Way back when (last month – I’ve been busy) Deborah Finn blogged about the "New England School for Circuit Riders." That blog entry came about because she and I had a long conversation about what kinds of skills nonprofit technology providers needed, and what we felt was missing.
Hot on the heels of that (OK, not so hot – about 3 weeks later) I had a great conversation with my old colleague Marc Osten about some work Lasa is doing around providing support to technology providers in their neck of the woods (that’d be the UK.)
I realize that we’ve been having this conversation ever since NTC used to be called the "Circuit Rider Roundup." Its not that there is a lack of technology vendors and support. It’s that there is a lack of really good support – responsive, empowering, educational, integrative, and knowledgeable about, and invested in, the sector.
For those of us who’d like to see organizations get better support – how do we do that? I think part of the answer has to be to provide the resources for people to become better providers – whether it be to help budding accidental techies get off the ground to become great IT staff or independent consultants, or helping individual and small consulting firms learn what makes really good nonprofit support.
There are many challenges – how do you teach self-reflection and self-evaluation? How do you teach the ins and outs of the nonprofit sector? How do you get providers to invest time and energy in what is really a marginally profitable business?
I don’t have too many answers today, but living inside the questions for a while is always a good start.
