On Dec 13, 2006, at 6:47 AM, vhalfpenny wrote:

> So one thing that I am realizing in working in the nonprofit sector
> and having just recently done a presentation for a class that I am
> currently taking, I realized that people have a really skewed way
> of viewing the cost of technology.  When I tell people that there
> are low cost providers for Nonprofits or ways to get discounted and/
> or free equipment or training, people don't get it.  They think
> every database is tens of thousands of dollars and that isn't the
> case.  They also think streamlining something into one systematic
> process into a database isn't possible, again because they think it
> will cost to much time or money.  It just seams to me that
> nonprofits limit themselves. That they think just because they are
> nonprofit, that they can't do and/or have certain things. There is
> this misconception of cost and the lack of understanding that you
> don't have to be rich to do these things. So, I was just curiuos if
> other individuals felt this way as well and/or what can the sector
> to to combat this attitude.

Thank you. I think that is actually very common. Some of it is simple
ignorance, of course. That's easily corrected on a one-on-one basis,
but hard to correct on a large scale. The motivation to learn has to
come before the new information, which usually means that
relationships need to be in place for the learning. Some of this is
also a reflection of the sector's culture of scarcity (about which
I've been writing at http://authentic.gilbert.org). We can't afford
it -- that's a mantra for a great many of us. How to fight that,
given how it's a reflection of the larger culture, is not at all
obvious to me.

Furthermore, as my friend and colleague Put Barber has written, we
also have a problem with a culture of entitlement in our sector.
Nonprofits expect to get things for free. On the surface, this may
seem to be the opposite of the culture of scarcity, but I see it as
the flip side of the same coin. I have seen people jump easily
between the two, with no middle ground.

-- Michael


Michael C. Gilbert -- mcg@...
The Gilbert Center: Good Ideas, Good Communication, Good Work

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