NPOs and NPOs, or "Yankee go home"
Most scenes require context. This is the context.
I work at the ITRC, a non-profit tech consulting firm, on a fellowship from a university. I enjoy it, but it's not my favorite thing in the world. I learn things, and I understand a bit more about the NPO world and the need for better computers and technology comprehension. I am trying to do writing on the side, I'm doing some music reviewing on the side for free CDs, and I'm trying to do some coding. Also some theater. The nonprofit, while a focus at work, is not a focus of my private life. Part of the reasons for my atrocious hours of late has been because of my trying to do other things. I enjoy assignments that get me out of my cube, and I try to keep my hours at work to a minimum. My coworkers are great folks, my work (as I said) is fun, but it all continues to feel something like observation, a game that I am quite knowingly playing for a year.
One off my duties has been (temporarily) taking over the ITRC's connection to the CTC program - CTCs are Community Technology Centers, and they're in cities across the country, providing tech training and computer and web access to people who would otherwise be without. They have paltry funds, and have been hanging on by the skin of their teeth for years. My involvement has generally consisted of running out IC3 certification training program, which means teaching extremely small classes how to get ready for this exam. I have had one lecture on how to do this job. However, the power point slides for the course, my one lecture, and my own exam prep have all indicated that essentially what we do to prepare students is simply pump them through training drills until they can get questions right. Students are not educated in concepts of computing, they are simply drilled on the needed material. We do have a computerized course for more detailed preparation. This was underemphasized to me in my prep lecture as being largely secondary, and have treated it as such. My point is that my courses have not especially sucked me into awareness of the lack of technology education possessed by students.
The other aspect of running the ITRC's CTC connection has been going to some meetings about Digital Divide issues under the aegis of Rep. Danny Davis. At these, I first heard CTC admins talk about people who came in not knowing the first thing about computers, about how to use Microsoft Word or open an application or anything, and I can now wax rhapsodic about the problem as well as any New York Liberal.
Chicago has decided to implement wireless on a massive scale. I went to the first of four public hearings on the topic last night. Attendance was tiny, perhaps fifteen people. But of the few that spoke, there was both passion and concern, largely because free wireless doesn't do much for people who can't use a computer. Most importantly, the speakers have years upon years of experience at CTCs. There was an independent meeting this afternoon by a CTCNet, which essentially organizes CTCs, to discuss organizing at a grass roots level to keep telecoms from stealing all the cash.
Now, the most interesting thing about this meeting to me was the militant undercurrent. For all its talk about getting things done, all the meeting really established was "we're here and we should do something, so call your friends and then maybe we'll decide what to do". But there was an undercurrent -vocalized by the angriest of the people there, that we should hold people responsible, that the infrastructure that should have been getting built up to support the community over the last five years was not, and these icing-on-the-cake nonprofits were getting brought in to make pacakages sound good and then not doing anything. I wondered if they were talking about the ITRC, having heard warnings about the meeting at the office to the tune of "they don't like us because we're on the inside right now and they're on the outside", so it all seemed rather delightfully scandalous. Especially since the same vehement fellow sated his firm belief in systematic anti-black prejudice in the city. (This is not a very bold claim, though not
completely pertinent to the debate.)
This evening, however, I arrived late to the second public hearing. An even smaller crowd, but one of the fellows who had spoken with authority this afternoon held the governor's committee rapt, and he and another man essentially lectured the committee on CTCs and what they had been doing, taking repeated committee questions and trying to prove their grass roots point. The conclusion of all this, then, is that as I sat there listening to the man speak he was asked a final question by one committee member, namely: what did he think of the ITRC? The man paused, then simply said that he would prefer not to say.
This slight hit me like a thunderbolt. It was an immediate personalization of what the man had said. In many ways I am his much inferior opposite number. I am the guy here for one year, teaching tiny classes using a training program who knows little about the situation on the ground. While he is essentially lambasting years of prior experiences, I stand as something of a proof of what he dislikes. I am the person who is passionate in theory but not in practice, who appreciates the devotion that NPO members show but would rather do other things, in part because, well, NPO members haven't impressed me as much other than diligent, qualified workers. Yet here is a man with a passion. And not just one like that of those last night, who had labored for age and were angered by the city's stance, but a man who was angry at my org, my org of good people who have quite a decent bit of NPO clout but still seem to just be diligent, qualified workers having fun, and who cannot compete with his attitude.
The moment was driven a bit more home when a council member came over to find out who I was (having noticed me at both hearings) and actually referred to me as a "mister", which so help me I can't ever recall as having occurred in a business situation before. I am my mighty NPO's symbol, and lord knows I can't quiet CTC disapproval.
No good conclusion to this, I just feel rather guilty for what I lack, amazed at his fervor, and substantially more over my head. I feel that my attempts to get my weeks down to the requisite seven hours a day is somehow shamefully misguided. Through the afternoon, my impression was that government is much more impressive to speak of historically as occurring rather than actually witnessing the process. In some small way, I feel as if I've just been substantially pulled out of my observatory perch, and I rather wish the yank had not occurred.