NPower Greater DC Region
Julie Chapman declared on her graduate school application that she wanted to develop business-world skills and bring them back to the nonprofit world.
After spending ten years at MCI Communications during its "heyday" and creating a marketing and management consulting company with a client roster that included American Online and Verizon, she decided to take a sabbatical which would ultimately lead her to that graduate school goal.
Chapman devoted the extra time to her family and also volunteered as a consultant for several nonprofits, including Technology Works for Good, a technology service organization that helped nonprofits use technology more effectively. Chapman observed first-hand how often technology inefficiencies created major problems at many otherwise highly effective community-based organizations, often pulling staff away from their mission-critical program work.
In addition, many nonprofits simply couldn't afford dedicated technology staff, but were often brought to a full stop when things would go wrong with staff computers. "Nonprofits use technology to send health records to insurers, to schedule an appointment with a counselor for a homeless family, to show results to a funder," Chapman says. "There's no way you can run an effective nonprofit, especially in this increasingly competitive environment, without having appropriate technology."
Technology Works for Good became NPower Greater DC Region, and Julie was asked to become their president in early 2003. "NPower helps nonprofits and executives think through their choices. We often work with organizations that haven't made an investment in technology for three, four, five years so everything needs to be replaced. It's far better for them to have a plan, where they can purchase a third of their hardware and build it in to their budget or fundraising."
One example shows the impact good technology consulting can have on a nonprofit. NPower worked with a nonprofit that helps low income people file their taxes. The technology is simple: an internet connection and a printer. But without the technology, eager volunteers are left powerless to get started, and harried clients who have taken three buses to the site are left to wait. With NPower's help, the fourteen tax sites ran smoothly, nearly 6,000 returns were filed, and more than $5.6 were back in the pockets of people who really needed it. "That's powerful," Chapman says. "A little bit of technology, but a lot of impact." In 2007 NPower launched a new service, NPower ON!, which provides clients with a wide range of routine services—such as software updates, backup monitoring, removal of viruses and spyware—remotely online.
The nonprofit world is a different one from the for profit world where much is taken for grantred. "I worked in companies that grew so dramatically," Chapman says. "That kind of progress and growth is kind of slow in the nonprofit world where you have no investment capital. But I just know that what we do makes a difference—this work is more rewarding than I ever knew was possible."
