w LINC Project: November 2001 LINC Project Update

November 2001 LINC Project Update

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Our work with intermediaries strengthens our technical assistance


outreachLINC recognizes that intermediaries, such as non-profit technology assistance providers (NTAPs), capacity-building organizations, and funders, can all contribute uniquely to the development of low-income groups' technology capacity. We therefore expanded our effort to enlist intermediaries in our work and had notable success over the past year.

Non-Profit Technology Assistance Providers (NTAPs): These groups are a potential additional technology support resource for grassroots groups. Most participate in the Circuit Riders Network, an informal national network of 300 technology activists who share technology advice and models and provide peer support. Our Senior Circuit Rider was an early member and is a recognized leader in the network, and LINC's focus on low-income groups is on the "cutting edge" of Circuit Riding. Our high profile in the network has enabled us to enlist other NTAPs in projects with low-income grassroots groups. While providing grassroots groups with additional resources, these projects have also given progressive technology activists first-hand experience with low-income groups and their unique challenges. Some examples follow.

  • At the request of the New York Foundation we prepared and conducted a day long workshop on January 11, 2001 for its grantees, all community-based organizations working for the empowerment of low-income communities. We secured the participation of staff from Media JumpStart to co-facilitate the workshop. This type of workshop was a first for Media JumpStart, a Circuit Rider group providing technology assistance to a range of New York City non-profits, and we hope it will be the beginning of Media Jump Start's continued work with these community organizations.
  • To encourage NTAPs' involvement with low-income groups, the LINC Circuit Rider conducted a two-day workshop for Progressive Technology Project grantees on how organizers can use databases. PTP requested our involvement because it recognized the LINC Circuit Riders as the experts in developing databases useful to low-income community organizers.
  • LINC has worked closely with TechRocks on its provision of web assistance to WEEL.
  • We have advised Project Alchemy, a new network of social justice circuit riders in the Northwest, on how to work with low-income communities, and at Project Alchemy's request we helped facilitate its first series of workshops at the Western States Center's Community Strategic Training Institute in Portland, Oregon in August of 2001.

Capacity-Building Resource Providers: Capacity-building groups include organizations dedicated to the overall strengthening of grassroots groups. Partnering with these entities allows us to "train the trainers" to incorporate technology capacity-building in their strategies. During the past year we worked with the New York City Organizing Support Center (NYCOSC) on an ambitious technology pilot project conceived by NYCOSC to engage the youth leaders in the groups it serves. Together with NYCOSC staff we planned and conducted a series of workshops for youth leaders in 5 groups on databases, website design and development, other software applications, and desktop publishing. The workshops aimed to share effective strategies for using technology in organizing, provide an opportunity for young people to think about the relationship of membership development and organizing strategies to technology, and identify follow-up support needs. To complement the workshops we followed-up with technical support and training to staff and members of the participating groups. We gained valuable experience in partnering on an extended project with a new community of organizing groups. Our work was supported by funding that NYCOSC received from the Merck Family Fund.

Funders: In an effort to increase resources for grassroots groups over the long term, LINC has educated funders and potential funders of grassroots groups about the need to support strategic technology capacity-building. LINC staff has met with, consulted with or conducted workshops for a number of foundations, including the Funding Exchange and its 12 member funds, Open Society Institute, New York Foundation, and the Northstar Fund, on how to provide technology support for their grantees. We are especially pleased that the New York Foundation, which previously did not allow grantees' budgets to include a technology line, now has a special fund to support technology work. Using our knowledge of grassroots funding sources, we helped several groups, including WEEL and CVH, win funding for technology capacity-building efforts, including LINC services.

 

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