Internet isn't everything

The Internet isn't the only game in town. It is not necessarily the most important tool for local problem-solving. It's often best when used to augment face-to-face communication. Other important technologies — phones, pagers, and faxes, for example — are also being put to effective uses in creative combinations by imaginative not-for-profits.

Telephone
Compared to computers (owned by 40% of households nationwide) and modems (which allow 19% of households nationwide to connect to Internet providers and bulletin boards), telephones come much closer to providing universal access (94% of U.S. households). Virtually everyone knows how to use a telephone. Those with touch-tone phones (75% nationwide) can interact with computers which allow them to get information quickly or respond to questions.

Pagers and cellular phones have freed many workers from their desks, allowing them to get closer to those they serve. And many deliver information and social service interactions through the comfort of the telephone. In Cleveland, Ohio, for example, the Collaborative Care Project of Cleveland State University uses telephones as a primary tool to help cocaine-addicted mothers get needed medical information and support for healthy drug-free habits. In one part of the multilayered program, a computer dials up a mother and offers her a menu of questions. Her punched-in answers indicate whether she has had a relapse into drug use. If so, the computer faxes her health care professionals, who then contact her. Home telephones have proven to be a non-threatening tool; these mothers are willing to give the computer information they might not give to a human being. They also use home and pay phones to talk with each other, to see what other mothers are asking, to get messages and reminders about their medical appointments.

Community voicemail
"Your doctor's appointment is at 2 p.m. today at Pike Market Clinic," Clarissa heard when she punched her voice mailbox number into the pay telephone. In Seattle, the Fremont Public Association provides community voicemail for homeless people, to communicate with their care providers, families, potential employers, friends, and each other. For some, this service has proved a lifeline to the world. It has allowed them to seek and find employment and stay up-to-date on medical needs. Some activists suggest that community voicemail should be a right for all citizens in the future. The concept, pioneered in Seattle, has now spread to 100,000 voicemail accounts in 100 cities.

Info-lines and hotlines
People are used to using the telephone to get information on film times, hours of restaurant services, etc. A number of smart not-for-profits have created "hotlines" to let the public know about events, actions, even information about health hazards or safety issues, etc., 24 hours a day. The Teen Link, for example, gives over 100 young people each month access to accurate information about services or health concerns which they may not feel comfortable requesting from parents, teachers, or friends. Crisis Clinic provides a referral service which sometimes includes initial counseling. It maintains a database of community-based service organizations for people in need. (Crisis Clinic reports that its recent appearance on the World Wide Web may have increased the number of telephone calls it gets.)

Telemarketing
Telemarketing and fund-raising by phone have become the bane of many people's dinner hour. Telephone solicitations can give a bad name to not-for-profits — yet they work. Some not-for-profits spend a third or more of every dollar they raise to pay for telemarketing professionals to make the calls; others use volunteers with varying rates of success. Competition in this arena, however, has increased to the point where many frustrated citizens refuse to listen to the pitch and ask to be taken off the list. The most effective fund-raisers use communications technologies to reinforce friends asking friends and colleagues to support projects they believe in. For instance, a non-for-profit might send a mailing announcing a telemarketing campaign, but giving people the option of not being called, or being approached by e-mail instead of paper.

Facsimile
Fax machines are not yet as ubiquitous as telephones, but with not-for-profits, they're a common tool used to communicate with media, individual supporters, collaborators, and prospects. Newspapers report that their fax machines churn out nonstop news releases during an average day — many of them from not-for-profits. "Broadcast fax" allows users to fax messages sequentially to many fax machines. These allow members to learn of late-breaking news, or to take immediate action on some issue before a legislative body. Other more complicated "fax on demand" systems allow the public to dial in to a machine which will fax them information as needed. (This technology proves particularly useful to, say, grantmaking organizations which can automatically fax grant guidelines without having to pay costs of answering the telephone, duplicating and mailing.)

The fax machine is credited with having kept the world in close touch with the triumphs and atrocities of the student demonstrations and government retaliations in China's Tienanmen Square. And despite the fact that faxes are becoming more common in Third World countries, today many smaller not-for-profits in the Puget Sound region don't have fax machines. One not-for-profit leader told Good News/Good Deeds he had not realized that a donated computer had fax and modem capacity built in. This reinforces the oft-repeated assertion that technology without training is useless — to individuals and to not-for-profits.