The MASSCAP IT Project:
Current News & Background
Current News
The Year 2002 in Review
MASSCAP’s IT Project undertook several new, important initiatives in 2002. Read the review of the year’s efforts, which included the Digital Age conference, an important new study of CAAs’ client data systems, and more.
Closing the Digital Divide: IT Access & Education Projects at Massachusetts CAAs
Massachusetts CAAs have continued efforts to close the Digital Divide for low-income people in the communities they serve. Nearly half of the state’s CAAs now have special projects to widen IT access and education. Several of these projects have opened their doors in the past year, including a new one at Citizens for Citizens, in Fall River, and one at North Shore Community Action in Salem. See the story of Citizens for Citizens’ new project, and from there, go to up-to-date profiles of several other projects, including the one in Salem.
Impacts of the New Economy: Recent Grant to Help MASSCAP Meet the Challenges
MASSCAP has received a new grant from the Boston Foundation’s New Economy Initiative to undertake a project to better integrate CAAs’ projects to close the Digital Divide for low-income people with workforce development and further training and educational opportunities—as well as with other programs providing support services. In the fall of 2003, MASSCAP will begin a one-year process to create new blueprints for action, and to forge new external partnerships between CAAs and other groups toward this end. See the details.
While Narrowing, the Digital Divide Persists
Despite some claims to the contrary, the Digital Divide in America has not closed—and many low-income, minority, and other citizens lack access to and training about computers and the Internet. For those struggling to attain economic self-sufficiency, lack of access to IT is a major impediment to obtaining the skills and education required to obtain jobs in today’s economy, and the economy of the future. While progress has been made in narrowing the gap, it remains. A 2002 Benton Foundation report Bringing a Nation Online points out that much of the progress has been due to federal initiatives, but these now are being rolled back. Another report released last year examines the effectiveness of Community Technology Centers in closing the Digital Divide.
Background on MASSCAP’s IT Project
Begun in 1999, MASSCAP’s Information Technology (IT) Project was created to assess and address the impacts of IT on Massachusetts community action agencies (CAAs) as well as on their low-income clients, and to develop and coordinate new initiatives that will allow these organizations and their clients to take better advantage of the advances that IT has produced.
The IT Project’s first undertaking involved a statewide assessment of IT needs, capacitities and issues at all of Massachusetts 25 CAAs, which resulted in a report entitled Crossing the Digital Divide. The report’s recommendations provided guidance for MASSCAP’s work in this area over the next few years. While the assessment was conducted, MASSCAP established a new standing committee, the IT Committee, which meets bimonthly and provides direction to the IT Project.
Since late 1999, the IT Project has undertaken a number of activities. For example, in 2000, it developed standard IT Policies and Practices for CAAs as well as a written set of Basic IT Skills for CAA Staff that CAAs can use as goals for their training. It also has worked to develop a training program for “IT Mentors” at CAAs—to enable staff with higher IT skills who are not IT specialists to help their less-skilled colleagues solve routine computer problems in the workplace.
In its second and third year, the IT Project turned its attention to the Digital Divide, which affects many low-income clients served by Massachusetts CAAs. It produced and published the report Digital Economy, Opportunity Divide, which explores the connections between the emerging new technology-driven economy, the changes in job requirements that it has produced, and the digital divide. And following the examples of two Massachusetts CAAs that had begun projects to widen access to and education about computers and the Internet for low-income people in their areas, the IT Project began an initiative to encourage other CAAs in the state to begin such projects of their own. The initiative involved obtaining funding, establishing a statewide communications and support network for the new projects, and developing an assessment process of the new projects with the McCormack Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. As of 2003, 10 additional Massachusetts CAAs have launched new local projects designed to close the Digital Divide.
In 2002, in collaboration with the Asset Development Institute at Brandeis University’s Heller School and with the support of the America Connects Consortium, MASSCAP’s IT Project organized a conference entitled “The Digital Age: The New Challenges for CAAs, Community-Based Organizations, and Low-Income People,” which drew 250 participants from New England and around the nation. And also in 2002, the Project conducted an extensive study of client data collection and reporting systems, including the issues and obstacles associated with them, at Massachusetts CAAs.
Spring 2003
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