New York Cares Launches Partners in Technology Program

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New York Cares Launches Partners in Technology Program
By by Hilary B. Zackroff
Technology Program Manager
New York Cares

New York Cares is a nonprofit organization founded in 1987 that mobilizes more than 2,000 volunteers each month to serve on flexibly-scheduled, team-based projects that are coordinated in partnership with schools, social service agencies, and environmental groups.

New York Cares volunteers tutor children, feed the hungry, assist people living with HIV/AIDS, revitalize gardens, take homeless children on recreational outings, visit the elderly, and do much more. Most New York Cares projects take place outside traditional work hours -- in the morning, evenings and on weekends.

Partners in Technology Program
New York Cares is excited to launch the Partners in Technology Program in response to the growing technology-related needs of our nonprofit partners. Through this program, we will work with partner agencies – called Project Partners -- to assess and identify technology-related needs that can be addressed by volunteers, develop volunteer projects, and recruit appropriately skilled volunteers. The technology projects we develop will use volunteers' varied technical and computer tutoring skills in basically two ways:

Volunteers who are skilled in technology support or development and who want to do that for our partner agencies, can assist nonprofits with networking their computers, developing long-range technology plans, and creating or maintaining Web sites.
Volunteers who are proficient users of technology and who want to help other people, especially clients or populations of concern of our partner agencies, can assist in computer tutorials for children and adults who are improving basic reading and math skills or learning software to develop job skills.

In addition, the Partners in Technology Program will direct computer donations to our Project Partners and develop team projects to set up the computers and check system diagnostics.

How to Get Technology Volunteers
To become a New York Cares Project Partner, nonprofit agencies and schools contact us to request volunteer technology assistance. After an initial conversation, our staff sends the agency or school detailed information and an application to become a Project Partner, identifying their needs and ability to absorb and use volunteers effectively.

The application is reviewed by our staff and a site visit is scheduled. At the site visit, the needs of the requesting agency or school are reviewed in relation to our program and management structure. If the Project Partner application is accepted, we identify a volunteer to "Team Lead" the project, recruit volunteers, and work in partnership with the agency or school and the Team Leader to ensure success.

We stay in close contact with the Team Leader and the Project Partner throughout the project, monitoring progress and measuring impact, following up as needed. As part of our ongoing project management process, we work with the Project Partner and the Team Leader to assess the impact of completed projects and to identify additional projects that will build on the foundation laid by previous projects.

Interested in Becoming a Project Partner?
If your agency or school is in need of volunteer technology assistance, please contact me by telephone at (212) 228-5000 or e-mail hilary_zackroff@nycares.com. New York Cares' Web site is at www.ny.cares.org.

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