KungPowThinking

In the past week I’ve had almost identical conversations with two of my friends. One friend I’ve known since high school. He’s in the middle of the process of creating a 501 c 3 non-profit focused on creation of sustainable communities using cool new stackable hydroponic growing technology. My other friend is a director at a non-profit focused on aging research and resources for the elderly. Two very different guys who don’t know each other focused on two very different problems. Interestingly enough they both have the exact same problem. The problem is that non-profits are notoriously bad at managing their data.

My friend who is starting his non-profit ran square into the reporting issue while applying for 501 c 3 status. From what he tells me, there are a fair number of hoops that must be jumped through during the application process and even more required when applying for grants. He mentioned to me that two things became apparent during the process. One is that it is very difficult to find funding for a startup non-profit, and the other is that it is even more difficult to find the data to create the projections necessary for an accurate plan. He mentioned that the government provides census data, but after that the real detailed data is decentralized in the hands of existing non-profits who tend to store their data in massive Excel spreadsheets, on hardcopies filed away, or in custom legacy systems no one can use.

My friend at the existing non-profit told me a story about his first month there when he realized that almost no one who worked for him really knew how to use a computer for anything other than entering data into spreadsheets. He mentioned trying to gather reports and having to sort through giant printed pages of data before almost giving up entirely. He ended up having to let people go and appointing one of the few employees who understood reporting, an ex-banker, in charge of working with him to centralize their data. They’ve bee working on it for a while and still aren’t done.

Hearing these stories really upset me for a couple of reasons. The first is purely economic. I know quantifying the dollar value of the social good produced by non-profits is not really the point, but there must be some accountability considering the current state of the economy and the likelihood that services who can’t prove their worth will be discontinued. The lack of decent reporting technology, tactics and know-how makes this accountability inaccurate at best and impossible at worst. The bottom line is that any business run using the reporting tactics of non-profits would cease to exist very very quickly. The second thing that really bothered me was hearing about all of the extremely important data, the kind of data that gives real insight into what is happening in people’s lives, being hidden away in boxes in backrooms and warehouses. Non-profits gather tons of data. In fact, many non-profits are focused on doing nothing but gathering data, but there doesn’t seem to be a reliable way for them to share their findings or for anyone looking to provide services, including the government, to access the data without a monumental effort.

After hearing all of this, I did some quick Googling, because I know absolutely nothing about non-profits or about which inexpensive tools they actually have access to. What I found in my ten minutes of online research pointed to software solutions for helping non-profits manage their organizations. Software targeted at managing staff, fundraising, web site content management, email newsletter tools, etc. What I did not find was a centralized place for them to store their data that would allow others to access it. So that they could share their findings and work together. Now I’m not saying it doesn’t exist. I didn’t look very long and my friends just might not be aware of the solutions, but I’m guessing that this central data repository doesn’t exist for a few reasons. The main reason being that the data gathered by within each non-profit sector can be dramatically different and very difficult to reasonably store and query - a pretty big technology problem. Another being that traditionally non-profits do not have a lot of money or expertise in technology and have cultures that tend towards “old school” thinking. Things like giant spreadsheets, hardcopies and legacy custom databases are very likely to be the norm given their culture and budgets.

If I’m right and this problem is real, there’s also opportunity here. There’s opportunity for some business to put a solution together that could help solve the problem and probably make a reasonable amount of money doing so. For some reason I see Google as the perfect business fit. But better than a business opportunity, there’s an opportunity for the Open Source community to solve a real problem and do some material good in the process. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that this is the perfect problem for the Open Source community to tackle because it will take good technology and lots of motivated folks to find the answer - oh and non-profits as individual organizations really don’t tend to have much money to spend on this kind of thing until the value can be proven and the budgets put together.

So, here’s my plan to help. First, I’m writing this rambling blog post on my site that receives approximately ten visitors per day. Second, I’m asking that anyone reading this post who knows more about non-profits and technology solutions please comment and leave links to available resources that my friends might be able to use. Third, I’m asking that anyone involved in the Open Source community please seriously consider this as a problem to tackle. I’m certain there will be many appreciate people out there and plenty of glory if it can be solved.