PTP Blog

Organizer and author Paul Getsos, (co-author of “Tools for Radical Democracy” and former director of Community Voices Heard)  will help us kick off the Databases, and Technology Assessment and Planning Training, April 2-4 in Minneapolis, MN.

Paul’s joining us to share his experience and perspective on how and why technology, and in particular databases are a critical tool for building power.  As he and Joan Minieri wrote:

Organizing is ultimately about building and managing mass numbers of relationships.  A database offers the most effective way to track and manage relationships.

With a well-organized and well-managed database, you keep track of everyone who comes into contact with the organization. . . . Of all the technologies available for large-scale base-building, mobilizing, and leadership development, an easy-to-use database is the one technology that most effectively builds the power of an organization.

There are still a few more places available in the Database Training, so if you’re interested, click here to register.

Also, if you’re thinking about registering for our Voter Tech Training, and your organization doesn’t have a solid data system “footing,” you should really think about attending both April 2-4 Database training, as well as the Voter Tech Training.

I picked up this article by Eugene Eric Kim via Jon Stahl’s blog.

In it, Eugene writes about a training experience in which he clearly sees the impact of differences in technology understanding - what he calls the technology understanding gap:

The following day, I co-led a session on this topic with AngusParker. Two of the participants were dealing with the specific challenge of connecting members of a national network of leaders in reproductive health, so we used that as a case study. We decided to use Clay’s contention to frame the problem, resulting in this whiteboard:

What do you notice about this picture? Obviously, the Tools column is completely empty. That’s a dead giveaway that I’m facilitating this discussion. (That and the horrific handwriting.) Figure out the basics first. Don’t let the question about technology drive the discussion. During the discussion, one of the participants asked, “What tools can we use?” I responded, “Let’s not worry about that now.” So we kept talking and talking, and I noticed the two non-technical participants in the group squirming like crazy. So I stopped, noticed how gaping the Tools column looked, and said, “You’re uncomfortable about not having discussed the tools, aren’t you.” She nodded. “Don’t worry about it,” I responded. “The tools part will be easy, once we figure everything else out.” “Easy for you, maybe,” she said. “You already know what goes there.” That was not quite true, but I got her point, and the force of it struck me so hard, I had to stop for a moment. I looked at the gap, and I saw possibilities. She looked at the gap, and she saw a void. That was upsetting for her. It made it hard for her to think about the other aspects of the problem. It made me realize how much I take my technology literacy for granted. But it also created an opportunity to discuss how easily we are sidetracked by technology. “Tool” does not have to mean software, and making that assumption prevents us from exploring other viable, possibly better solutions.

Jon follows up with this observation:

often, people who are less technically literate think that if they only fill in the right answer in that middle “Tools” column, that their problems will all be solved. When, really, it is more important to get the Promise and the Bargain right. I like to call this pattern “magical tool thinking.” It results in a lot of wasted time and effort trying to identify that magical, right tool — effort which should go into thinking about process, objectives and how to sustain the non-technological parts of the organizing effort.

I couldn’t agree more - with both of them. In fact, it is this “Technology Understanding Gap” and the its impacts that Jon notes that we address with our Community Organizing and Technology Institute.

Our goal with COaTI - and really all of our programs - is to help organizers understand what’s possible with technology so that organizers can put the “tools” in their proper context and focus on the goals and strategy that should drive any technology’s use.

We realize that many organizers are not too excited about going to technology training. Probably because you think it’s going to be dull and impossible to understand.  Or maybe that the thought of spending days with geeks is more than you can bear.

That’s not what happens at a PTP training. We have fun. You’ll have fun — and you’ll learn a lot. What you learn will change your organization. It may even change your life!

Here’s what organizers tell us:

“We want to thank you all for the technical support and training and just your supportive solidarity as we have gone through two major enhancements of our technological capacity.”

“Thank you for a wonderful week of learning. You were all fabulous teachers, full of respect, patience, excitement and a dedication to social change and community organizing”

“please forgive for taking so long to send thanks […]. I got so much individual help as well as nicely paced group help for my computer needs.”

There’s just over a week before registration closes for PTP’s Community Organizing, Database and Planning COaTI and Scholarships are still available – see our scholarship info here.

What’s a COaTI?  COaTI (co-AH-tea)  – our Community Organizing and Technology Institute is PTP’s main training program, designed to increase your organization’s ability to use technology more effectively in your work. 

The first COaTI covers Databases, and Technology Assessment and Planning.  If you’re new to using a database to support your organizing work, or are interested in learning more about what’s possible with databases and how they integrate into your organizing work, this is the training for you.  Because database work can also lead to a desire for improved data or technology, we’re building in a Technology Assessment and Planning component to this COaTI as well.  You can view a sample agenda and get more information here.

The database COaTI kicks off our 2008 training season, but it isn’t the only training you can register for – go to www.progressivetech.org to learn about our Voter Tech Training, TechCamp, and Communications COaTI.  

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with any questions you have.  If you’re not sure about getting a scholarship, go ahead and register anyway – if it turns out you don’t receive a scholarship, cancelling your registration is easy.

Registration for the Community Organizing Database and Planning COaTI closes February 29^th.  Register today at http://www.progressivetech.org/Program/Training/course_application.htm

Only 14 more days to sign-up for PTP’s Training on Databases and Technology Assessment and Planning taking place April 2-4, 2008 in Minneapolis, MN

If your organization is looking to improve its database, this is the program to dig in and find out what PTP has learned from the best practices in the field.

Our Database, Assessment, and Planning COaTI (Community Organizing and Technology Institute) is designed for organizers who want to build up their database skills, develop a better understanding of what databases can and can’t do, and deepen their understanding of how a specific technology fits into a broader vision for your organization and its technology use.  This COaTI features a combination of large group, small group, and hands-on work. While we will provide computers for the training, participants are encouraged to bring a laptop and a copy of your organization’s database.

Registration closes in 14 days.  Click here to get more information and to register. Some scholarships available.

http://www.progresssivetech.org

a few weeks ago, I received a note from one of our funders asking if PTP used any pre and post program evaluation tools in our training program.

I freaked out.

I think I freaked out because the culture of non-profits trains us to be afraid of funders asking about evaluation. After freaking out, I wrote up what we did, and am posting that (with some small edits for clarity) here.

I don’t really know why we haven’t written about this before, since evaluation has been woven into our program design and thinking from the very beginning. I write this up not because I think we have the answers or are “doing it right” in every way possible. Instead, I write this up because I think that in many ways we are doing a good job, and because I want to engage more people in the question of how we measure and evaluate the impact of capacity building programs in general.

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From: Arif Mamdani
To: one of our funders
Subject: PTP COaTI Evaluation Tools

We use a series of evaluation tools as part of COaTI and are currently in the middle of a set of interviews with previous COaTI participants to try to assess the longer term impact of the program.

Through doing the COaTI program, we’ve learned that in general, when we first talk with groups about building their ability to use technology effectively, they tend to focus on lack of concrete skills. While this is definitely a challenge, our experience also tells us that groups often have weaknesses in other areas that hinder their ability to use technology to its fullest extent. These areas include factors like understanding of what is possible with particular technologies, capacity for training, access to quality technical assistance, and overall vision for how technology can complement and enhance their on-the-ground organizing work.

COaTI is largely designed to address the latter factors. Measuring progress with respect to these factors is in many cases much “fuzzier” than assessing whether someone has become more proficient with something like Microsoft Word, so we’ve developed a set of tools and in-session processes to help us gain a fuller picture of our impact. Finally, because many of these factors take time to change, we have tried to approach components of our evaluation process as an ongoing collaboration with participants, hence the interviews we’re currently engaged in.

So, here’s a summary of how we evaluate COaTI referencing the attached documents where applicable:

1. We try to have a conversation with every participating organization to get a sense of their “most pressing” technology capacity needs, and to encourage them to start thinking about their personal and organizational goals for COaTI
2. At the first COaTI session, we place participants into predetermined pairs and ask them to interview each other using a set of (suggested) questions that probe the individual’s and organization’s goals for participating in COaTI. In the setup for the interviews, we strongly encourage participants to use their buddies much like the “swim buddy” concept from summer camp – as a person to help them stick to their goals, a resource for ideas on how to maximize what they’re getting out of COaTI, and as a source of support in the frustration that can arise when tackling the issues that COaTI raises. We invite participants to report back to us on the results of the interviews. The set of questions we provide participants is here.
3. At the end of every day, we conduct an oral and written evaluation of the day. I’ve attached the written evaluation form we use.
4. Between COaTI sessions, we try to contact each group at least once to check-in with them on the progress of their COaTI tech projects, and see where and how they are making use of the material we’ve covered up to that point.
5. At the conclusion of the entire COaTI, we ask participants to fill out a longer evaluation designed to look at the impact of the entire program. I’ve attached the full program evaluation form (part one, part two).
6. Finally, this year, with three COaTIs completed, we are conducting a series of interviews aimed at understanding what aspects of COaTI had lasting impact on participants. Attached is the set of questions we’re using for these interviews.

So, evaluation is definitely part of what we do. Having said that, we always think we can do a better job evaluating our work. I’m curious about any questions, comments, or feedback you have about the process I’ve described here. Are there other organizations doing work similar to PTP who have evaluation models that you find particularly interesting? What types of tools have you seen used that have produced useful evaluation reports?

That covers the “standard” evaluation work that we do. We’re always refining and improving it, and I certainly see ways that we could develop a pre-COaTI evaluation that would provide us some comparison information for the final evaluation. Beyond evaluating the factors I’ve already listed, we’ve been doing a lot of thinking and exploring lately around a factor that we’re loosely calling an organization’s culture of learning. What we’re starting to see is that often, the biggest indicator of COaTI’s impact on an organization is the degree to which participants have real, concrete, internalized goals for their participation in the program, and their degree of commitment in reaching those goals. To some degree, it is a question of how actively each participant is engaged in their own learning process within COaTI. Additionally, we’re starting to see that COaTI has a greater impact in organizations that have a deep organizational commitment to learning and are open and interested in new ideas and ways of working. Of course, we have no idea how we’d go about assessing that - pre or post COaTI. As I said, this is an area of evaluation that we are trying to get our arms around – we’re not yet at a point where we even try to measure or assess this, and I’m very interested in thoughts you have in this area.

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So, that’s pretty much what I sent out, and I’d love to know what you think/do/wonder about when you evaluate capacity building work. Also, now that you know what we do, I’m curious about other things that you think we should consider adding to our evaluation process?

Almost the entire staff of the Progressive Technology Project is going to head out to the US Social Forum this afternoon and tomorrow.

We’re part of two sessions that are happening on Friday and Saturday, so if you want to catch us, here’s where to find us:

We’ll be hosting a poetry-slam style “Tech Slam” for the “Building Technology Skills, Building Movement: Organizing Technology Community of Practice” session on Friday the 29th. The tech slam invites you all to share your stories about how technology has helped your organizing work. We’re asking folks to follow a general outline of leading with the organizing challenge your organization faced, and from that, where and how technology was integrated in your organizing strategy and how it helped achieve your goals. We’ve got a number of folks ready to share their stories, including groups like Direct Action Welfare Group, Community Voices Heard, and Jobs with Justice, and you’re welcome to join in as well. There are even some prizes in the mix!

We’ll follow that up with a session called “Electoral Organizing + Technology = Power!” a session that draws from our recently launched Voter TechKit. In that session, we plan to interview Bineshi Albert from Sage Council (now with Center for Community Change) and Henry Serrano from Community Voices Heard. After we hear their experiences on using electoral strategies to complement their base-building organizing, we’ll dive into an area of technology that often causes consternation for folks doing voter work - the database. We’ll share what we’ve learned about source for voter data, along with a look at what the overall data cycle looks like. We’ll follow that by asking participating organizations to chart out their data-cycles and we’ll spend some time identifying areas where improvements could lead to greater ease of database usage. That probably sounds fairly dry and technical, but I promise that it will be fun and interesting.

See you in Atlanta!

As Mark has noted on his blog, we’ve semi-officially launched our Voter TechKit - a training resource designed to help 501c3 organizations navigate voter engagement work, with an emphasis on the technologies that support voter engagement.  Take a look and use the link along the bottom of the TechKit site to share your feedback.

We’ve got a limited number of scholarship available for our June TechCamp.  We’re reviewing scholarship applications on a rolling basis, so if cost was holding you back, head on over to the TechCamp page and register now.

this article suggests being very careful about how you use it:

“It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented.”

For more ideas on how use power point well, take a look at the Presentation Zen blog.

We wrapped up the first session of our in-progress COaTI on Saturday, and though the curriculum still isn’t where I want it to be, we’re steadily getting better.

One challenge that’s been on my mind a lot over the last few days is that we try to create a certain culture at COaTI - largely through a series of warm-up sessions that are designed to help foster a sense of safety, a sense of not being alone with technology challenges, and an understanding that peer knowledge is at least as valuable, if not more valuable than what the techies know. This presents a challenge because it takes time, and I think gets frustrating for some folks participating.

Right now, I’m not sure if and how to change that - shorten the “warm-up” maybe, or be more clear up front about the flow of all the sessions so that we’re clear about what we’re doing and why we’re doing.

We do try to do that at the beginning of every session, but I’m thinking that if we can really tighten up how to introduce the whole program at the beginning, things will make more sense to folks who are participating.