Nonprofit organizations and modern technology have a lot in common. One of the biggest things is that both focus considerably on sharing information. Think about it. A nonprofit’s goal is generally to draw attention to a cause…to get people talking about it. So much of today’s technology is also focused on communication. Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are all tools for sharing ideas with the masses.
There’s a very interesting site that marries these two ideas quite nicely. I recently came across MAP TechWorks and was pretty pleased with the peer-to-peer information sharing going on via the site. Nonprofit professionals from all over are able to create videos in which they share their experience, expertise and best practices with others in the field.
Where corporations might be more focused on secrecy and protecting their systems and ideas, nonprofits tend to do the opposite. When one organization finds something that works, the idea will generally be shared throughout the sector. One organization often works to lift up others doing good works.
MAP TechWorks has been around since 1979, offering a variety of consulting and recruitment services, but the site seems to take their work in a fresh new direction. Professionals can simply visit the site and view interviews where other nonprofit personnel describe their challenges and solutions regarding technology. So far, it seems that most of the organizations involved are located in Minnesota, and there is a call out to interview more professionals.
There isn’t a lot of content on the site at this point, but it seems like such a great idea that I wanted to share. It seems easy enough for them to expand to perhaps accept videos from far-flung organizations and to really build up a comprehensive library of useful tech-related advice.
