nonprofit training – TechSoup Asia Pacific

Mapping NGO Capacities Across the Region

Looking at a room of 30 people from all walks of the nonprofit sector, I wasn’t sure my planned session was going to work. The participants represented very diverse causes – from HIV intervention and prevention, cultural restoration and preservation, empowerment of rural farmers, faith-based child protection, food wastage, disability rights, to LGBTQ and gender rights. Would they be able to relate to each other’s challenges, goals and missions?

That first session, and the four more over the next few months worked. Feedback from participants were positive, “This is exactly what we needed : someone to help to identify our pain points, and map out a plan to help us achieve our goals.”

Others echoed the same sentiment: “It is easier when we map out the goals, determine the most important one, then list the things we need to do to achieve the goal. It was helpful to learn to prioritize, and see how much technology is needed in each action. Otherwise, we just don’t know where to start, or how to start.”

Having designed and facilitated five workshops for a variety of nonprofits from 15 countries in the region, including the Federation of Micronesia, an important theme has become clear:

As TechSoup continues to empower civil society around the world, it has also become part of our goal to help the nonprofit sector map out a sustainability path. By helping nonprofits list out their goals, map and prioritize major steps in their action plan, it is also imperative for TechSoup to help them understand the role of technology in achieving their goal. Ideally, this reduces the fear of having to embrace and implement technology, all at once.

Over time, we hope that these nonprofit organizations with great visions, can take the lessons learned from the small workshop sessions and use that to pave successes ahead.

How Digital Literacy Affects Nonprofits

“Anyone here uses Skype for international calls?”
Sheepish grins around the room, then silence.
“I know little bit lah, but not so pandai (clever in Bahasa Malaysia). Can teach Aunty?”

Jpeg — Enthusiastic learners from the nonprofit community in Johor

This was the typical response we received during our training for nonprofits: they’ve heard, they’ve seen, but never explored.

Be it Skype, Slack, MailChimp, Outlook, Google Drive, or WordPress, they’ve definitely heard of one or more of these tools, but not ventured very far.

At the TechSoup Asia-Pacific roadshows in Malaysia, I observed that each group (geographically divided) had varied technology skill sets and gaps.

In Johor, the southern part of Peninsular Malaysia, their skill gaps centred on free communication and social media fundamentals such as Skype, basic Facebook marketing and free newsletter softwares such as MailChimp.

The majority of the civil organizations in Johor Bahru who attended our event were technology newbies: beginners who were just understanding the power of the Internet and social media. They had little knowledge of digital security, websites, or social media. These participants would be a perfect Digital Literacy Basics 101 group.

In Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the country, city folks sat on the intermediate scale of digital literacy. This Basic Intermediate 201 group were the ones who had toyed around with social media tools, promoting their fundraising events on Facebook and regularly posting updates as part of their public awareness and outreach. They understood cost savings from digitizing their work. They understood the impact of a powerful one minute video. They understood regular communication and updates are part of a wider PR and Marketing strategy.

Nevertheless, they were still eager learners. The trail of questions continued trickling in:

“How do we sign up for GoogleAdWords for nonprofits?”
“Can you teach us more about cloud computing?”
“What other products from the TechSoup Asia-Pacific catalogue would you recommend to my nonprofit?”
“Is it hard to make a website? Can you teach us to how to make one?”
“Will you host workshops on digital storytelling?”

Khairdah Mahmood during a half day workshop for NGOs — Khairdah Mahmood from TechSoup Malaysia during a half day workshop for nonprofits in Kuala Lumpur

Increasingly, nonprofits are realizing the benefits of digitizing their work and how digital literacy impacts their organization, internally and externally.

In the coming months, the TechSoup Asia-Pacific team will be hosting webinars, conducting face-to-face workshops, and continue enabling technology to nonprofits across all sectors, so that they can continue to make a difference in Malaysia and the world.

Microsoft Technology for Good Singapore 2016

Enabling – This was the prime focus of the Technology for Good half-day conference held last 10 December 2016 at Lengkok Bahru, Singapore, organized in partnership with Microsoft Singapore.

As part of the larger Microsoft We Tech Care conference held by Microsoft Philanthropies Singapore that day, Technology for Good served as the opening session that catered for over 45 unique charities.

Stories of empowerment

Unlike most technology events, Technology for Good was centered on a unique premise: the stories of nonprofits. This was most evident in the opening sessions lead by Aude Breteau & Borko Kovacevic of Microsoft Singapore, along with Jed Adao of TechSoup Asia-Pacific.

This was followed by TechSoup Asia-Pacific’s Jed Adao who talked about the story of SCA Philippines and how they overcame their limitations in manpower through researching and implementing Office 365 donations on their own, thus allowing them to empower more youth in the Philippines despite having a small team of three.

Throughout the day, the participants learned success stories from fellow charities and watched live demonstrations of technology donations that are made available for them through the Microsoft donations program.

More ahead

This half-day conference is part of a larger initiative of Microsoft Singapore and TechSoup Asia-Pacific. In the coming months, TechSoup Asia-Pacific will be hosting a series of half-day trainings with Microsoft Singapore.

The upcoming half-day trainings will focus on giving local nonprofits a guided experience on utilizing Microsoft Cloud Donations in order to help them work collaboratively, optimize communications, improve data management, and many more.

As a follow-up to that as well, a free webinar will also be held to serve as a venue for nonprofits to clarify questions that they may have on these topics. These follow-up initiatives will take place on February to March of 2017.

For the full story, please click on the link here.