May 18, 2000 | Read Time: 2 minutes
By NICOLE WALLACE
A new Web site, TechSoup, is designed to help non-profit professionals find answers to their technology questions — whether they are technology experts or not.
TechSoup is a project of CompuMentor, a San Francisco charity that provides technology assistance to non-profit organizations and schools. On the site, the organization presents its own articles and worksheets on a variety of technology topics, such as technology planning, hardware, and databases, and also links to information on other Web sites.
Jim Lynch, CompuMentor’s development director, explains that there’s already a lot of technology information for non-profit organizations, but that it’s scattered across the Internet.
“The work that really needs to be done is to start to capture all of that and put it all in one place that’s easily usable by folks for whom technology is not their main focus,” he says.
TechSoup also publishes news about non-profit technology and information about non-profit discounts on computer equipment and software. According to Mr. Lynch, CompuMentor hopes that the site will encourage computer companies to pay attention to the non-profit market in the same way they do to schools and government agencies.
Because CompuMentor anticipates that many TechSoup visitors will be “non-techies,” the site’s “tools” section includes an extensive glossary that defines technology terms. The section also features programs that users can download free, worksheets that they can complete online, and links to other resources.
The site’s “community center” offers stories on how charities are using technology in their work. TechSoup also publishes a monthly e-mail newsletter, By The Cup.
The project got off the ground in October with a $150,000 grant from the Surdna Foundation, in New York. Since then, CompuMentor has raised money for TechSoup from a variety of grant makers and technology companies.
Among the other organizations that have contributed at least $25,000: America Online and the AOL Foundation, CNET.com, the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, the Microsoft Corporation, the Morino Institute, Novell, the Peninsula Community Foundation, and the San Francisco Foundation.
To get there: Go to http://www.techsoup.org.
