Keep in mind the foundation of the riders' movement was the Rockefeller Foundation's need to justify an initiative in technology, rather than the consumers' need for either assistance or promotion. That's one of the reasons the movement didn't move: it served a tactical objective of a few people. The older circuit rider movement came from the courts - to make judges available in a low density population. And that's often the way NGO's perceive technology: highly judgmental, punitive, expensive, and intrusive.

One way of solving the problem is to distinguish between the two sometimes conflicting goals of circuit riding: observation/documentation and technical assistance. In so doing, there are very different "markets" available.

First, the consultant market, who already does a lot of that circuit riding serving several different clients - if lucky, at once, if unlucky sequentially - with a variety of kinds of help. Helping the helpers could build technology into a far less intrusive technique, and it's kind of strange that neither Apple nor Microsoft saw the CBO consultant market as inherently more profitable and fruitful than the CBO's themselves. A certification program that allowed certified consultants to deliver a higher discount on software and hardware would be a means of making circuit riding profitable for everybody.

The other mission - to audit the technology for the funder - is more complicated, since so many funders really don't care what happens once they give money away. This is a little more tender with the big ones, who have adequate staff to actually review outcomes and attend to those who do well.

Ironically, this function could more easily be done by the IRS or one or more state attorneys general than by the funders: for a 501(c)3 to continue to qualify for nonprofit status they must make some attempt to comply with their contracts. That's a little testy, but is the underlying principle behind at least the initial TechRocks circuit riding and that supported by a few of their friendly foundations. Such an incentive could serve both funder and fundee, since, without this kind of somewhat regular certification, the tax exemption of both might be in jeopardy.

oekosjoe hit on my first thought in reading Deborah's Circuit Riding article. "Helping the helpers could build technology into a far less intrusive technique..." I have a lot of technology expertise since I started programming professionally about 20 years ago. I also have a very strong committment to dedicating that expertise and my worklife to the nonprofit sector, ahimsa, satyagraha, and tikkun olam. It would be very beneficial for the sector if people such as myself could make a family-sustainable living by providing information and communications technology assistance to social service organizations on a consulting basis. (I have been struggling with it for over 5 years now.)

Many thanks to my buddy oekosjoe for reminding us of the judicial nature of the first circuit riders in the USA!

On the other hand, my sense is that the current circuit rider movement was named after the itinerant preachers (most of whom were Methodists) who made the rounds in the frontier where few settlements had resident clergy. In the 20th/21st century movement, I have heard a number of folks express distaste for the evangelical overtones of this practice. In the case of many Native American communities, the circuit riders are seen to have acted as agents of cultural imperialism, "civilizing" indigenous people by forbidding them to practice their religious traditions or speak their tribal languages.

So these days, certain folks tend to avoid the term "circuit rider," using "eRider" or just "rider" instead.