Empowering Nonprofits in Technology

ENTECH (Empowering Nonprofits in Technology) enables nonprofit organizations in Southeastern Wisconsin to use knowledge, strategies and options that strengthen their information technology capacity.

OUR CORE PRINCIPLES:

ENTECH exists to support local nonprofits, and we believe we can best support them by adhering to our core principles:

.  Independence. ENTECH provides impartial services designed to serve the best interests of local nonprofits. Too many nonprofits rely primarily on vendors for technology information and recommendations; the result is often a sales pitch instead of an evenhanded assessment. ENTECH is not vested in any particular technology, solution, or provider.

.  Knowledge Sharing. ENTECH gathers data and provides analysis on technology issues that matter to nonprofits. Through conducting technology assessments and preparing recommendations, we are able to produce sector-wide analyses and provide documented knowledge in our reports, our online Knowledge Guide, and our technology conference.

.  Sector-wide Advocacy. ENTECH advocates making technology planning and analysis a priority for nonprofit management. Too many nonprofits fail to plan for technology implementation, training, and upkeep, and the result can be cost overruns and inefficient technology use. We work to provide nonprofits with tools and information that can help them better make their own independent decisions, use what they have, and plan for what they will have.

.  Collaboration. Because ENTECH works and interacts with a broad range of organizations in the Milwaukee nonprofit sector, we are in a unique position to identify opportunities for cost sharing and partnerships across organizations. We seek to promote such collaborations by identifying, arranging, and supporting cross-organizational efforts.

.  Empowerment. Most of all, ENTECH seeks to help make organizations more knowledgeable and self-sufficient, and better able to identify and develop capacity building opportunities. We help nonprofit organizations become equipped to better assess, manage, use, and improve their own technologies.

We enact our principles by providing a range of services to local nonprofits. Originally, our primary service was technology assessments, providing top-down analyses of an organization's technology use, training, and planning. As we have refined our assessment process and grown, we have added a range of additional services, including proposal reviews and consulting, and have increased our ability to make what we have learned available to the sector. See "ENTECH Services" for a complete list.