By Patty Courtright
In the 1800s, circuit riders made their rounds on horseback, bringing order and a semblance of civilization to frontier America.
Today, their modern counterparts visit remote as well as urban settings, delivering technology assistance to the nonprofit community. While they often consult face-to-face, they also rely on the telephone, e-mail and the Internet to communicate with clients.
Circuit riders help nonprofits improve their performance by assessing a group's technology needs, then designing and helping to put tech-based solutions into effect.
Sometimes, they focus their efforts on a specific geographic area, a particular constituency or a certain type of technology. In other cases, they provide widespread tech support. In all cases, they give a boost to organizations that lag behind in using information technology to achieve their mission.
Popularized in 1996 by the W. Alton Jones Foundation in Charlottesville, Va., to serve its energy-reform grantees, circuit riding has been adopted by several foundations as a means for nonprofits to work together and share resources.
Key to the profession's success is an understanding of the work nonprofits do, says Rob Stuart, director of the Technology Project, an initiative of the Rockefeller Family Fund.
"Groups that haven't necessarily embraced technology will begin to embrace it if it's explained to them by someone they can see understands the work they're trying to accomplish," he says. "A circuit rider that has experience in the nonprofit sector can translate tech-speak into people-speak and can reach a group that otherwise couldn't be reached."
The Technology Project uses circuit riders to help its grantees in New York City, California and Washington, D.C., and has future plans to serve the southwestern U.S. and either Alaska or the Northern Rockies as well.
To aid communication among the growing ranks of circuit riders, the Technology Project hosts the circuit riders listserv for e-mail discussion, as well as a professional development program called the Circuit Riders Ranch.
At the third Circuit Rider Roundup, held in conjunction with the Philanthropy News Network's June Nonprofits and Technology conference in Minneapolis, some 50 circuit riders from various backgrounds met to share their experiences as a way to increase the body of knowledge.
"We're bringing together folks that have been in the field several years with those just starting out," Stuart says. "We make a point to involve folks from different parts of the nonprofit sector. That way, riders active in arts or environmental organizations can work with those who usually help groups working with low-income people or senior citizens.
"We also discuss collective tools, ways in which electronic resources can reinforce an organization's day-to-day operations."
Creative solutions
Sean T. O'Brien, circuit rider for the past year for the W. Alton Jones Foundation, describes his task as providing wide-ranging tech assistance -- from the basics of teaching groups to use e-mail to networking an organization's computers to traveling to Bolivia to connect people to the Internet.
"Trying to work with everyone I want to help is the biggest challenge," O'Brien says. "Then there's the additional challenge of coming up with creative solutions to rock-solid problems that will work without a lot of maintenance and that are not very expensive."
Cindy Coffin, project associate with the Biodiversity Project in Madison, Wis., says the assistance O'Brien provided her nonprofit in setting up its Web site was invaluable. He helped the project decide which server to use, set up the accounts, acquire the necessary software and improve the computer network.
Essentially, Coffin says, the work O'Brien did saved the organization money and expanded the efficiency of its computer system.
"If I had to do all the stuff Sean did, I would have had to take special training," she says, "but with Sean doing all the background work, putting the information on the Web was really pretty simple."
Rosa Maria Ruiz, director of Eco Bolivia -- another project helped by O'Brien -- says the insight he provided was invaluable.
"Unlike someone whose focus is merely technical, Sean has a commitment to conservation and was therefore seeing our needs from a much broader perspective and with much more creativity," she says.
"He helped us establish something that adapts to our needs instead of trying to force us into a model that may be effective elsewhere but does not work for us."
Tech mentors
Tech assistance takes various forms. Besides people like O'Brien, who resemble the circuit riders of old, other nonprofits match mentors with organizations needing help.
San Francisco-based CompuMentor matches volunteer technical mentors with nonprofits and schools. Since 1987, the group has helped an estimated 6,000 organizations with such matters as training, troubleshooting, Web design and online support.
Nonprofits pay $175 for each mentoring project, which CompuMentor says covers less than half its staff time and overhead. Projects, completed within three months, are designed to address specific issues. While ongoing support is not part of the agreement, some client-mentor relationships continue beyond the original project.
To begin work, a nonprofit fills out a client questionnaire, available online. Then, CompuMentor and the client develop a work plan to identify and address the problem and pinpoint desired outcomes.
Once the fee has been paid, the work begins, and CompuMentor monitors the project's progress. At each project's completion, the client is asked to thank the mentor for his or her hours of volunteer service.
Many of the mentors have a long history of service with the group, and the projects on which they work are as varied as their individual interests. Mentors' expertise includes updating a group's hardware for better Web access, training staff to modify their databases for more efficient performance, adapting software to coordinate large-scale volunteer efforts and creating local networks.
Membership service
Newly formed Seattle-based NPower, which began operations in March, concentrates its tech assistance efforts on the Puget Sound area.
Funded by several groups led by Microsoft Corp., NPower is a membership organization whose members pay dues on a sliding scale. Its target clients are the nearly 1,400 public charities in a three-county area with annual revenues of $100,000 to $5 million.
Tech assistance plans for the first three years include offering technology education and resources for the community, a volunteer matching program, a community database of technology consultants and an online resource library. The group then plans to fund a circuit rider to assist individual nonprofits throughout Washington.
The organization's goal is to help nonprofits develop the necessary skills to use technology to achieve their mission.
Lessons learned
Whatever form assistance takes, technology solutions are not one-size-fits-all.
Organizations' attitudes toward technology range from "totally unnecessary" to a "necessary evil" to a "strategic advantage," says Trabian Shorters, circuit rider since last November for the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation in Washington, D.C.
"We must diagnose the culture of an organization before we prescribe a solution to its technology challenges," he says.
Having groups continue to integrate technology into their work long after the circuit rider has finished is an ongoing challenge, he says.
"Circuit riding is about giving new knowledge, not just new instruments," he says.
Stuart of the Technology Project says that opening a nonprofit's eyes to the possibilities that technology presents in increasing efficiency is key to having the group continue its use -- whether it permits stronger public information outreach, more efficient coalitions or electronic direct service.
"A lot of times we see light bulbs going off in directors' heads when they see what possibilities exist," he says.
On the other side of the funding coin, Shorters says, the biggest challenge often is getting funders to understand the importance, not just of technology, but also of the "networked economy." Foundations tend to approach technology from an industrial perspective, wanting grantees to construct infrastructures that reduce duplication of services, yet can be replicated, he says.
"Funders want to fund centralized facilities," he says, "but in the cause of getting nonprofits to use technology in mission-critical ways, a networked system is the only viable solution."
For more information, these groups can be contacted through their web sites or at the following telephone numbers: CompuMentor, (415) 512-7784; W. Alton Jones Foundation, (804) 295-2134; NPower, (206) 286-8880; Technology Project, (212) 812-4255.
