WithinReach is a Seattle nonprofit whose mission is to serve as the foremost catalyst for improvements in maternal, child and family health. For 22 years, WithinReach has worked to ensure optimal health for Washington State families by connecting them to the programs, resources and information they need to build healthy families. Major programs include:

• Information and Referral Services through 4 statewide hotlines and ParentHelp123.org
• Nutrition Outreach Program for Basic Food (Food Stamps), First Steps, WIC
• Statewide Coalitions including Immunization Action (IACW), Breastfeeding (BCW), Hepatitis B
• Public Health Materials placed in doctor’s offices, schools, and health clinics

From NPower’s perspective, one of the key assets at WithinReach is a team of long-term staff members who are forward thinking about technology and who have worked with the same NPower consultant for the past nine years. One of the staff referred to the NPower consultant as “my hero” and all agreed that he is a trusted partner and honorary staff member.

With NPower’s assistance, WithinReach has navigated various organizational expansions and shifts over the years, and has built out their technology infrastructure in a thoughtful way. They have a stable and secure infrastructure with planned upgrade and replacement schedules, including budgeting realistically for the total cost of ownership. As a result, they are able to provide reliable and far-reaching services statewide, including:

• Internal hosting of a call center providing statewide service.
• Managing the call center and ParentHelp123 website thanks to a consolidated database.

Looking forward, WithinReach plans to stretch into new areas with advice and assistance from NPower along the way, including learning more about social media at an upcoming NPower training, exploring mobile broadcast to support virtual attendance at their annual fundraising event, and more sophisticated use of email communications to remind clients when their public assistance benefits have expired.

Thank you WithinReach for the pleasure of serving you for the past nine years, and for your work on behalf of families!

For more examples of the impact in the community of NPower’s services for nonprofits, see our library of TechImpact profiles.

Ann-Marie Archer of the CIO Council speaks at Powerful Connections 2010

I saw some puzzled faces in the audience at our recent Powerful Connections breakfast when we referred to our CIO Council,  and I’ve heard questions since like “What is a CIO?” and “What does the Council do?” So I asked Amanda Hatch, our Director of Services, to help me out with this quick FAQ on the Council. By the way, the Council is open to new members. To volunteer to serve on the Council, contact our Executive Director, Alison Carl White at alisonw@npowerseattle.org.

What is the CIO Council?

We believe there is a wonderful opportunity to engage high level technical people to help us put technology know-how in the hands of nonprofits. NPower’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) Council is made up of senior executives with technical expertise. NPower is benefiting from the perspectives of people who are passionate about how technology can be used to make organizations more effective and would like to see technology applied to the nonprofit sector.

Founded in 2009, NPower Seattle’s CIO Council is picking up momentum with representatives on board from Paccar, Seattle Bank, Accenture, Point B, The Gates Foundation and other local companies.

What does the CIO Council do?

The Council’s mission is to

• provide thought leadership to NPower staff on new innovations and best practices in the IT field
• advise the NPower team on the design and development of NPower’s service offerings, and
• assist NPower in the overall success of its strategies, programs and solutions.

Over the next several months,  the Council will be lending resources to NPower to help build a sustainable discovery process, to aid NPower in meeting our newly defined strategic direction. 

Join the Council
We look for people with wide networks in technology to leverage contacts and information sharing. This Council is a great opportunity to network with technical peers and to use your skills to help the community. If you are a CIO and would like to help the nonprofit community, please contact our Executive Director, Alison Carl White at alisonw@npowerseattle.org.

Learn more about the CIO Council
Visit the CIO Council page on our website to see the list of current Council members.

The “NPower Empowers Great Work” video that debuted at our 2010 Powerful Connections breakfast on April 30 is now available online.  If you missed the event or would like a repeat, watch the video here.

• Learn about the value of NPower Seattle’s services from a couple of our customers: Friends of the Orphans and Rainier Scholars.
• Hear from supporters about how their investment in NPower connects them to the thousands of people — children, families, seniors and artists — who ultimately benefit from the programs and services that we empower our customers to create.

Creating this video was such a joy. I relished the opportunity to tell our story through the voices of our customers, and working with Ray and Abby at Woodhouse Video was a treat. Thank you to the staff at Friends of the Orphans and at Rainer Scholars who helped make this possible.

– Peg Giffels

This past week at our Powerful Connections Luncheon Scott Oki shared his newest venture, Seeyourimpact.org. It basically lets you make small donations to a cause of your choice; connects you with a recipient and leaves you feeling like your gift really made a difference.

Then there’s causeworld.com. Companies sign up, then when you visit a store (like Best Buy), you log on to the application (via your IPhone), and earn Karma points. Afterwards, you can gift the Karma points to a cause of your choice. The participating companies use this to drive their charitable donations.

At the Washington State NonProfit Conference, Dan Pallotta shared his thinking about how nonprofits are “selling themselves short” by not investing in internal infrastructure in the race to have no overhead. He argues that investing in infrastructure is a leveraged investment, if creating the report took us 2 hours and with the investment of a new (say CRM) system the report can be completed in .5 hours–that’s is 1.5 hours that can now be dedicated to the furthering of the mission. It doesn’t mean that the investment in a new system isn’t about the mission, it just opens up more resources to help achieve the mission.

It’s a crazy time out in the field. Donor demands, technology and the need for greater transparency is driving us to a new place.  I can’t help but believe that the sooner we, as a sector, start to embrace these new trends—the better prepared we will be to leverage the potential.  Are you ready?

-Alison