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Interview with Rob Stuart of the Rockefeller Family Fund

By Michael C. Gilbert, December 1998

Robert A. Stuart is the Director of the Rockefeller Technology Project, at the Rockefeller Family Fund. His projects include the National Strategy for Nonprofit Technology and the Circuit Riders Program. He took time out his busy schedule last week to answer a few questions about the projects in which he's been involved.

Michael: Let's start with something straightforward. Tell me a little about your background.

Rob: I spent close to a dozen years working for non-profit advocacy groups. I've been a field organizer, executive director, reseacher, though I spent most of my time in the legislature as a public interest lobbyist.

Michael: Sounds like my own background. How did you come to be working at RFF?

Rob: I started out at the Foundation four years ago in a fellowship with the charge of helping our grantees use technology to inhance their advocacy potential.

Michael: By "technology" I assume you mean primarily computer mediated communication?

Rob: Technology broadly defined. Internet communication is the bread and butter, but additional technology; GIS mapping, relationship management (membership databases) .

Michael: Excellent. Tell me more about the last four years, leading up to your work with the National Strategy for Nonprofit Technology.

Rob: We realized that our grantees needed exposure to ideas about what the technology could do for them ... rather than just more technology. Our "Circuit Riding" approach mainly consisted of me traveling around and showing a group's leadership what was possible and how they could use it to further their cause. I also begin to bring together other people that were doing similar work so that we could learn from and reinforce each other's work. What emerged in the process was the realization that connections that should be happening between groups and tech support were the execption rather than the rule. Evangelism is a very important part of the job.

Michael: Is that where the National Strategy came from?

Rob: Yes. We asked to convene and engage some of our colleagues about how to better organize the resources that already existed in the sector and how to create an environment that generated new resources. From the beginning we've looked at the NSNT a way to identify, link, support and grow locally based technology assistance capacity.

Michael: For those who are unfamiliar with it, can you give us an intro to the NSNT, its goals, timelines, participants, and so forth?

Rob: It is a nine month planning process that has engaged a growing number of non-profit technology leaders in designing particular tools and mechanisms whereby increasing numbers of non-profit groups will be exposed to and have access to quality technology services that further their missions. The web site at http://www.nsnt.org will have more articulate and specific information. Much of the material can be found at http://www.rffund.org/strategy.

Michael: Where are you in the planning process?

Rob: Nearing the end. We have increased the planning team by three fold, developed an online non-profit benchmarking tool, and are engaged in several other initiatives that I think will provide very exciting opportunities for both groups and non-profit service. We will have a report and online resources available during January, though some of the online tools are already available.

Michael: Will the NSNT be over after that? Or do you have implementation plans?

Rob: I think there will be many prescriptions; for groups, for providers, for funders and those will be carried out by various players. The strategy is probably not going to be an organization as people usually think of an organization. It will be a set of relationships, based on principles, that will allow diverse resources to aggregate when appropriate and to increase the amount of quality technology service to the sector.

Michael: What are the best ways for my readers to either support or benefit from your work?

Rob: Plug into the online resources. Right now folks can contribute to the benchmarking tool; the direct link is http://sustain.org/nsnt. Attend an upcoming Non-profits and Technology Conference. Next year's conferencecs will focus on the NSNT and serve will be a good place to plug into the strategy.

Michael: Then let's look at the future a bit. What are your hopes for you work in the next year?

Rob: I'm very excited about the coming year. We have two new circuit riders on the circuit. We are involved in a internet organizing project to save America's forests and the National Strategy will continue to keep me busy

Michael: I'm very interested in hearing about the internet organizing project, specially about the online strategies that are working for you.

Rob: Well, you can check out http://ourforests.org. It's the main page for the campaign. Some of the other strategies we are using include getting a coalition of groups to contribute their email activists list to a central database. We recently sent out a "heads up" message to 13,000 activists informing them about a pending decision at the forest service and telling them about the web site. We will also be exploring the use of web banners and other collatoral media to engage new constituencies that are not yet members of any group but who are supportive of the issue.

Michael: How are you measuring the success of the "heads up" message?

Rob: Watching the web traffic go from nowhere to somewhere...capturing all the new names that folks are referring the message to... this is a "word of mouse" campaign. It won't ever have the public profile of impeachment, but we want to use the same tactics as employed by that effort as well as the Save Organic Standards effort last Spring.

Michael: That's great. Do you document these techniques?

Rob: Actually, we commissioned a paper. I'll go get the urls for you. The first is http://www.ebase.org/case.html. The second is http://www.rffund.org/techproj/newmedia.html

Michael: Is there anything you want people to know about you personally?

Rob: I'm not a techie! I'm really just applying organizing principles to technology.

Michael: More power to you!

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