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, 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 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 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 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 Community Foundations of America, which will work like a buyers association akin to Sam's Club, said Carla Dearing, CFA's president and chief executive officer.

Formed a year ago by 26 community foundations, CFA 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 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, Baton Rouge Area Foundation, Community Foundation for Greater Memphis and Greater Kansas City 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.

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 -- 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, the national network of more than 200 food banks and food-rescue programs.

aidmatrix, whose partners also include the American 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 is editor and publisher of Nonprofitxpress, an online newspaper at www.npxpress.com.