On Tuesday evening, I attended a presentation at the Boston Foundation by Christopher Hoenig, who chairs the joint
effort of the U.S. General
Accountability Office (GAO) and the National Academies' to develop an indicators project that documents trends throughout the United States.
He gave a lively presentation on the need for a Key National Indicators Initiative (KNII). As an unapologetic partisan of the Boston Indicators Project, I was delighted to hear that he properly esteemed the achievements of Charlotte Kahn as a pioneer in establishing a high standard for tracking regional indicators.
At the same time, I was disappointed to find that his talk made no reference to the vibrant community of eRiders and other nonprofit technology professionals
who could contribute so much to this initiative. This is data-intensive
and large-scale project that will serve the cause of knowledge in the
public interest; in addition to
technology skills and idealism, we can offer an unmatched pool of
experience in working with mission-based organizations.
Since
shyness is not one of my besetting sins,* I took an opportunity during
the question-and-answer session to ask whether there would be a role for us in
the project he had just proposed. Chris's response was warm but a
little vague, so I followed up by explaining that as a community the
nonprofit techies are rich in talent, vision, and zeal but drastically
underfunded, and concluded by asking him directly if there would be
funding for us.
As I
listened to his response to my pointed question, the possibility dawned
on me that Chris has a long way to go in raising money
for the KNII, and that it was
premature to be sticking my hand out on behalf on the nonprofit
technology community. However, after his talk, we exchanged
cards, and he encouraged me to start educating him about who we are and
what we can do.
* On the contrary, my beloved elder sister characterized me as The Mouth That Knows No Fear when we were growing up.
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