Here’s some talk about the use of technology in nonprofits straight from the horse’s mouth: an interview with Gavin Clabaugh, long-time IT guru at the Charles Stuart Mott Foundation. In this valedictory interview on leaving Mott, he reflects on where nonprofits have been and where we’re going in terms of using technology (and preventing it from using us).
Particularly thought-provoking was his observation that many nonprofits’ understanding of technology is fundamentally flawed, because it’s based on consumer uses of technology, many of which “do not scale” to enterprises, for-profit or not-for-profit.
How refreshing to hear an IT geek point out the importance of not getting carried away by the latest toy!
Kelly Kleiman, who blogs as The Nonprofiteer, is principal of NFP Consulting, which provides strategic planning, Board development and fundraising advice to charities and philanthropies. She is also a lawyer and freelance journalist whose reportage and essays about the arts, philanthropy and women’s issues have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and other dailies; in magazines including In These Times and Chicago Philanthropy; and on websites including Aislesay.com and Artscope.net.
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