Printer Friendly
The Free Library
14,693,900 articles and books
Member login
User name  
Password 
 
Join us Forgot password?

Powering Up.


Funder to boot up nonprofits

Helping nonprofits plug into technology will be the focus of a new foundation being created by the head of a Massachusetts group that provides long-distance service and tech help to nonprofits.

TechFoundation, which will launch in January at www.techfoundation.org, will act like a venture capital fund and a group-buying agent. The organization will also have offices in New York New York, state, United States
New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of
, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

It will raise money, make grants and provide tech consulting. It also will recruit donors, tech volunteers and tech companies donating or discounting products and services - and connect all of them with nonprofits.

The foundation has raised more than $2.5 million and will hand out $500,000 in its first round of grant-making in 2001, said David Altshuler, its executive director.

Altshuler, who in December will step down as executive director of TCN TCN Tetracycline
TCN transparent content negotiation
TCN Third Country National(s)
TCN Topology Change Notification
TCN Transportation Control Number
TCN Train Communication Network
TCN Transaction Control Number
 in Cambridge, Mass., said grants could range from $5,000 to $100,000 and will go to nonprofits with annual budgets of up to $15 million.

A big chunk of the foundation's initial funding was donated by Altshuler, who contributed proceeds from the sale of MAC Systems, a Philadelphia-based computer software consulting firm Noun 1. consulting firm - a firm of experts providing professional advice to an organization for a fee
consulting company

business firm, firm, house - the members of a business organization that owns or operates one or more establishments; "he worked for a
 he sold in 1999.

The foundation wants to invest both in nonprofits that need tech help and in nonprofit tech providers that support nonprofits, so grants in the first funding round in 2001 will focus mainly on collaborative efforts involving nonprofits and their tech providers.

A key goal of TechFoundation will be helping nonprofits create a "systems" environment that builds technology into their ongoing operations and planning, and involves all levels of management.

Foundations team up

A new group has been formed to offer products and services to community foundations - and its pilot project is to develop software to handle back-office transactions.

That pilot effort of the new Community Foundations of America in Louisville, Ky., has secured bridge financing Bridge Financing

A method of financing, used by companies before their IPO, to obtain necessary cash for the maintenance of operations.

Notes:
These funds are usually supplied by the investment bank underwriting the new issue.
 from four foundations investing a total $750,000.

Ivestserve in East Stroudsburg, Pa., is developing the software, which will handle accounting, investing, grant-processing and other financial and administrative tasks. The software should be available next spring to community foundations that subscribe to Verb 1. subscribe to - receive or obtain regularly; "We take the Times every day"
subscribe, take

buy, purchase - obtain by purchase; acquire by means of a financial transaction; "The family purchased a new car"; "The conglomerate acquired a new company";
 Community Foundations of America, which will work like a buyers association akin to Sam's Club Sam's Club is a membership-only warehouse club owned and operated by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. History
The first Sam's Club opened in April 1983 in Midwest City, Oklahoma in the United States.[1]

Sam's Club is named after Sam Walton.
, said Carla Dearing, CFA's president and chief executive officer.

Formed a year ago by 26 community foundations, CFA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986) Signed into law in 1986, the CFA was a significant step forward in criminalizing unauthorized access to computer systems and networks. The Act applies to "federal interest computers" that include any system used by the U.S.  has more than 100 subscribers representing nearly one-fifth of U.S. community foundations, she said. It merged in February with the Community Foundations Strategic Alliance, a group formed three years ago to find ways to improve members' tech use and ties with the financial services The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page.
 industry.

CFA aims to identify community foundations' needs for products and services, commission their development and field-test and distribute them.

In its first three years, it hopes to raise $7.8 million to develop a full range of Web-based tools and products that also can handle development, grantmaking and relationships with financial firms.

Foundations helping to finance development of the first set of back-office tools include the Cleveland Foundation Established in 1914, the Cleveland Foundation was the world's first community foundation. In 2007 it ranks as America's third-largest community foundation, with assets in excess of $1.9 billion and annual grants surpassing $85 million. , Baton Rouge Area Foundation Baton Rouge Area Foundation ("The Foundation") is a community foundation dedicated to enhancing the quality of life in Louisiana's capital region. Over the past 40 years, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation has responded to the wishes of it's donors, the concerns of it's , Community Foundation for Greater Memphis and Greater Kansas City Kansas City, two adjacent cities of the same name, one (1990 pop. 149,767), seat of Wyandotte co., NE Kansas (inc. 1859), the other (1990 pop. 435,146), Clay, Jackson, and Platte counties, NW Mo. (inc. 1850).  Community Foundation.

Grassroots tech help

Small grassroots groups in the Pacific Northwest will be eligible for tech assistance from a new initiative backed by four foundations. The Project Alchemy initiative aims mainly to help small social-justice groups assess their tech needs, but it also will offer services ranging from training and consulting to troubleshooting and volunteer-matching.

Because the four foundations decided that they lacked the know-how to assess the tech aspects of grant requests or grant-applicants' tech needs, Project Alchemy will serve both the foundations and grantees with annual budgets of less than $300,000.

Some services will be free, while others will be fee-based on a sliding scale slidĀ·ing scale
n.
A scale in which indicated prices, taxes, or wages vary in accordance with another factor, as wages with the cost-of-living index or medical charges with a patient's income.
.

The four foundations are contributing $10,000 each, and Project Alchemy plans to raise the bulk of its operating costs for the first three years from larger foundations and individuals.

The group will have its own board and staff and will work in collaboration with other tech providers, including ONE/Northwest, a Seattle nonprofit that provides tech services to conservation groups in the region, and NetCorps, a nonprofit in Eugene, Ore., that recruits students to put their tech know-how to work for nonprofits.

Funders include: A Territory Resource, Pride Foundation and Women's Funding Alliance, all in Seattle, and McKenzie River Gathering in Portland, Ore. The initiative is headed by Andrew Himes, former director of Internet publishing for Microsoft.

NetCorps grows

NetCorps has opened an office in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina North Carolina, state in the SE United States. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean (E), South Carolina and Georgia (S), Tennessee (W), and Virginia (N). Facts and Figures


Area, 52,586 sq mi (136,198 sq km). Pop.
 -- its first satellite operation. "We need to develop a pool of technically savvy young nonprofit leaders," said Matthew Latterell, the group's interim executive director.

The group, which aims within a year to connect up to half-a-dozen students from Raleigh-Durham colleges with local nonprofits, plans to make the office its regional base, expanding to other areas of the state and nearby states.

Online mart

The i2 Foundation has launched aidmatrix, an online marketplace that aims to connect donors with humanitarian and disaster-relief charities and speed and improve delivery of relief items such as food, clothing and business supplies.

aidmatrix, which hopes to raise $100 million for an endowment, will team up with ResourceLink, an online project of Hewlett-Packard that has helped support the distribution of more than 10 million pounds of food for America's Second Harvest America's Second Harvest is a United States based nonprofit organization. It consists of a nation-wide network of more than 200 food banks and food-rescue organizations that serve virtually every county in the United States as well as Puerto Rico. , the national network of more than 200 food banks and food-rescue programs.

aidmatrix, whose partners also include the American Red Cross American Red Cross: see Red Cross.  and CARE, plans to increase the number of charities participating in its online marketplace.

The group also hopes to team up with leading suppliers, manufacturers and distributors of aid items, and with transportation companies, to help them manage donations and liquidate excess and obsolete inventories.

The i2 Foundation is supported by Dallas-based software maker i2 Technologies.

Todd Cohen cohen
 or kohen

(Hebrew: “priest”) Jewish priest descended from Zadok (a descendant of Aaron), priest at the First Temple of Jerusalem. The biblical priesthood was hereditary and male.
 is editor and publisher of Nonprofitxpress, an online newspaper at www.npxpress.com.
COPYRIGHT 2000 NPT Publishing Group, Inc.
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2000, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

 Reader Opinion

Title:

Comment:



 

Article Details
Printer friendly Cite/link Email Feedback
Author:Cohen, Todd
Publication:The Non-profit Times
Geographic Code:1USA
Date:Dec 1, 2000
Words:987
Previous Article:Registration Fees, Taxes Kept Legal Eagles Very Busy.(Brief Article)
Next Article:Super Highway.
Topics:



Related Articles
The New Electric Power Industry.
Invensys Acquires Best Power.
Power-One Finalizes the Acquisition of HC Power Inc.
Power Play Technologies, Inc. Organizes Power-Course Educational Program; Training Providers Can Now Offer Premier HP OpenView Technical Training...
Environment - Friendly Power Proves Popular with Angelenos.
Active Power Successfully Completes First Major Telecom Continuous Power System Development Milestone.
Synopsys' Power Compiler Added to Oki Semiconductor's Advanced ASIC Design Kit; Power Compiler Delivers 'Push-Button' Power Optimization For Deep...
Emerson Offers 'Always On' Network Power Solutions That Provide Protection for Power-Critical Businesses.
GE Sending 131 Megawatts of Distributed Power Capacity Into Energy-Hungry Western U.S.
TradeFair Group purchases Power mags.

Terms of use | Copyright © 2009 Farlex, Inc. | Feedback | For webmasters | Submit articles