Nonprofits vs. The Enterprise

I’ve not posted in a while because I’ve been distracted.

I want to focus more of my time here and entrepreneurially in the not-for-profit sector. I am trying to get my arms around a synergy to be had with nonprofits that will reap both the obvious organizational benefits as well as financial benefits for the nonprofit. Actually, I have the model – it’s a matter of getting the right players involved.

As much as I see huge benefits (and business opportunities) to be had in the enterprise arena, the current technology infrastructure, culture, business models, resistance to change, and artificial risk aversion present too many obstacles to get these kinds of solutions implemented quickly. What I’ve seen to date is a laboriously slow process of testing the waters.

At least in the nonprofit arena, the only real obstacle is changing habits.

Nonprofits typically have lots of people (staff and volunteers) doing lots of things (internally and for constituents) with limited resources (technology, budget, people, AND time). It’s easy to say, “Well, wikis are free. Just download one to a server, and start using it”. Easier said than done in a fundamentally non-technical environment.

There is an economic model in all of this, but first thing first….

I could really use some real world examples of nonprofits using wikis (hosted or installed) in a ‘Private’ manner that clearly demonstrates how the nonprofit members AND the nonprofit itself are really benefiting through more effective collaboration and service delivery.

Any examples out there that you can share? Comments from wiki vendors and developers are certainly welcome, but I’m really looking to hear from some actual nonprofit organizations. Keep it anonymous if you wish, but just tell us how you’re using it and how it has benefited the organization.

Comments

[davidwilcox]

You wrote: at least in the nonprofit arena, the only real obstacle is changing habits.
... well, yes, I wholly agree - and that's the tough one. I find that generally in the nonprofit field maybe one or two people in ten will move beyond basic email and web usage to try new tools. They are busy, under-confident with tech, lacking in-house training and support, with managers that are probably even less confident. Of course there are exceptions - but I think we need to look at the real benefits wikis and other collaborative tools can offer and the realities of introducing those benefits to people. If anyone has done that, I'm really interested too!

[kris olsen]

David - Thanks for the input. I'm not diminishing the significance of 'changing habits' - it IS the primary obstacle. The problem with the 'Enterprise' is all the other obstacles that distract from focusing on the adoption issue.

My other thought in this model is coming up with an economic carrot that motivates organizations to more proactively promote usage of collaborative tools.

Its going to be an interesting effort.