The Gilbert Center: Nonprofit Technology Planning and Implementation

Nonprofit Technology Planning and Implementation

Detailed Content Description | Related Reading | Faculty | Delivery Options

The last few years of technological change have brought nonprofit leaders enormous opportunities and challenges and that pace of change shows no sign of slowing. The potential to make the same mistakes over and over continues to be an issue for many organizations. Nonprofit leaders rarely have the time for conferences or workshops outside their issue areas. These seminars on Nonprofits & Technology will provide you with solid tools and guidelines targeted at your role as a decision maker.

Detailed Description

Section 1: What Every Nonprofit Manager Should Know about New Technology

Nonprofit Managers are hired for their leadership and management skills, and possibly their knowledge of their communities of practice and domain expertise. But unless new technology is central to your organization's mission, you're unlikely to have been hired for your technological know how. This seminar will cover:

requirements Documents: what they are, how to use them, how to get one written
prevent the worst and bring out the best: the care and feeding of technology staff
how new technology should and shouldn't affect the assignment of responsibilities
things you don't want to know: Deliberate ignorance as a strength

This seminar is right for you if you are responsible for budget and staffing of a division or organization, if you are ultimately responsible for the outcomes of programs that involve new technology, but are not a technologist by training.

Section 2: Creating Synergy between your Technology and Communication Staff

The new technologies that have most affected the work of nonprofits in the last decade are primarily information and communication systems and networks. This has brought two sets of professionals into day to day contact: the technology staff who are implementing new tools and systems and the professional staff who are responsible for the communication that is the lifeblood of an organization. This seminar will cover:

communication Centered Technology Planning: what it is, why it matters, and how it works
common conflicts: how to prevent them or turn them into opportunities
how to structure decisions for maximum cooperation

This seminar is right for you if you've ever had to deal with conflicts between technology staff and other parts of your organization, if you think there are untapped synergies among your staff, or if you want to learn more about how to focus your technology on the communication needs of your organization.

Section 3: Organizational Change Management and New Technology

New technologies can have profound impacts on your organization, sometimes leading to major changes and disruptions. At the same time, good leaders are struggling to make sure that the strengths of their organizations are preserved or, preferably, enhanced, through the use of new technology. This seminar will cover:

how to smooth the path of adoption of new technologies
how to identify and leverage the strengths of the organization in new tools
the myth of technophobia and the opportunities of resistance to change

This seminar is right for you if you have been frustrated either by the resistance to adoption of new technologies or the belligerence of technology advocates, or if you have a vision of a more effective organization and you want technology to play a role in getting there.

Related Reading:

Here are a few related articles by Michael Gilbert. They are listed in chronological order.

Faculty:

Michael C. Gilbert

These seminars will be taught by Michael C. Gilbert, the author of Communication Centered Technology Planning, the only book of its kind for this profession. He was the Founding President of the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network, the professional association for nonprofit technology consultants and staff. He is the Editor of Nonprofit Online News, the longest running online newsletter covering civil society and the Internet. For more information about Mr. Gilbert, please see his bio.

Delivery Options

Our pre-packaged online seminar here consists of three 90 minute sessions.

Live Online Seminars: These are presented at a scheduled date & time, broadcast live, and include live Q&A time with the instructor. Live online seminars presented by The Gilbert Center are open registration seminars, which means that anyone can attend. Please see our calendar for upcoming events. You can also read technical requirements and other basic facts for this seminar delivery option. (Please note that our calendar of live seminars only goes out a couple of months and not all topics will show up there.)

On-Demand Online Seminars: On-demand means you can attend at a time that is most convenient for your schedule. It consists of the recordings of the most recent live presentation, and comes packaged with a 30 minute phone consultation with the instructor so you can ask questions about the seminar materials and how they can best be put to use in your particular situation. You can also read technical requirements and other basic facts for this seminar delivery option. The catalog of seminars available on-demand is listed down the right-hand side of that same page, and also the calendar page. (Please note that not all topics are available yet for on-demand viewing. See the On-Demand Info page for a complete list of current options.)

Private In-House Sessions: If you have a group of people to whom you would like to offer training, please consider our private, in-house seminars. Which means you can hire us to present this and any of the seminars listed on this site, as well as custom sessions, for your group privately; online or in person at your location. Please contact us for more information if you're interested.