Information Technology for Social Change

"Information is the lifeblood of nonprofit work." (Blau, A. 2001, p1). Nonprofit charities, whatever their function or service, create, process, and produce information at every stage of their work. And this information needs to be processed and delivered quickly to concerned authorities to enable them to make crucial decisions. This transfer of information is made easier by appropriate use of technology. Information Technology is transforming all aspects of society and the nonprofit sector is no exception. As the Information technology is changing rapidly, nonprofit organizations need to adjust their practices to accommodate these new technologies. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and nonprofits are facing with the challenges of integrating information technology within their organizational infrastructures to bring improvements to their operations.

In this paper, different case studies of trends in information technology being used to cause change in the areas of health, humanitarian assistance, and environment were examined. The real life examples provided in this report demonstrate that information technology can be a powerful tool for positive change in our world.

In the due course of the research, I learnt that there is a huge technological gap between large and small nonprofit organizations. Mere adoption of information technology is not enough to bridge the gap; planning, staff development and training are critical.

In today's society, the term non-governmental organization (NGO) is often used interchangeably with that of nonprofit organization. However, there is a distinction between these two types of organizations. The primary duty of NGOs is advocacy whereas nonprofits are more diversified in their scope of services. Both cover the variety of service organizations, in size and in mission, representing such organizations as environmental protection, education, and human rights (Jackman