A Peek Inside

I've been working on a handful of planning documents for SDFF over the last few weeks. One is related to the expansion of the San Diego Broadband Initiative. The other is a white paper I owe to one of our funders.

Since the document is being written for the potential benefit of other communities who may wish to put a program like ours together, I'm going to try and make it as thorough and detailed as possible. To do so, I realize that I need to include some of the "intangibles" that have made SDFF successful. That's easier said than done, considering that those intangibles include unique people, experiences, and philosophies. I hadn't given a lot of thought to the "depth" of this document before I started writing it but now that I'm into it a bit, I realize there are certain "trade secrets" that need to be shared.

From time to time I plan to post excerpts of the paper to this blog. The excerpts will include some of the basics like "find a reliable source of hardware, get a supporter with unrestricted funds, hire some interns, and go forth". But it will also include some of those intangibles I mentioned. I think for just about any successful organization, whether "for" profit or not, the things you can't see or don't read about in press releases are usually the things make the biggest difference.

As someone who worked for a Fortune 500 company not long ago, it's still strange to think that sharing the "company secrets" is a good thing. But in the world of doing good, it really is.

Microsoft Office Live: Gettin' Real

I'm writing this blog using the Web-based version of Microsoft Word. Yes, you read that right; Word for the web, and it works. If you're keeping up with developments in the software, browser, search worlds, you already know that Microsoft and Google are going at it on many fronts nowadays. Both have browsers (MS Internet Explorer and Google Chrome), search engines (Bing and Google), and applications (MS Office and Google Docs). I have to admit that the competition Google is giving Microsoft is probably good for the industry on the whole but it's getting to be a chore keeping up with and evaluating all the different features and developments, and particularly what they mean for our customers. As a provider of technology and technical services, SDFF must keep up, evaluate, and make recommendations, so here's a little background on Office Live and, in particular, Word.

Getting Started

To use it, you need to navigate to office.live.com. If you don't have one, you'll need a Live account. MS logins have their heritage in the legacy Hotmail and Passport, but these days you can think of Live as just another login to web-based resources and services. And what you get with Live is a TON of stuff. The other Microsoft "legacy" that is being left behind, at least for now, is cost; Office for the Web is free.

Office Live Home

The Office Live interface gives you the option to create new Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote files. Simply click the button, name the file, and start working. From the home screen you can also view the files you've already created and any files you've shared with others. This is the web, sharing is easy.

Working with Word

Once you create a new Word document, a new interface will open and provide tools that are similar to what you would see in the desktop version. The main menu consists of File, Home, Insert, and View. Obviously this is not the desktop version of Office 2010 but it offers most of the basics you need (in fact, some might argue you need a whole lot less than what the desktop version offers so here is your alternative).

The editing and formatting tools consist of:

• Full cut, copy, paste
• Font control including 20+ of the most common fonts, plus styles like bold, strikethrough, and highlights
• Basis paragraph formatting including numbered lists and bullet points
• Styles
• Spell Check
• Tables
• Pictures, Clip Art, and Hyperlinks

Among the common uses that the online version doesn't offer include:

• Page layout tools such as landscape versus portrait
• Columns
• Table of contents
• Editable styles
• Editing in the Reading or Page view

The good news is, for the more advanced stuff, there is an "Open in Word" button, which I just did and I am now editing the document in Office 2007. When I do a CTRL-S to save, it saves to Skydrive, not to my local disk. There is obviously no “go back and edit in Word Live” button in the desktop version so I close and reopen. But not before changing the page orientation to Landscape. I just repoened the document online and, going to the "View" tab I check out the Reading View and voila, my document is Landscape.

I haven't tried any of the more advanced features like Tables of Contents linked to heading styles yet, but I think this application has a lot of promise. As a sidenote, I've decided to marry my browsers, search defaults, and apps to their developers in order to compare experiences, so when I open IE, for example, it runs the Bing Toolbar and when I open Chrome it loads the Google Toolbar. Microsoft has really upped the ante and has moved much closer to a more complete, web-based work and search experience with Office Live.

Word.

Software and the Social Enterprise

This week, Google announced the development and availability of several products in their “Apps” suite that were in beta or available only to select businesses and individuals. SDFF has been using Google Apps for email and calendar-sharing for about six months. This blog analyzes the need for and availability of critical productivity applications, and evaluates the potential benefits Google Apps provide.

Social enterprises (also known as nonprofits) are no different than any other business when it comes to software requirements. In fact, I would argue that social enterprises require more software and expertise than the typical for-profit business does. The reason is because social enterprises have a “triple bottom line” to track and report.

The triple-bottom line requires that you accurately track and report multiple sources of income for individual and multiple programs, report individual and multi-funder financials, report cash and in-kind matches and, on top of all of that, track and report all of the demographic and social outcomes expected from each grant or funding source (except good ole’ earned income).

My background is in the for-profit sector and I can say without hesitation that social enterprises are more difficult to manage primarily due to these reporting requirements. And, oh by the way, very, very few funders will allow their money to be spent on “overhead” like hardware, software and the systems nonprofits so desperately need to actually provide the information funders expect. “But,” as Carl the FedEx presentation guy says, “I digress.” (If you want to read more about that unfortunate situation, please take some time to visit uncharitable.net).

So software is really, really important to the social enterprise, and like any other business, social enterprises gravitate to the industry standard, which is Microsoft. Fortunately, Microsoft products are available to social enterprises at very, very deep discounts. What’s not so fortunate is that Microsoft puts restrictions on the number of titles that can be ordered and the number of orders that can be placed in a certain timeframe. A nonprofit with ~20 or more employees needs:

• A productivity suite - Office 200X
• A collaboration platform - Sharepoint with Client Access Licenses
• A mail server - Exchange with Client Access Licenses
• An operating system - Windows 7
• A server - Windows 2008 Server with Client Access Licenses

Unfortunately, that is more titles than Microsoft will allow to be purchased, and a social enterprise doesn’t have to be very big to exceed the number of total copies of software that can be ordered. This all adds up to the medium-sized social enterprise having to consider other options.

What About Google Apps?

In December of last year, our organization switched from Exchange to Google Apps for mail hosting. I have to admit that I wasn’t completely on board with this idea. I will also admit that I am actually a fan of Microsoft in many ways, and that Microsoft has been good to SDFF.A Microsoft representative has been on our Board since we formed in 1999. But my ambivalence regarding Google Apps wasn’t a matter of being beholden to Microsoft, it had more to do with “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But our Manager of Tech Services wanted to switch for three main reasons:

1. Reduced internal technology overhead (goodbye Exchange server)
   
2. Bigger mailboxes and less mailbox management
3. Better mobile interface

The migration didn't come without some pain. We experienced delays in mail delivery for a while (some mailed delayed by weeks), the implementation caused some confusion and fairly significant downtime for staff, and most of the value was experienced by the IT department, not the end users (“why are we doing this again?”).

So we come to today and the introduction of Wave for Google Apps, not to mention a slew of other products and services including the Google Chrome Web Store, which makes everything about Google Apps more interesting.

And wouldn’t you know it, the subject of our next Microsoft order is on the front burner. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, we can’t order everything we need, and NOBODY FUNDS OVERHEAD, so something has to go. I guess the plan to move back to Exchange can be dropped.
Needless to say, we’ll be taking a much closer look at what Google Apps can do for us and our customers in the coming weeks.

Related Links

San Diego Futures Foundation
Google Chrome Web Store
Google Apps for Nonprofits
Google Announcements
Uncharitable.net
Stanford Social Innovation Review, Nonprofit Starvation Cycle

The San Diego Futures Foundation (SDFF) was created to help bridge the digital divide in San Diego County. Among it's programs, SDFF provides technology services to social enterprises.

SDFF's Move to Social Media

SDFF has been using online tools and resources including our website, this blog, and eNewsletters to promote our programs and services for several years. To a minor degree, we've used them as a vehicle to raise funds for financial support and to promote fund raisers. Of course, in order for online campaigns to be successful, people need to know they're there. In the past, online campaigns had to be combined with print or other advertising in order to capture as much of your target market as possible. But, thanks to technology and the growth of social media, that need too changing.

Part of our mission is to help nonprofits stay current on technology. To date, our efforts have been focused on networking technologies, desktop PCs, and software. We currently provide network and desktop support to more than 30 nonprofit agencies in San Diego, some of whom have outsourced their entire IT operations to us.

As social media sites like Facebook and Twitter become more prominent as business tools, it makes sense for SDFF to use them more prominently in our own marketing campaigns and to offer our skills and abilities as a service to other nonprofits. As I stated earlier, we aren't new to social media and online tools, so we have experience to offer now, but the value of these online resources is something more nonprofits should know about and take advantage of, and our role is to demonstrate that value and help nonprofits get the most out of it.

Expect to see a lot more use of social media from SDFF, even "firsts" and "exclusives" offered via the various outlets (inlcuding this blog). I would be remiss if I didn't end this post without asking you to follow us now on Twitter and Facebook.

Read This Book

Just about anyone who has worked with me (or had lunch with me) over the last couple years knows how I feel about nonprofit funding and the associated strings.

Nonprofit execs know what I’m talking about. Ninety-nine times out of 100, funders allow minimal or no expenditures on “overhead’, which includes things like rent, utilities, and marketing. Businesses are systems, and “overhead” is an absolutely essential cog in the wheel. Removing it only damages the system and makes it less effective.

Consider what would happen if you went to your favorite department store and, approaching the checkout counter you said, “I really love the clothes you sell here and I believe you are a knowledgeable and trustworthy merchant, but I’ve decided that you can’t use my money to pay for the lights, marketing, staff, or anything else that not directly related to the production of these items.”

And then you put additional terms on the sale. Talking now to the store manager you say, “additionally, I’m only going to give you 50% of the total price of these items. You’ll need to get the other half from someone else. I’m also only going to give you half of my payment now and before I give you the other half you need to give me a report that shows how many jobs were created and saved from this sale, how many total people benefitted, and the demographics of those impacted. On top of that, I also want to know what percent of your salary is being paid from this sale, I want the names of the people paying the rest of your salary, how much they paid, and I want to see what you’re going to provide as an in-kind match to the 50% I’m going to pay you.”

If I told this story to anyone unfamiliar with nonprofits they would think I was completely insane. And yet, this is routinely how nonprofits are expected to operate. Funders almost always have those expectations while, at best, allowing up to 15% of their funds to support all of the resources necessary to generate the reports and provide the information.

Having said all that, I completely agree that funders have a right to know what impact their funding is making and how their money is being spent. But here’s the problem; the vast majority of nonprofits have neither the systems to track the data and generate the reports nor the funding to acquire or develop those systems. It’s virtually a no-win situation and one that sets up nonprofits to have far lesser impact than they otherwise may have. Worse than that, it creates an environment ripe for bad data.

Real Change Can Happen

Last week I was in San Francisco attending the Social Enterprise Alliance's World Forum. On the final day I found myself listening to a keynote that echoed my sentiments and validated everything I had been talking and complaining about. The speaker’s name was Dan Pallotta, and as it turns out, he wrote a book about it called Uncharitable. The Stanford Social Innovation Review says 'deserves to become the nonprofits sector’s new manifesto.'

Now, before I send you off to Dan's site -- and I truly hope anyone who reads this blog visits it -- let me address the most likely argument against this message.

One of Dan’s claims is that nonprofits should be allowed to pay their executives competitive salaries. Competitive to some might be "too much" to others. But Dan suggests that, by limiting salaries of nonprofit staff and executives, the “best and brightest” stay away. He’s right about that. There are some in the nonprofit sector, agencies and funders alike, who disagree, and who feel that salaries and operating expenses should be restricted in order to free up as much money as possible for programs or "the cause". I completely respect this position. It's noble, and I suggest that those who feel that way should simply opt-out of the discussion and continue operating on shoestrings.

The nonprofit sector is evolving. And only when nonprofits begin operating more like for-profits, overhead and all, will true impact be made.

Read the book.

Social Networking as a Managed Service

I recently met with a client of ours, a well known nonprofit in San Diego, to discuss "all things technology." The services we provide to them today are generally related to their corporate network; remote monitoring, server maintenance, and assorted hardware and software troubleshooting. They have a really nice website and we've never talked much about whether they needed our help in that area. But in the course of the conversation I asked why they didn't have a Twitter account. My customer looked at me and said, to my surprise, "we really need your help with that. It's just too much."

Being part of a technology-based organization, I tend to take some things for granted. We have a staff of 20 and most know to some degree HTML, various CMSs, social networking, and all the desktop apps. Staff have Twitter accounts, we have a Facebook account, and even our own social networking site with thousands of users just in San Diego. I casually suggest to our service clients that they consider using social networking tools as part of their marketing strategy. But I never follow up. That's because I never considered it a managed service or one that we could provide. The conversation I had that day made me realize how wrong I was about that.

Social networking and the array of related on-line tools used for marketing can be just as complicated as managing file servers, mail servers, and security. As I write this, a Tweet pops up telling me that Google is starting a certification program for AdSense. To me this all points to social marketing as a managed service.

The app that tipped the scales, I think, is Twitter, which landed shortly after FaceBook started to catch fire as a great marketing tool. Since it arrived on the heals of Facebook, and because it was promoted heavily as a marketing tool-for-the-stars, many of our clients viewed it as “just another social networking site.” The general attitude seems to be that it's just too much to try and figure out.

Where have I heard that before?

The Accidental Marketer

Nonprofits have a word for the person whose job is not to provide tech support but they do it anyway. They're called the “Accidental Techie”. This person can be in-house staff with a technical background, a volunteer, an intern, or even a family member. Rarely do nonprofits receive funding or have budgets for full-time staff or even hardware and software upgrades for that matter, so the support job often falls to whoever is available and willing. Clearly this is not the best solution, and is one of the reasons SDFF was created. We’ve seen plenty of Linux, Windows 2000, and Exchange Servers deployed and then abandoned by boyfriends and cousins.

Likewise, most nonprofits can’t afford, nor do they need, full-time marketing staff, even though marketing is a crucial component of their fund-raising efforts. Fortunately, nonprofits have been able to get by, for the most part, with the “Accidental Marketer” sending the occassional enewsletter, press release, or postcard. Social media tools change that, and it will be very difficult for most nonprofits to keep up. They can't afford not to.

As a service, the managed “suite” includes the org's website, at least one blog, and the major social networking resources (Facebook and Twitter). The devil, though, is in the details, which includes:

• The plan


• Comprehensive


• Strategic


• Frequently monitored and updated

• Multiple contributors


• Trained staff


• Multiple social media accounts


• Search engine optimization


• Search engine account management
  
  
  • Google
  
  
  • Bing
  
  
  • Yahoo


• Social networking account management
  
  
  • Facebook
  
  
  • Twitter
  
  
  • Verticals


• Bookmarking account management


• Analytics


• Search advertising


• Reports and Metrics


• Goals, Objectives, and Outcomes


• Frequent attention!

Nonprofits need to be as efficient as any other business does in their marketing and fund-raising (selling) efforts. But the tools have changed. They are powerful and require more time than the Accidental Marketer has to learn, use, and follow effectively. For small to medium-sized nonprofits (not to mention regular for-profit businesses), social marketing should be considered as a managed service.

Next: And you thought you already knew your customers!

The Social Enterprise: SDFF Part I

Some time last year I was introduced to the term "social enterprise". This is an organization, I suppose it could be a for-profit but most often a nonprofit, whose mission is to serve the community but also to earn income that helps sustain the organization. It took a while for me to grasp the term social enterprise until I realized that that was what my organization had become over the last several years, whether we called it that or not.

I was "loaned" to SDFF in 2000 while working for SAIC, a large, for-profit and employee-owned engineering and contracting company based in San Diego. Honestly, I didn't know much about nonprofits other than the few networking groups I had joined and participated in over the years (I actually started one called the San Diego Digital Media Association prior to the advent of the Netscape browser but I'll save that story for later).

SDFF's mission is/was to close the digital divide in San Diego. We accomplish this by taking computers that the County of San Diego is replacing, refurbishing them, and donating them to SD nonprofits, schools, and families. For the first several years, that's all we did; give away computers. But having a technical and particularly services background, it made sense to me that we should offer technical services and any other kind of service that fit with our mission, for a fee. Our Board at the time wasn't completely interested, but things changed.

Catching Up

It's only been four years since we updated our blog. Obviously we've been busy and the blog ended up on the backburner. Since our last post here in 2006, our organization has grown from six employees to more than 20. One of the main reasons I added this post and updated the blog is because we are becoming much more active in eMarketing initiatives and particulary the use of online tools and social networking technologies to promote our business and those of our clients.

So what has changed at SDFF? First and foremost, we have evolved significantly into a "social enterprise." According to the Social Enterprise Alliance, a social enterprise is:

'An organization or venture that achieves its primary social or environmental mission using business methods. The social needs addressed by social enterprises and the business models they use are as diverse as human ingenuity. Social enterprises build a more just, sustainable world by applying market-based strategies to today's social problems.'

Our enterprising efforts include:

1. Technical services - this department provides professional technical services
on various contracts to more than 25 nonprofits in San Diego, and the number is
expected to grow significantly as our services and abilities mature. This
department completely sustains itself.

2. Hardware services and recycling - this department also sustains itself through revenues generated from computer refurbishing, recycling, and repair services. Our programs and the number of PCs we distribute are expected to grow significantly over the next couple of years, and we expect the hardware deparment to continue providing valuable services to the community.

3. Community Technoloyg Programs - this department features programs such as DiverseCity Tech, eLearn2earn, the San Diego Broadband Initiative, and our various training and employment services. Each program offers far more than should be covered in a blog, and they have all garnished exceptional funding support in the last few years, enabling us to continue offering services a no-cost or very low cost to nonprofits and families.

Expect to see frequent updates to this blog but not so much in the way of "advertising" or press releases. The focus will be on trends, developments, and decisions, both internal and external, that affect our organization and those of our clients and partners.

SDFF, County of San Diego, & Laura Bush Foundation Help Re-establish Gulf Region School Libraries

Working together with the San Diego County Supervisor Greg Cox and the Laura Bush Foundation, SDFF helping First Lady Laura Bush’s initiative to ensure that the Gulf Region School libraries are functional and ready to serve all students’ educational, cultural and informational needs with the latest state-of–the-art technology. SDFF is sending 150 computers to 10 Gulf Coast School libraries who are re-building after the hurricane disaster of 2005.

This was made possible with the support from Michael Moore (San Diego County’s Chief Technology Officer), San Diego County Library, AT&T, and the Laura Bush Foundation.

Newsletter Article Thanks SDFF

The Spring Community Options Newsletter includes an article highlighting SDFF's donation of 15 computers:

As often as you replace your computer, an organization must do the same. San Diego Futures Foundation (SDFF) replaced fifteen of our obsolete machines with gently-used computers. San Diego Futures Foundation provided 15 refurbished Dell Pentium III desktop PC’s, along with 17-inch-monitors, keyboards, mice, and cords. San Diego Futures Foundation’s computers, which have been slowly installed over the last few months, were previously used by the County of San Diego. The donation helped Community Options replace computers, which should be done on a routine basis to decrease lost productivity and inefficiencies. Yet replacing all of Community Options’ computers would be a costly endeavor. San Diego Futures Foundation’s computers will be used to replace staff computers as well as those used by individuals in our site-based programs. A big round of thanks goes out to the SDFF and their generous donation.

We're always pleased to hear back from organizations that have really utilized their computer donation!

Thanks to Community Options for their important work: "We envision a society where having a disability is neither a stigma nor a barrier to opportunity and equality."

AOIT students broaden their horizon

Recently, Academy of Information Technology Interns at SDFF have begun providing technical desktop support to City Heights Community Tech Center. Functions include PC maintenance, troubleshooting, loading and reloading software applications, and installing new hardware as needed. This provides a valuable experience of sharing expertise, providing assistance the community, and improving one's résumé.

SDFF HELPS A NEIGHBOR

SDFF donated 2 computers to the Terralta Neighborhood Association which represent a neighborhood within City Heights. Our full time intern, Jerry, set them up and installed modems so they could connect to the internet. These computers will allow Terralta Neighborhood Association perform their regular day to day operations.

Blogging for Nonprofits

There is a good post at NetSquared on how nonprofit organizations can use blogging - click here.

SDFF has been asked by a number of organizations about how to use blogs. The best way is to determine why and how you want to use it. Who is the audience? Then just start. Blogging is more informal that a press release. SDFF uses it to give people unfamiliar with us a "snapshot" of what we do.

SDFF Supports County's Strategic Initiatives

SDFF is supporting the County of San Diego’s Strategic Initiatives, which are to improve opportunities for children, to promote safe and livable communities, and to ensure environmental preservation, quality of life, and economic development. A recent example is SDFF's donation of 50 computers to San Diego Youth and Community Services. San Diego Youth and Community Services mission is to help at-risk youth become self-sufficient and reach their highest potential by investing in them, strengthening their families, and building their communities.

If your organization provides such services or related programs, or in need of technology support, please complete our online application.

Former Intern Wins Film Competition

Angel Munoz, The SDFF Intern of the Year, is a member of a Hoover High School team that won the grand pize in the My City Now Future Filmmaker National Contest. Entitled "The Painting of a Culture", their video represents Chicano Park in San Diego and it's amazing murals plus the rise of a hardworking culture. Angel and his team did part of their film editing at the SDFF Tech Center using a digital video editing workstation donated by Dell Computer.

Congratulations to Angel and his team members.

Digital Divide Network article features SDFF

SDFF is featured in an article on the Digital Divide Network (DDN) website. DDN describes itself as the Internet's largest community for educators, activists, policy makers and concerned citizens working to bridge the digital divide. The article describes SDFF programs and includes quotes from several people helped by us.

Click here for the full article.

Our Outdoor Wireless Network

With a generous donation of equipment from Avaya and bandwidth from Cox, we were able to build a wireless network in City Heights. The network serves three sites, two of which are low income housing projects.

You can view a map of the area covered south of our offices here. Price Charities was also generous enough to donate roof space on the highest building in City Heights (pictured above) for our antenna placement. The network has access to our content filtering device so the connected computer labs are protected from questionable browsing habits.

With the exception of a few windy days and maintenance, the network has been going strong for nearly two years and we plan on keeping it running for the foreseeable future.

Showcase and Awards Ceremony

SDFF is having an Open House on Thursday, February 2 at our Tech Center in City Heights. It is a showcase of our activities and will include an awards ceremony for our Intern of the Year and Volunteer of the Year. Congratulations and thank you to Angel and Mike.

Contact our office if you are interested in attending. Hoover High School interns will be showing their computer projects. Aaron Price Fellow interns will be talking about their experience learning about databases and web portals. Staff will also be available to talk about our consulting work including our web design projects.

See you there.

Thanks to our largest Donators of 2005

The Futures Foundation receives a substantial number of computers annually as a result of our Corporate Recycling Program. Key partnerships with business, academia, professional organizations, and nonprofits are behind the success of San Diego Futures Foundation programs. These innovative partnerships result in donations of computer hardware, software, peripherals, technical services, human capital, and the funds required to conduct meaningful technology inclusion programs. These donations to the Foundation help alleviate the digital divide in San Diego County and ensure that all San Diego County residents have access to the technology resources that many of us take for granted.

We would like to take this time and Thank some of our largest contributors of 2005:

Other pivotal corporate partnerships include:

The First American Corporation
San Diego County Health & Human Services Agency
CoStar Group
San Diego State University
Premier Inc.
L3 Titan
Pt. Loma Nazarene University
SemTech
CancerVax
Biosite
San Diego County District Attroney
Miro Technologies
Lender Support Systems
San Diego Volunteer Lawyers Program
Nolte Associates
San Diego Public Law Library
The Aspire Group
Napster

Thanks again to all of those who have made this effort possible. We look forward to working with you on future donations.

Sometimes the computer problems are low-tech

TechSoup just highlighted an article in their recent newsletter that is very helpful. Entitled "How to Clean Your Mouse: An Illustrated Guide", it's a really useful article when the most frustrating thing going on with your computer is a dirty mouse. If you have a computer lab - get some users to do this for you.