Holly Ross, executive director of NTEN (Nonprofit Technology Network), encourages and helps members to use technology as a catalyst for a better world. She uses her technology leadership and social media insight to plan and execute webinars, conferences, and research for the NTEN community and the nonprofit sector.

Prior to her work at NTEN, Holly worked for social change and then came to nonprofit technology at CALPIRG, an advocate for public interest, while receiving her education at UC Berkeley.

Holly is the keynote speaker for the Direct Marketing Association of Washington (DMAW) New Media Day (an event Geoff and Qui are co-chairing).

BB: Tell us about NTEN. Is it an organization, web tool or movement (or all three)?

HR: We ARE an organization, but it’s our members that make the organization matter.  So really, we’re a movement.  Through NTEN, our community is connecting with peers, learning from their heroes, and changing the world!   Individually, our members are working within their organizations to use technology to create change.  Collectively, the NTEN community is shaping how this generation of nonprofits will think about delivering services, raising money, and meeting the operational challenges we all face. 

BB: Where do you see NTEN having the greatest impact in the next two years?

HR: I think that technology leadership is the greatest challenge facing nonprofits today.  Effective use of technology can help us address so many of the problems that plague our sector, including declining donor trust, building efficiencies, and really measuring our outcomes, not our outputs.  I’ve blogged a lot about how communications technology like blogs and your web site can be used to make your organization more transparent, building and sustaining trust between you and your stakeholders.  As we enter this uncertain economic period, all of us will be called upon to deliver more services to more people.  Good back office technology systems can help us create the efficiencies we’ll need to serve more people.  Increasingly, technology can help us measure not just how many people we served, but how well we served them, giving us the quantitative and qualitative data we need to really understand and articulate our impact.

Also – and I think this is the most important thing – nonprofits are about reaching out to and empowering their communities. Individuals are increasingly using technology to connect with one another, share information, and act on the issues we care about.  We have to understand the shift that’s happening and shake up our models of communications and service delivery to fit these new paradigms.  These new technologies – blogs, social networking sites, mobile phones, etc. – require that we move beyond translating our direct mail approach.  We’ll have to think up whole new ways of getting our work done.

Put all these things together, and it’s not hard to see that leaders in nonprofits have to start rethinking their technology strategies.  And the technology-abled folks within organizations need to gain the leadership skills that will allow them to bring the case for technology to their leadership more effectively.  NTEN needs to help both those audiences get there.

BB: Are there any challenges to getting there? (We know you’ll meet them head on – how?)

HR: There are a lot of challenges to addressing the leadership question.  But, the biggest hurdle we face when talking to nonprofits about technology is resistance.  It’s not the money, and it’s not the time.  It’s the unwillingness to embrace change.  The reason it’s such a big barrier is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

The key is recognizing that resistance to technology is not about technology at all.  It’s about everything but the technology.  People may be afraid of the new technology because they don’t understand it.  They may fear that the new technology will make their job change drastically, or eliminate the need for their job.  If you’ve ever had a discussion about databases with a communications AND a development staffer at the same time, you also know that technology can bring about rivalries and mistrust as well.

So it’s going to be a tough job.  It was tough enough when we wanted nonprofits to start using email communications more.  And then it was pretty straightforward.  The transition from direct mail to email is easy to understand.  Email is a lot like direct mail in many ways.  But now, we’re talking about communication methods that have no offline analogs.  Try explaining Twitter to a newbie.  It works unlike anything else.  To understand Twitter is to experience it.  But first you have to convince someone to try it.

I get discouraged from time to time and think that we’ll just have to wait for the kids who are in high school now to become leaders themselves. But, I’m assured that if we just keep preaching, the choir will eventually start singing.  NTEN intends to keep preaching the message.  We have a book coming out next Spring (Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Leaders), and we are also developing a fellowship program for IT Staff who want to build their leadership skills.

BB: "Technology" is a broad term. What kind of tech crowd is most drawn to NTEN’s community? (e.g., marketing, IT, web development, social media)

HR: We definitely have a little of everyone in our mix – it’s a very diverse crowd!  The nice thing is, we have places for folks of all stripes to hang out and learn from one another.  Out fastest growing segment of membership right now is definitely the marketing and fundraising crowd though.  Those folks have become accidental technology experts at their organizations and are looking for the leadership, ideas, tips and tricks that our community provides.  However, if you want to talk thin client virtualization or the latest in MySQL, we can do that for you too!

BB: You’re the keynote speaker for Direct Marketing Association of Washington’s upcoming New Media Day. What do you plan to tell the diverse audience of direct marketers from nonprofit, government and corporate agencies?

HR: The theme of my talk is "Lose Control."  No matter what your background in communications, that’s the strategy that you need to be thinking about these days.  We’re moving to a world where, increasingly, "Direct Marketing" is actually going to mean "Direct Listening." You won’t be in charge of telling people what to pay attention to anymore.  Your job will be to create opportunities for your stakeholders to experience your brand through conversations they create.  This means you’ll have to let go of your brand, give it to your stakeholders, and make the best of what happens.

BB: Is that a preview of the 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference?

HR: First things first, let me just say how excited I am that Clay Shirky (Here Comes Everybody) is keynoting!  Secondly, there will be some amazing communications sessions on the agenda, covering topics from e-newsletter basics to advanced social networking.  But we’re also giving our attendees a chance to experience the content, not just hear it.  We’ll be hosting a bootcamp based on our We Are Media project that will teach attendees how to use social media like blogs, photo sharing, video casting, podcasting etc.  Then, we’ll set you up with the equipment you need to practice those skills at the conference.  Most importantly though, we’ve got lots of amazing opportunities lined up for folks to meet their peers and build the network they’ll need to sustain the energy and implement all the ideas they get at the conference!