But many others have been frustrated as they wrestle with increasingly complex hardware and software, hampered by a lack of technical expertise, unable to raise funds to get the equipment and training they need, or perhaps merely skeptical about the need to change. This growing gap in the technological capacities of nonprofit organizations has attracted increasing attention from policymakers, corporations, grant makers, and nonprofit groups themselves. But people first have to see technology as a primary means for resolving social ills. Many nonprofit groups are already pioneering innovative uses for technology. Health workers in remote areas use telecommunications to relay patient X-rays and other test results to specialists in urban hospitals for diagnosis.
Counselors use pagers to stay in touch with kids with spotty school attendance records.
A group that helps battered women puts a personal computer in a hospital so victims can apply for court injunctions against their abusers from the safety of the emergency room. Yet other organizations find it difficult to envision benefits sufficient to justify the investment of scarce resources in high-tech equipment. He is trying to change that by developing material interesting and useful enough to lure low-income organizers online, spreading the word that such information exists, and generally helping groups imagine how technology can further their missions. Grassroots activists are more effective, they say, when they can collaborate with one another and lobby public officials online and broadcast their message directly to the public. Yet many of the nonprofit groups created to serve those same constituencies find themselves ill-equipped to lead the way into the Digital Age.