Tech Assessment Helps Spanish Speaking Citizens Foundation

Over the last three years, the Spanish Speaking Citizens Foundation has invested substantial resources into developing our programs and upgrading our facilities. Sometimes it's shocking to reflect on how far we've been able to come! When we finished renovation of our community center last fall, we decided to apply our developmental energies elsewhere-technology.

Most of our concerns at that time were related to the Y2K scare, but we actually needed to upgrade everything. I often told people coming into the SSCF office for the first time that yes, we were a community center with computers, but we had 1985 technology. In many ways, our computers were just a step above typewriters. We knew that we needed to get objective advice and help from someone we could trust.

In the past, when we had technology consultants come in, some declined to work with us because our small budget couldn't match our great need. Other consultants were willing to assist us despite our limited budget, but they often provided unclear information, or they didn't provide us with written recommendations that we could use on our own timeline.

When we found out about CompuMentor , we opted to participate in the TEAM (Technology Evaluation And Mentoring) program. The two CompuMentor staff members that came were pleasant and thorough. They spent a substantial amount of time with us, and we discussed many topics, from Y2K to how to choose our domain name for our Web site. They did Y2K tests on a couple of our computers, showed us how to do it ourselves, and left the test disk so that we could test the rest of our network. They also assessed each computer individually and took an inventory of software that was being used on each.

A couple of weeks later, we received a packet of information from CompuMentor, including detailed recommendations and resources. The report was much more inclusive than we had anticipated-and covered a rough budget estimate of the total costs.

Every consultant has a different perspective; changes that some consultants consider unneccesary might be seen as extremely important by others. What I found to be really comforting was that CompuMentor wasn't in the business to make money off of us, and was more neutral and legitimate with their recommendations. They prioritized our tech steps based on what we needed, and balanced that with what we could afford. Our first step was to complete the Y2K tests we'd started.

Y2K came and went without much ado. Once the dust settled on that, we began to look at the other recommendations in the report, which emphasized maintenance of hardware and ongoing staff training, as well as recommendations about how to identify technologists to rely on for our future. Another helpful recommendation we received was putting a line item in our organizational budget for our technology needs. We heeded this advice, and received $10,000 from one funder specifically for technology.

We recently submitted a proposal requesting $15,000 using the information we received from our TEAM assessment. The funder visited our site and encouraged us to apply for $50,000 to begin upgrading our computer lab!

We have learned a lot from the process, and continue to learn as the technology changes. Now we're not quite as confused by the learning curve, and we are excited to learn more as our technology resources grow. Traditionally, technology has been a thorn in our side, because the positive changes haven't happened very quickly, but I think we're on a roll now, and feel optimistic about the direction we're going.

I have recommended CompuMentor to other nonprofit organizations, based on our positive experience with TEAM. The services we've received have been helpful, and the inexpensive software we've been able to purchase through CompuMentor's program has been great!