The term "digital divide" was coined in the mid-90s to describe the group of people with limited means to access the Internet via broadband at home. After all, access to technology means so much today, whether it’s enabling a young person to do homework, helping an unemployed person to find a job or allowing people to keep up with all that is happening in the world. Like many, I always thought of the "digital divide" as a group of people. In fact, there is more to the divide than that. Much more. So I decided to investigate the definition of the term and found the following at from the NTIA, via Wikipedia (emphasis in bold is mine):
A digital divide is an economic inequality between groups, broadly construed, in terms of access to, use of, or knowledge of information and communication technologies (ICT). The divide inside countries (such as the digital divide in the United States) can refer to inequalities between individuals, households, businesses, and geographic areas at different socioeconomic and other demographic levels.
This definition doesn’t say anything about use of or access to broadband but it does mention what has occurred to me more consciously over the last couple of years and, recently, somewhat significantly. Not only does a very real and well-documented divide exist in the home, it exists – as defined above – among business and geographic areas. More specifically, the digital divide includes nonprofits and communities.
Why return to this basic definition now? As a starting point, in this space, I plan to explore the digital divide as it applies to the world of nonprofits. I’ve been working in the nonprofit technology space for more than 13 years now, including developing and implementing digital divide programs since 2007. The view of technology as overhead has the majority of nonprofits I’ve engaged with, and we’re talking about several hundred, swimming in technical issues and outdated systems, with no plan or ability to modernize.
Nonprofits are generally funded by governments, private foundations, the public, and to some extent, their customers. Yet, despite the fact they are trying to solve some of the world’s biggest problems, just about any nonprofit Executive Director will tell you that one of their biggest challenges is the expectation that they should do "more with less."
I look forward to sharing my observations, including both the challenges and success stories, in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, please send any feedback or suggestions to jeff@techwire.net.
