microenterprise Supportfields, as these fields are replete with best practicesreports, evaluations, how-to manuals, and theories ofchange that include technology use. The other twocase study areas have much less research associatedwith them. Relatively little research has beenconducted on the Digital Village concept, althoughHewlett-Packard supported a related researchinitiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) in Roxbury, MA, whose findings informed theprogram’s implementation.45 Digital inclusioninitiatives also draw from research on the role ofcommunity technology centers in inspiring technologyadoption. The relative newness of e-advocacyinnovations has prevented them from being subjectsof much applied research as of yet.

4. Communications Channels—Essential pathwaysfor spreading knowledge of successful nonprofittechnology innovations, including conferences,print media, and the Internet

Communications channels are the pathways throughwhich knowledge can be exchanged. Newspaperarticles, conferences, listservs, conference calls,websites, peer networks (both informal and formalones backed by institutions), trainings, and directengagements by organizations with consultants areexamples of communications channels.

The primary communications vehicles for sharingtechnology innovations are conferences and other in-person networking opportunities. A majority of theseevents are closely linked to the presence ofcommunity technology intermediaries. TheNeighborhood Information Systems field has manynetworking and conference opportunities that havebeen responsible for the widespread sharing of GISand other data analysis innovations. TheMicroenterprise Support field also has several annualconferences where innovations can be showcased.While Digital Villages does not have its ownconferences, HP presents many networkingopportunities through cross-site visits, and staff fromthe Digital Villages attend other national communitytechnology conferences (such as the annualconference hosted by the Community TechnologyCenters’ Network). E-advocacy, the youngest field ofpractice, has few formal networking opportunities,which has been a barrier to widespread distributionof its innovations.

5. Program and Policy Supports—Programs andpolicies that provide support for the developmentof innovations for nonprofits, their adoption byorganizations, and their disseminationthroughout the sector

Policy is critical to the widespread dissemination ofnew technologies. Over the past decade, policysupport from private, public, and philanthropicentities has stimulated the development ofinnovations, but little support has gone toward thediffusion of these innovations. Programs such as theTechnology Opportunities Program, the CommunityTechnology Centers’ program, and HP’s DigitalVillages Initiative have played a role in developingsome of the technology innovations used bycommunity builders, as have investments from localgovernments, private foundations, and theentrepreneurial initiative of technology vendorsserving the private and civil sectors. These programshave also foreshadowed the policies necessary forsharing innovations. As these programs sunset andthe nation contemplates the next generation oftechnology policy, strategies must be created thatfacilitate the sharing of innovations.


6. Innovation Characteristics: Low Cost, LowComplexity, High Maturity, High Relevance—Key characteristics of technology innovations thatrelate to how easily and readily they will beadopted by nonprofit organization

Cost, complexity, maturity, and relevance areimportant factors in determining whether or notnonprofits will adopt a given innovation and the rateand extent of uptake throughout the sector. Thelower the cost and complexity of the innovation, themore mature the innovation is, and the more relevantthe innovation is or is perceived to be make a giveninnovation more adoptable for nonprofits. Therelationship of cost, complexity, and relevance to thelikelihood of adoption is straightforward. Thecharacteristic of maturity is more nuanced, referringto three elements: (1) the age of the innovation; (2)how robust the technology has become over timethrough repeated refinement by an industry or acommunity of developers (commercial or open-source); and (3) whether there is a well-developedcadre of technical assistance providers or supporttechnicians who can help adapt or troubleshoot thetechnology.

A comparison of the practice areas showcased in thisreport reveals this relationship between theseinnovation characteristics and dissemination.Geographic Information Systems (GIS, the primarytechnology underlying Neighborhood InformationSystems) have been available to practitioners for over30 years. During this long history of the technology,many organizations have had the opportunity toadopt the technology and tailor it for communitydevelopment purposes. The relative maturity of thetechnology has led to greater dissemination amongcommunity building organizations, both in its ownright and in the form of NIS. These experiencescontrasted with e-advocacy and Internet-basedMicroenterprise support technologies, which are morerecent developments and where there is much lesspenetration of the technology innovations within thesector.


The findings of this study point to the components ofa strategic agenda to bridge the innovation dividethat recognizes the potential and limitations of thepolicy environment and proposes creative andcatalytic solutions.

Since the digital divide became a public policy concernin the mid-1990s, public and private policies haveplayed important roles in helping low-incomecommunities—and the nonprofit organizations thatserve them—access and take advantage of informationtechnologies. These policies have primarily consisted ofdedicated resources for developing technologyprograms and initiatives. Beginning in 1994 with theDepartment of Commerce’s landmark TechnologyOpportunities Program (TOP) and its researchaccompaniment, the Falling Through the Net series,hundreds of millions in public and private dollars wereinvested in just a decade to address the gap betweentechnology haves and have-nots.46 By the late 1990s,almost every federal department, a wide selection ofprivate-sector technology corporations, and a majorityof the country’s nonprofit philanthropies were investingin community technology. Yet by 2001, this flood ofpolicy and programmatic responses from these sectorsslowed to a trickle, as Internet access rates finallytopped 50 percent for Americans and the technologycapacity of the nonprofit sector was on the rise. Afterachieving these milestones, the current administrationclaimed that the digital divide had been bridged in itsresearch report, A Nation Online.47 Soon thereafter acampaign was launched by Congress to eliminatefederal programs to bridge the digital divide, whichended the TOP initiative in 2004.

The first decade of digital divide policy was generallyreactive—chasing technology solutions without doingthe necessary work to connect technology to

community needs and assets. This approach led to anemphasis on technology adoption by nonprofits, butoffered little support for strategically applyingtechnology to address community needs, exchanginginformation about innovative uses of technologytools, or disseminating innovations more broadly. As aresult, many nonprofits remain unable to maximizethe potential of computers and the Internet.

Today, efforts to bridge the digital divide areoperating in a new milieu characterized by a lack offormal and federal support as well as a philanthropicfunding environment with less of a focus ontechnology development. Advocates must thinkstrategically, building on existing communitytechnology infrastructure and leveraging private-sector resources.

The following five-point agenda outlines a policyroadmap for overcoming the barriers to adopting anddisseminating technology innovations in the nonprofitsector and establishing the next generation of digitaldivide policy.

1. Establish new federal, state,philanthropic, and corporatefunding programs to develop anddisseminate technology innovationswithin the nonprofit sector.

Funding is the most significant barrier to creating anddisseminating technology innovations within thenonprofit sector. The recent elimination of themajority of federal, state, and local communitytechnology funding streams has produced a resourcegap that—if not replaced—will continue to hinder the


An Agenda for Bridging the Innovation Divide

development of innovations. Individual nonprofits lackthe resources to invest in the adoption andrefinement of new technology solutions, and thereare few resources available for sharing best practicesfor technology adoption and use within the sector.The sector also needs better mechanisms forspreading the risks and benefits of technologyinnovation. Our research underscores the importanceof funding for nonprofit organizations to adopt,adapt, and share technology innovations.

• Produce new funding opportunities at thenational and state levels for creating and sharingtechnology innovations within the nonprofitsector. Programs should finance technologyneeds assessments as well as the creation,adoption, tailoring, and dissemination oftechnology innovations.

• Expand private philanthropy grantmaking toinclude funds within all grants that are specificallyearmarked for the development, use, and sharingof technology tools. Philanthropy should leverageprior investments in technology applicationdevelopment to expand the market for theseinnovations and yield greater community benefits.

• Encourage technology sector corporate philanthropyto support innovation adoption and disseminationwithin the nonprofit sector. Such corporations havea great deal of knowledge and expertise that caninform nonprofit sector use of ICTs.

2. Create forums and intermediaries—at the local and national levels—tofacilitate the adoption anddissemination of technologyinnovations.

Two of the six factors for dissemination described inthis report—strong community technologyintermediaries and dense communications channels—are arguably the most important levers for increasingtechnology diffusion among third sectororganizations. Innovations—and the lessons learnedin their application to community building practice—need to travel beyond the organizational boundaries

of their creators. Programs and policies canstrengthen intermediaries and create morecommunication channels.

• Support existing nontechnology intermediariesthat work within specific nonprofit fields, such ashealth, housing, or education, to promotetechnology diffusion within their domain ofpractice. This would include building thetechnology capacity of existing intermediaries toincubate and share technology innovations.

• Create incentives for nonprofit technicalassistance organizations to help build and refinenew technology tools and share existing bestpractices.

• Create venues for new partnerships and strategicalliances whose purpose is to disseminateinformation about technology innovations andtheir uses by early adopters.

• Support the development and use of public,online repositories of technology tools (such aswww.TechSoup.org).

3. Support universal service reformsthat enable nonprofits to gainbroadband access to best takeadvantage of ICT innovations.

Many productivity-enhancing and decision-supporttools that can inform the work of nonprofits havemigrated online, making access to high-speed,broadband Internet more imperative for nonprofits.Although broadband technology has rapidly becomemore accessible and less expensive, it remains cost-prohibitive to many nonprofits. With federal fundslacking, there is a greater need to ensure thatnonprofits have access to high-speed Internetconnectivity and have a voice in future regulationsthat govern the deployment of platforms that deliverInternet content. In large part, this means that thesector must be included in the ongoing policydialogue about universal service reforms and howthey will impact both access and service provision fornonprofits.


• Advocate for a dynamic definition of “universalservice” that provides for nonprofit organizationsand reflects the dominant trend towardtechnological and regulatory convergence ininformation services.

• Encourage municipal wireless networks tosubsidize and underwrite nonprofit broadbandaccess to these networks.

• Further develop fiber to the home (FTTH) andfiber to the premises (FTTP) efforts, which enablethe provision of multiple telecommunicationsservices including very high-speed Internet accessthrough a single fiber-optic cable. Thesetechnologies could possibly further reduce thecost of providing broadband Internet access ataffordable rates for nonprofit organizations.

4. Create forums for learning from theprivate sector about the adoptionand use of new ICTs.

The private sector maintains a wealth of knowledgeabout and experience in the adoption, andapplication of technology innovations. Althoughcertain private sector technology solutions will be toolarge in scale and scope to serve the unique needs ofthe nonprofit sector, there are many lessons andpractices that are relevant and can be easily adaptedfor the nonprofit sector. Unfortunately, very fewcommunications channels permit the exchange ofinformation between nonprofit technologyprofessionals and private-sector technologyprofessionals to explore these possibilities. Newpartnerships should be encouraged betweennonprofits and for-profit technology developers todiscuss how to meet the technology needs of thenonprofit sector and produce mutual benefits. Theprivate sector could:

• Partner with community technologyintermediaries to identify opportunities for ICTtools to improve the efficiency or efficacy ofnonprofits.

• Create forums for sharing best practices oftechnology adoption and adaptation toencourage greater collaboration between thenonprofit and for-profit sectors.

• Facilitate the transfer of innovative technologytools and innovative uses from the private sectorto the nonprofit sector. This should includefinding and adopting the appropriatetechnologies to address distinct needs in thenonprofit sector.

5. Establish standards and mechanismsfor data sharing andinteroperability.

One impediment to promoting innovation in thenonprofit sector is the lack or absence of recognizedand agreed-upon protocols for data sharing andinteroperability. Nonprofit organizations frequentlyuse many separate software applications, databases,and other technologies, such as client-relationshipmanagement software, donor-managementdatabases, surveying tools, outcomes measurementapplications, and fundraising tools. Without standardsfor interoperability, their data will continue to behoused in separate and incompatible databases,resulting in missed opportunities to leverage theircollective power. For example, a nonprofit that isworking in two program areas, such as housingdevelopment and public safety, cannot determine thecombined impact of both programs if their data arestored in separate, isolated databases.

The lack of standards also impedes technological andprogrammatic innovation. A basic standard allowsnonprofits to export client data from a casemanagement system to a Geographic InformationSystem and visually depict the geographic locations ofresidents in a map. Such a function can help themorganizations create more effective targeted mailings,door-to-door outreach, and organizing campaigns. Amore sophisticated standard could allow that casemanagement system to automatically update themaps produced by the GIS application. Creatingstandards or other mechanisms for data sharing andinteroperability would unleash new possibilities in thenonprofit arena.

• Create a Nonprofit Technology Standards Boardor working committee responsible for updatingexisting standards and establishing new standardsfor data sharing and interoperability. This wouldbe most easily accomplished within specific


industries and sub-sectors (such as health andhousing), suggesting that sector-specificintermediaries may be the appropriate institutionsto play a large role in this task.

• Further develop emergent technologies thatsupport data sharing and interoperability,including Web Services—web applicationsengineered specifically to allow moresophisticated interactions and interoperabilityamong web applications—and Data Services—intermediary software applications whose purposeis to aggregate multiple data sources or datarepositories.

Conclusion

Addressing the innovation divide within the nonprofitsector requires a targeted approach that leveragesprevious investments, capitalizes on existingtechnology infrastructure, and builds newrelationships with technology companies and otherprivate-sector actors. Nonprofits, foundations, andadvocates must actively pursue policy changes thatenable the nonprofit sector to access and effectivelyuse ICT innovations—bridging the innovation divideand ensuring their long-term viability.


1 Government Accountability Office, Tax-Exempt Sector:Governance, Transparency, and Oversight are Critical forMaintaining Public Trust (Washington, DC: GovernmentAccountability Office, 2005).

2 Lester Salamon, The Resilient Sector: The State of NonprofitAmerica (Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute and theBrookings Institution, 2003).

3 Josh Kirschenbaum and Radhika Kunamneni, Bridging theOrganizational Divide: Toward a Comprehensive Approach tothe Digital Divide (PolicyLink, 2001), available atwww.policylink.org/pdfs/Bridging_the_Org_Divide.pdf.

4 Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management, LiteratureReview: Technology and Nonprofit Organizations, available athttp://www.inom.org/events/IT@Nonprofits/Nonprofits%20and%20IT%20lit%20review%2028Sept04.pdf.

5 For an example of the content problem being generated bynonprofits, see www.contentbank.org. For a description ofthe content problem, see Wendy Lazarus and Laurie Lipper,The Search for High-Quality Online Content for Low-Incomeand Underserved Americans: Evaluating and ProducingWhat’s Needed (Washington, DC: The Children’s Partnership,2003), and other issue briefs in this series.

6 PolicyLink, Proceedings from the HP Consultative Session:Philanthropic Investment Strategies and Best Practices in theUse of Technology (Oakland, CA: PolicyLink, 2004).

7 David Zilberman, Technology, Innovation, andEntrepreneurship, available atwww.are.berkeley.edu/~zilber/Innovationandadoption.ppt.

8 Andrew Blau, More Than Bit Players: How InformationTechnology Will Change the Ways Nonprofits andFoundations Work and Thrive in the Information Age (NewYork, NY: Surdna Foundation, 2001), p. 14. The “opensource” movement in software development epitomizes theincorporation of users into the development process.

9 Everett Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations (New York, NY: TheFree Press, 1995).

10 Robert Fichman, “The Diffusion and Assimilation ofInformation Technology Innovations,” in R.W. Amud (Ed.),Framing the Domains of IT Management: Projecting theFuture Through the Past (Cincinnati, OH: PinnaflexEducational Resources, 1999).

11 Neil Ramiller and Burton Swanson, “Organizing Visions forInformation Technology and the Information SystemsExecutive Response,” Journal of Management InformationSystems 20:1 (2003):13–50 .

12 Fichman, op. cit., pp. 9–20.

13 In Fichman, this sub-category is called the innovation“delivery system.”

14 Blau, 2001.

15 Erik Brynolfsson and Lorin Hitt, Beyond the ProductivityParadox: Computers are the Catalyst for Bigger Changes,1998, p. 3; cited in Blau, op. cit.

16 Blau, op. cit.

17A Geographic Information System is a computer applicationthat assembles, stores, manipulates, and displays data. GISmakes possible the integration of many layers of data,enabling users to analyze how different environmental anddemographic characteristics relate to one another.

18 David Sawicki and William Craig, “The Democratization ofData: Bridging the Gap for Community Groups,” Journal ofthe American Planning Association 62(4):1966, 512–523.

19 See www2.urban.org/nnip for a list of NNIP partners.

20 For more information, log on to the TPP website,www.provplan.org.

21 The Providence Plan and the Rhode Island Department ofHealth, “Findings Related to Elevated Blood Lead Levels andEducational Performance Among Children in ProvidencePublic Schools,” 2001, available at204.17.79.244/pubs/reports/infogrp/lead.pdf.

22 The Providence Plan, Analysis of the Providence Public SchoolPopulation 1999–2000 Academic Year, available atwww.provplan.org/html/info/html_pubs/PSD_Analysis.html


Notes

23 Rina Ghose and Sarah Elwood, “Public Participation GIS andLocal Political Context: Propositions and ResearchDirections,” URISA Journal, 15(2):2003, 17–24.

24 City of Milwaukee, Map Milwaukee, available atwww.milwaukee.gov/display/router.asp?docid=3480.

25 See www.healthycity.org, www.lots.ucla.edu,www.lila.ucla.edu, www.nkca.ucla.edu

26 Mortgage lending data are from the Home MortgageDisclosure Act (HMDA) and include mortgage applicationsand denials by race, type of loan, and prime versus subprimelender.

27 Tufts University, OMB Watch, and Charity Lobbying in thePublic Interest, Strengthening Nonprofit Advocacy Project:Overview of Findings, available athttp://www.ombwatch.org/snap. The survey included501(c)(3) organizations. It is the only existing study thatanalyzes a nationally representative sample examining theuse of technology to support advocacy.

28 For more details about the campaign, seewww.freetheriverpark.org.

29 ACT has a very small budget that has fluctuated fromroughly one thousand dollars a year in the late 1990s to afew thousand dollars a year after 2000. As a consequence ofits limited funding, the leadership of the organization choseto incorporate as a nonstock, membership corporationbecause of the prohibitive costs associated with the taxfilings required to be a 501(c)(3) or a 501(c)(4) corporation.This form of incorporation, unlike its nonprofit counterparts,allows ACT to endorse candidates for elected office.

30 Gretchen Morgenson, “Fannie Mae Fights Commuter Lineon Golf Course,” Miami Herald, September 29, 2002,available at www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/4167988.htm.

31 The new governor’s renaming of the project is also partly dueto the support the proposed rail line received from theprevious governor, Parris Glendening (D), who generallyreferred to the project as the “Purple Line.”

32 For an excellent summary of the emergence of themicroenterprise field in the United States, see John Else andJanice Gallagher, “An Overview of the MicroenterpriseDevelopment Field in the U.S.,” Institute for Social andEconomic Development, (Washington, DC: The AspenInstitute, 2005) available at www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/finance/reports/us1.htm.

33 Association for Enterprise Opportunity, Microenterprise in theUnited States, available atwww.microenterpriseworks.org/services/policy/mees/USA.pdf.

34 The Aspen Institute, Highlights from the 2002 Directory ofMicroenterprise Programs, available atwww.fieldus.org/directory/Highlights2002.pdf.

35 The Aspen Institute, “White Paper #3: Credit Program ScaleStandards,” available at www.fieldus.org/li/pdf/workingpaper3.pdf.

36 Else and Gallagher, op. cit.

37 For more information, see www.fairisaac.com.

38 Jerry Black et al., A Measure of the Microenterprise Industry(Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute, 2003), p. 87.

39 Ibid., p. 88.

40 For an overview of the community technology movement,see Stephen Davies, Andrew Wiley-Schwartz, Randall Pinkett,and Lisa Servon, Community Technology Centers as Catalystsfor Community Change: A Report to the Ford Foundation(New York, NY: Ford Foundation, 2003).

41 Mark Warschauer’s book, Technology and Social Inclusion:Rethinking the Digital Divide (Cambridge, MA: The MITPress, 2003), explains that meaningful access to technologyrequires four interrelated technology-associated resources: (1)physical resources, or computers and connections; (2) digitalresources, or content and language; (3) human resources, orliteracy and education, and (4) social resources, orcommunities and institutions. See also Amanda Lenhart etal., The Ever-Shifting Internet Population (Washington, DC:The Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2003), availableat www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=88.

42 TechCollab included the following institutions: Plugged In,Belle Haven School, Ravenswood City School District, StartUp, and OICW.

43 Magda Escobar, “Plugged In: Taking the Next Step,”available at www.epa.net.

44 Tribal Digital Village, Tribal Digital Village Vision, available atwww.grants.hp.com/us/digitalvillage/tribal/vision.htm.

45 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Residentsin East Baltimore’s Empowerment Zone Use Internet as aHealth Information Resource, available atwww.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_releases/PR_2003/computer_health.html. The survey encompassed the city’sentire Empowerment Zone, of which the East BaltimoreDigital Village is one part. National statistics are from Lenhartet al., op. cit., based on a 63,000-person telephone survey.

46 Randall Pinkett, Camfield Estates-MIT Creating CommunityConnections Project, available at xenia.media.mit.edu/~rpinkett/papers.

47 See www.ntia.doc.gov/otiahome/top/grants/ grants.htm.

48 National Telecommunications and InformationAdministration, A Nation Online: How Americans AreExpanding Their Use Of The Internet, available atwww.ntia.doc.gov/ ntiahome/dn/nationonline_020502.htm.


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