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Thursday, January 25, 2007
TechBridge: Providing IT help for non-profits
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Think about technology in the nonprofit sector and what’s likely to come up is an image of a few old desktops and a dot matrix printer.
But these days, the need for high-tech solutions to business problems isn’t an issue faced only by big corporations.
As it happens, Sandy Springs is home to one of a dozen or so organizations nationwide dedicated to helping nonprofits solve their technology problems.
TechBridge, itself a nonprofit organization, was founded six years ago to help bring tech expertise to nonprofits, said CEO Jack McMillan.
The organization, which has a $1.8 million annual budget, helps about 160 metro Atlanta nonprofits — including the Georgia Aquarium, where it maintains all 15 of the aquarium’s servers and its internal network, said corporate relations director Carrie Bates.
Where commercial IT vendors may charge $125 an hour for planning and support services, TechBridge charges from $57 to $85 an hour, depending on the size of the client’s budget, McMillan said. Ultimately, that means the money donated to those organizations can be put to more efficient use serving the organization’s mission — not its cranky computers.
“This is about cost effectiveness, this is about reaching constituencies more effectively, and it is about being able to carry out their day-to-day operations not only at a lower cost, but usually at a higher level of efficiency,” McMillan said.
That’s certainly true for the Gateway Center, a downtown Atlanta facility dedicated to ending homelessness.
Director Vince Smith said his organization couldn’t afford commercial IT services but has been able to directly affect the needs of metro Atlanta homeless because of TechBridge’s help.
The IT solution TechBridge put in place allowed the organization to take note of an unexpectedly large number of mental problems among homeless clients. The organization took the data to the state and won additional funding, which it now uses to support psychiatric services at the center, Smith said. While TechBridge isn’t in the business for profit, it still sees an opportunity for growth.
McMillan said about 1,300 nonprofits in Atlanta fall into the “sweet spot” of organizations with budgets from $750,000 to $2 million a year that are large enough to have sophisticated technology needs but not quite wealthy enough to catch the attention of for-profit technology consultants.
Right now, the organization’s operating budget is pretty much split evenly between fees for services and donations from corporate sources such as Accenture, Microsoft and Home Depot, as well as donations raised as part of its annual Digital Ball.
That’s the event where the organization announces its annual Innovation Award recipient.
The award recognizes good use of technology by nonprofits, and comes with some hefty rewards of its own — $15,000 worth of TechBridge Services, $25,000 in Microsoft software and a $5,000 cash award for the winner.
Last year, a nonprofit called CHRIS Kids, which serves victimized children, won for its use of a Web-based application to track client detail while maintaining privacy, allowing better tracking and outcome measurement and saving the organization time.
Learn more: Applications for this year’s Innovation Award are now open. To apply, visit www.techbridge.org.
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