Tech Advice for Non-Profits: TechSoup

A great place for non-profits to look for articles and advice in the technology field is TechSoup. They have articles discussing all aspects of technology and tech support as well as other topcis. A recent article gave advice and how to best utilize volunteers. There is also a very good article on ensuring your mass emails are not classified as Spam.

TechSoup also runs TechSoupStock, a marketplace offering reduced price software. They have amazing deals on Microsoft software but be warned - you can only order Microsoft products once per year. Read the details. They also have software from Macromedia, Symantec and Intuit.

One of the best features of TechSoup is the Discussion Area. Check out the discussions on hardware, software, fundraising and a host of topics.

Aaron Price Fellows Start Internship

Three high school seniors who are Aaron Price Fellows have begun a 6 month internship at the San Diego Futures Foundation. The mission of the Aaron Price Fellows program is to enrich the lives of a diverse group of high school students so they become responsible, caring members of their community.

Annette, Andre and Monica will assist SDFF staff in all our programs and learn about both technology and non-profit organizations.

Welcome!!

National Engineering Week Planning

Futures Foundation Staff participated in a meeting sponsored by Qualcomm to promote activities during National Engineering Week, www.eweek.org. The San Diego region shares a nationwide crisis of too few students pursuing math, science and engineering college degrees. In a world-wide marketplace, the U.S. needs to stay competitive by producing for engineers and scientists. E-Week is part of a national effort to promote this beginning in elementary school and continuing through high school and into college.

Foster Families Receive 100+ Computers

We've partnered with San Diego County's Foster Family Licensing program this year to get refurbished computers to families raising foster children. This past week we gave out 101 computers. Our total for 2005 is 506 computers to Foster Families!

The parents are universally so thankful. And the children who came with them were pretty excited to be able to use the computers.

We owe a big thanks to Suzanne and Lamisse from the County. And an even bigger thanks to my volunteers: Mike, Julie and her two high school interns, Christine, Scott, Manny and a bunch of high school interns who helped clean and prepare the monitors and computers: Fong, Boun, Annette, Andre, Monica, Christian, Le, Sergio and Lupita.