Transmission Project - strategy

SWOT Analysis

admin — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 18:36:53 +0000

A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis corps member Ericha Hager conducted at each of the stations participating in the NorCal Regional Collaborative to identify the best points of collaboration within the group. Ericha conducted individual interviews with staff members at each station (and in some cases, group discussions) and compiled a SWOT analysis focusing on the four areas of emphasis within the collaborative (production; education/youth media; fundraising; technology).

Why is technology missing from CNCS's strategic plan?

Ben Sheldon — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:45:31 +0000

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the federal agency that administers AmeriCorps, is readying its strategic goals for 2011-2015 [PDF]. Conspicuously absent from its goals or plan is nearly any mention of technology or media. Their proposed priorities are:

Economic Opportunity
Education
Environmental Stewardship
Disaster Services
Healthy Futures
Veterans & Military Families

Of course, technology and media can play an important role within each of these 5 priorities, but past experience has shown CNCS reluctant to explore solutions without an explicit mandate, despite a strategy to “Identify and invest in innovative local solutions, as well as the infrastructure that supports them.”

Explicitly acknowledging public media and technology infrastructure as a necessity in support of these priorities would enable many critical and impactful projects to receive support from CNCS; support for which they might otherwise be determined ineligible.

Where technology is mentioned is within CNCS’s strategic goal to fortify management and internal operations:

CNCS is committed to setting and sustaining the highest standards of stewardship. Thus building upon our current infrastructure, we will strengthen and stabilize our IT systems, grantmaking and grant management processes, human capital and transparency efforts so that CNCS is optimally positioned to enable grantees and service participants to succeed.

A focus on building IT capacity internally would be valuable, for example CNCS’s 2010 annual report recently announced “First high-speed internet access for 35 of the 52 field offices”.

Listening sessions with CNCS stakeholders [PDF] over the proposed 5-year strategic goals have identified the opportunity a focus on technology can offer for CNCS:

Challenges: Participants cited challenges related to access to opportunities, as well as at-risk populations in need of skills development and job readiness.

Opportunities: […] Additional opportunities exist to engage potential job providers and skill developers as CNCS partners and to advocate for the growing role of technology in employment and education.

Whether this stakeholder feedback will be integrated into CNCS’s strategic plan at an actionable level remains to be seen.

One place for optimism in the strategy brief is the strategy to “Embed service-based approaches with federal peers and partners that align with CNCS priorities.”

This strategy leverages CNCS’ national leadership role and potential to catalyze efforts that feature service-based solutions to pressing needs. For example, given our priorities in education, health, economic opportunity, the environment, military families and veterans and disaster services we will seek, and create where necessary, opportunities to partner and collaborate with other federal agencies and organizations. Specifically, we will prioritize those opportunities where national service combined with the capabilities and resources of our partners’ yields stronger, sustainable and scalable results.

The FCC’s National Broadband Plan recommends just such a partnership between CNCS and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)—Recommendation 9.3—in the creation of a Digital Literacy Corps. Time will tell whether CNCS or NTIA will have the capacity to develop such a large-scale partnership.

Despite the opportunity for federal-level partnership, much of CNCS’s resources are aimed at generating local non-profit partnerships. Without a specific focus on technology or media in CNCS’s strategic goals many innovative technology and media projects—and the individuals and communities they support—will not benefit from CNCS’s capacity-building service model.

More on learning from mistakes

Belinda Rawlins — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:22:11 +0000

No one is immune to making mistakes.
And I have to express admiration to those who will admit it, learn from it, and make the changes necessary to respond to it.
But to make mistakes and changes at such a high level and talk about it, well, that’s like superhero stuff to me.
Take this week’s announcement from the White House:

White House officials are retooling the administration’s communications strategy to produce faster responses to political adversaries, a more disciplined focus on President Obama’s call for “change” in Washington and an increasingly selective use of the president’s time.

The messaging adjustments are the result of an end-of-the-year analysis in which White House advisers said the president’s communications team had not taken the initiative often enough and had allowed drawn-out debates in Congress, and relentless criticism by Republicans, to drown out his message.

Sure, it’s a political move. But what do any of us do for our organizations that isn’t, in essence, a political move to build support and resources for us to do our work better? We constantly hone our messages, revise our plans, and change our methods.
If we keep our eye on the long view, know why we do what we do, and admit why we’re doing it, we can build movements built on trust and openness.
Administration, I say to you: Keep on learning.

Broadband Adoption Accelerators

Ben Sheldon — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:01:13 +0000

I’ve been taking time to digest the The Broadband Coalition’s report on Expanding and Accelerating the Adoption & Use of Broadband Throughout the Economy. What I appreciate most about the report is the systemic approach it takes: leveraging existing community infrastructure, programs and organizations while expanding their capacity to include broadband adoption and use.

I think the approach and recommendations from this report could quite easily be adapted to other media access and literacy campaigns.

The report defines Broadband accelerators as programs that:

• Promote and assist affordable home computer and Internet access.
• Are embedded in established community social and institutional networks.
• Are “High-touch” – based on personal interactions and relationships.
• Provide continuing formal as well as peer support to the new adopter through several critical stages of the “adoption curve”: engage, train, equip and support.
• Integrate basic broadband adoption with other strongly motivating opportunities, e.g. employment, education, public safety, healthcare needs, civic and neighborhood improvement.

This approach can be well-informed by the Community Technology Centers movement: while many centers were founded on offering computer training, they evolved into service centers specializing in employment, education, etc. Broadband adoption, like computer literacy before it, is a means, not an end.

To resource these changes, the report makes some key policy recommendations at each level of government:

At a national level, foster evergreen funding sources to support community efforts needed to help nonsubscribers become confident and effective technology users.

Encourage states to adopt policies and strategies that facilitate and support the building of community-based broadband access and adoption programs.

Encourage local initiatives and local funding to support community-based broadband access and adoption programs.

Technology Development is Organizational Development

Ben Sheldon — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:27:55 +0000

From the Aspiration Manifesto:

Technology challenges are organizational development challenges in disguise. Designing and redesigning web sites, developing online communications strategies, deciding who gets to blog, Tweet, and update social network status: these objectives tease out underlying issues of how an organization represents its work, talks about itself, and empowers its staff and allies to convey the same. Technology projects too often go awry not because of tech issues, but because an organization is not prepared to address the foundational dynamics that underpin effective technology utilization. Organizations should be prepared to do heavy lifting in challenging existing process (and/or the lack thereof) and associated control dynamics, and should treat technology engagements as opportunities to move to more transparent and accountable ways of doing business, communicating and affecting social change.

There is much, much more, including:

Technology without process is bad technology.
What has worked offline for generations still deeply informs what works best overall.
Nonprofits should never forget who technology leaves out, and what it leaves undone.

Marketing Plan and Target Market Analysis

Ben Sheldon — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:13:40 +0000

This Marketing Plan and Target Market Analysis brings together internal and external data points analyze and strategize around funding, volunteers and service provisioning. It was developed by VISTA member Mary Chant at MicroMentor in Portland, OR.

Creating Strategic Diversity

Ben Sheldon — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:53:15 +0000

Diversity is one of the core values that underly the Transmission Project, as well as throughout the not-for-profit world. Pulling from a different playbook, the following is from the Chief of Information for the US Navy for naval officers:

Leaders who embrace diversity and differing viewpoints and seek talent that embodies a broad range of life experiences ensure naval readiness today and tomorrow.
The Navy must reflect the face of the nation. Further, we want an officer corps that is reflective of the enlisted force it leads.
Obtaining talent from diverse populations across the U.S. strengthens the force and ensures forward progress.

It’s good advice for us with a quick search and replace of nouns. And of course, if you feel military thinking doesn’t apply to not-for-profits, just think about it next time you look at your strategic plan, develop your social media tactics and prepare for your capital campaign.

I found this quote from the Information Dissemination blog (“The intersection of maritime strategy and strategic communications”), and they have a pointed criticism that is also equally valid for nonprofits: diversity includes more than the factors involved between conception and 18 years old. If your staff all have similar work histories, or your leadership team all has similar management degrees, you haven’t achieved what the naval context calls command track diversity. Diverse professional histories are just as important as diverse personal histories.

Alliance for Nonprofit Management Annual Conference, 2009

Ben Sheldon — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:28:02 +0000

The Alliance for Nonprofit Management is holding their 2009 Annual Conference July 15 - 17. 2009 in Palm Springs California.

Delivering impact: Improving nonprofit effectiveness

With more than 30 sessions and workshops, the Alliance Annual Conference is designed by and for nonprofit capacity builders, nonprofit leaders, grantmakers and academics. Our goal is to provide you with the resources and tools that will enhance your skills and increase your nonprofit’s effectiveness and impact.