Invest in the front end of pro bono tech project planning for best results

• Date: 01 July 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nba.30330
• Published date: 01 July 2017

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NeighborWorks releases plan

to tackle rural poverty

To address persistent rural poverty in America,

the philanthropic, nonprot, business and govern-

ment sectors need to come together and make

investments aimed at catalyzing broad-based

economic growth, according to a new report from

NeighborWorks America.

In Turning the Tide on Persistent Rural Poverty,

the group used analysis and observations from four

rural regions of the United States—the Rio Grande

Valley, Appalachia, Indian country and the Missis-

sippi Delta—to develop a strategy for addressing

high rates of persistent poverty, dened as at least

20 percent of the population living in poverty for

at least 30 years. According to the study, persistent

rural poverty is driven by a number of factors,

including population loss due to out-migration,

lack of accessible transportation and other vital

infrastructure, and reliance on resource extraction.

Broadly, the report calls on business, government

and philanthropy to increase the supply of:

• consumer banking services in rural markets;

• 21st-century broadband connections, training

and equipment; and

• commercial lending to grow small businesses.

Specic recommendations include clustering in-

vestments to maximize impact, supporting commu-

nity leadership development, promoting investment

using new models that leverage public resources with

philanthropy and private equity, and partnering lo-

cally and regionally to achieve economies of scale.

To read the study in full, go to http://bit

.ly/2r8KZAA. ■

Invest in the front end of pro bono tech project

planning for best results

Schwan-Rosenwald’s colleagues at the Taproot

Foundation recently released a guide that walks

nonprots through the process for optimizing pro

Nonprots looking to leverage the tech expertise

of their corporate supporters would do well to focus

resources on the front end of the process, experts

say, to ensure the project’s success. According to

Elizabeth Schwan-Rosenwald of the Taproot Foun-

dation, tech-focused pro bono projects are too often

limited in range or less successful than imagined,

simply because the nonprot and pro bono teams

skimped on examining the needs of the organization

in a holistic manner—when really, they should be

looking at the big picture of how technology can

help the organization succeed and grow.

“In the traditional way of doing this, we would

look at a nonprot’s tech-related needs—for exam-

ple, a new website or donor database—and nd the

tech resources available and apply them,” she said.

“Instead, we should be looking at the nonprot’s

overall challenges and letting pro bono tech teams

nd ways that tech can be applied to address them.”

Vol. 334 July 2017