Civil Technologies: The values of non-profit ICT use

A report examining how non-profit organisations around the world are adopting Information and Communication Technology to improve their overall functionality.

Civil society has been making use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) ever since the first relevant tools became available in the 1980s. Pioneering efforts included the founding in 1985 of PeaceNet (U.S.) and GreenNet (U.K.), two early efforts to provide electronic networking for non-government organisations.

1987 saw the establishment of WorkNet (later SANGONeT), a South African email service and bulletin board, and NIRVCentre (later Web Network), the first non-profit computer network to serve public interest organizations in Canada. Three years later saw the launch of APC (Association for Progressive Communications), a global initiative by NGO networking operations from seven countries across five continents.

In the years before the World Wide Web became popular, organisations like the Worldwatch Institute regularly published documents through the APC network, making them more easily available to an international audience.

When the Web started becoming a mass medium in the mid-1990s, non-profit organisations were again among the early adopters. Major NGOs, such as Amnesty International, Oxfam, and Human Rights Watch, launched informational sites on the Web, as did a large number of smaller groups.

Today over 1,600 organisations provide content for a global system of One World Web portals, which are published in five continents and in 11 languages. In parallel, APC has grown into a network of service organisations from 30 countries that pioneer "practical and relevant uses of ICTs for civil society, especially in developing countries".

This report, prepared by the U.S.- based Social Science Research Council, looks at exemplary instances of how non-profit organisations are applying ICT to their day to day operations, and how the use of digital tools is improving their overall functionality.

The report also examines challenges (planning capacity, resources, research and evaluation); practices and values; and the impact of collaborative ICT projects.

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