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Equity Guide to Nonprofit Tech with Tristan Penn pt 1

• Community IT Innovators • Season 6 • Episode 46

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Why a 2025 technology equity guide for nonprofits? 

Part 1 covers introductions and a deep discussion on the issues of equity in the technology your nonprofit staff use and how they use it. Part 2 delves into questions of funding tech at nonprofits and touches on creating technology tools and applications that can disrupt inequity in our communities, finishing with Q&A.

Nonprofit technology is marked by inequities within our organizations and our sector.  You can see this in staffing and processes, and the way technology tools are implemented. Learn to use the free NTEN Equity Guide for Nonprofit Technology as an active and regular part of your strategy discussions and policy review processes and as a resource for evaluation.

Join Tristan Penn to learn how nonprofit staff can use technology strategically in racially equitable ways to meet our missions and community needs.


Worried about inherent bias and inequity built in to the technology your nonprofit uses?
Wondering how to implement strategies and frameworks to make sure your technology use aligns with your organizational values? 

Navigating technology can be challenging for nonprofits, especially with the inequities in our sector. How can you use technology as strategically and equitably as possible to advance your mission?

 This session will explore how to use the NTEN Equity Guide as a key part of your strategy and policy reviews. You’ll learn how to implement technology in racially equitable ways to better meet community needs. Get a head start on building a more equitable tech future for your organization.


Presenter:

Tristan Penn is the Equity and Accountability Director at NTEN, where he works to promote, coordinate, and evaluate best practices that support Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility, and Liberation. His work focuses on equitable development and capacity building within the nonprofit sector. He manages a staff, community, and board-specific DEI Taskforce, creating long-term work plans and goals for equity initiatives both within NTEN and across the broader community.

In his role, Tristan supports and coaches conference speakers and course faculty on creating equitable presentations and manages an annual community survey to gather demographic data and assess customer satisfaction and goal alignment. He is also responsible for designing and implementing audit processes to evaluate the staff, board, and volunteer policies outlined in NTEN’s Equity Commitment, and for developing appropriate methodologies to measure the impact of NTEN’s equity efforts.

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Carolyn Woodard: I want to welcome everyone to the Community IT Webinar Equity Guide for Nonprofit Tech. My name is Carolyn Woodard. I’m the Outreach Director for Community IT and the moderator today. At Community IT, we think a lot about technology. We’re technologists and administrators and technical people in general, and we think a lot about ethics. We only serve nonprofits, so we’re in tune with our nonprofit clients. We think a lot about how things work and what is happening to the community. I have to admit that before seeing this guide, I hadn’t really thought about applying an equity lens to technology in general and to how we were using technology. I’m really excited about this webinar today.

I would call myself—and our organization—at the very beginning of our equity journey around technology. I’m looking forward to this presentation. I’m very happy to hear today from our guest Tristan Penn from NTEN, who is going to walk us through using their free Equity Guide for Nonprofit Tech. They also have a companion resource for nonprofit boards concerned with technology use, equity, and inclusion. You can download that from their website as well.

First, I’m going to go over our learning objectives. We hope that by the end of the hour today, you will understand equity issues impacting nonprofits through technology tools and processes that we use, learn how funding equitable nonprofit technology ensures better outcomes, discuss the role of nonprofit technology in disrupting existing inequitable models, and learn the role of your board in tech equity discussions and assessments and why these types of discussions rise to that board level. I’m so happy to welcome Tristan Penn. Tristan, would you like to introduce yourself?

Tristan Penn: Hi, my name is Tristan Penn. I use he/him pronouns, I’m Navajo, and I’m the Director of Equity and Accountability at NTEN. I’ve been with NTEN for about seven years in October. It still feels like I’m the new person, and maybe I’m desperately holding on to that new person role, but I’m not new there now. I’ve been working in nonprofit for about 21 years; the bulk of that, 14 years, was in youth development, mental health, and education.

I worked with a few nonprofit organizations across the Midwest and the West Coast. I come with a lot of experiences, as I’m sure we all do who work in nonprofit, but I am happy to be here to present on our Nonprofit Guide for Technology. I’m happy to be in discussion and dialogue with you all about things that are going on with everyone.

Carolyn Woodard: Thank you. I’m so glad to welcome you. Can you tell us a little bit more about NTEN?

Tristan Penn: Absolutely. NTEN is a national nonprofit. A lot of times nonprofits have a direct service arm. For example, the Humane Society has the place where you go to look at the animals, and that’s their direct service point. NTEN doesn’t really have that. Our service point is helping other nonprofits. We’re a capacity-building nonprofit for the sector through the lens of tech.

Before you joined the call, Carolyn and I were talking, and Carolyn identified herself as an “accidental techie.” That’s really the type of person we engage with. Maybe not just an accidental techie, but just accidental in whatever role you went into. We’ve all had that story where you’re the operations director, but you came in as the volunteer coordinator, and all of a sudden you assumed this role and had to learn as you went and “build the plane” as you go. Those are the experiences we’ve had, and that’s where NTEN steps in.

More than 21 years now—I believe it’s around 23 years ago—NTEN decided with technology in particular, that as the internet and all of this really great tech was happening around 2000, people were learning as they went. They wanted to create a collective and a community resource for folks to get together and learn from each other and provide training and insight. And so NTEN was born.

From that “accidental techie” mantra, we’ve expanded. Now we do everything through the layer of tech, but tech touches so much more than just the IT director. As an operations director, a CEO, or a programs director, we’re all technologists. We engage and interact with technology, and it’s incumbent upon us to stay up to date and be in community with other folks who have similar experiences.

We provide resources and community. We have an online forum for all sorts of folks that is fairly active. We have tech clubs that happen in person across the country in a host of cities. Our big event each year is our NTC, which is the Nonprofit Technology Conference. It’s in Detroit this year. It brings around 3,000 nonprofit folks from around the country to come together and talk about the things that are important, attending sessions all through the lens of tech. Sometimes it’s very broad and rooted in advocacy, and other times it’s very granular, like how to transition from one CRM to another and what the lessons learned were.

I told Amy seven years ago, “I just want to be clear, I am not a tech person. I am a child and youth development programs person.” They said, “That’s what we need, because we’re all tech people, and we need folks that are able to not only work with the community, but have their nonprofit experience rooted in community work.” That’s how I came about, and now I’ve become an accidental techie just by being in NTEN.

Carolyn Woodard: I will put in a plug for the NTC conference. I’ve been several years, and this past year in Baltimore was fantastic. As Tristan said, there are sessions on all different types of topics. It’s member-driven, so members vote on what the sessions are going to be and who the speakers are. There are always amazing keynote speakers, so I can recommend that in Detroit in March. That’s the one thing I might not recommend, is Detroit in March, but it’s going to be a warm gathering of people.

I’ll go ahead and introduce myself. I am the Director of Marketing and Outreach at Community IT. Before I worked here, I was the Tech Director at a large international nonprofit. I have seen both sides of these technology questions.

Community IT is a 100% employee-owned managed services provider. We provide outsourced IT support exclusively to nonprofits. Our mission is to help nonprofits accomplish their missions through the effective use of technology. We are big fans of what well-managed tech can do for your mission. We serve nonprofits across the United States and have been doing it for almost 25 years. We are consistently given an MSP 501 recognition for being a top MSP, which is an honor we received again in 2025.

I host a weekly podcast on different tech topics for nonprofits and this monthly free webinar series. You can access all of our previous webinar videos and transcripts at communityit.com. As Tristan said, we’re a community. We believe that the more educated we all are about technology—even if you’re not, quote-unquote, the “tech person”—the better the nonprofit sector works.

Community IT is vendor-agnostic. We only make recommendations to our clients based on their specific business needs. We never try to get a client into a product because we get an incentive or a hidden benefit from that. But we do consider ourselves a “best of breed” IT provider, so it’s our job to know the landscape, what tools are available, reputable, and widely used, and we make recommendations on that basis.

Tristan, I’m so interested to hear about this guide, because when we think about equity and ethics and potential harms to our communities, there really are two big technology stacks that 99.9% of nonprofits use. You’re either in the Microsoft world or you’re in the Google Workspace world. One of the things we feel a tension around is we can’t really recommend a different technology no matter how ethical or unethical those technology giants are behaving because that’s really what there is. There isn’t a great nonprofit alternative technology stack for nonprofits to use. I’d love to hear more about how we think about that with the guide.

We’re going to leave as much time as we can today for Q&A at the end. You can submit questions through the chat feature. Anything we can’t get to, we’re going to be on Reddit immediately after this webinar at r/nonprofitITmanagement. 

As I said, our mission is to create value for the nonprofit sector. We identify four key values as employee-owners: trust, knowledge, service, and balance. We seek always to treat people with respect and fairness, to empower our staff and clients to understand and use technology effectively, and we recognize that the health of our communities is vital to our well-being.

I’m going to put a thought question in the chat: What equity issues around technology at your nonprofit are worrying you the most right now? I’ve thought about this in terms of “seen” and “unseen.” What are you aware of, and where do you worry that you might be missing technology equity issues—things that you don’t know that you don’t know? Please feel free to put that in the chat. I will not name names in the transcript, but it really helps our community when we know we’re not alone. I’m going to turn it over to Tristan.

Tristan Penn: Absolutely. I am going to get into it. I love all of these questions. Carolyn, can you re-frame that question again?

Carolyn Woodard: The question for the chat was the seen and unseen issues. Is there something that you’re aware of on your equity journey that you are really thinking about? And do you have any sense of something that’s maybe unseen, that you have a blind spot around?


Equity Guide to Nonprofit Technology 

Tristan Penn: Oh, okay. Cool. I think we’re going to cover them in this presentation. We’re in this work together, obviously, even though we come from different sectors or different types of nonprofit work. I think that’s the one thing that I really love about nonprofit in the years that I’ve been involved—I get to have so many great connections with people who are just so wonderful and dynamic. We’re all doing work that is important to us, but more importantly, it’s upholding our sector in a really beautiful way. I just wanted to name that specifically during a time like this, where things feel wonky and uncertain. I know a lot of us have seen since February, when federal funds were frozen, that things have become very tenuous for a lot of us—both regionally and for our own organizations—and what that means for sustainability and financial stability. That is the context I am coming with as we talk about equitable usage of technology.

This guide is going to cover three sections: usage, funding, and creating. Using technology in equitable ways is a part of equitable work. I love to start here because this is where I really love to get analytical. Carolyn added the link for downloading the Equity Guide. It is much longer than what I am presenting. If you feel called to incorporate this into your work, we have a facilitators guide that is a part of the download as well.


Usage: Nonprofit Tech

A big part of equitable usage of technology is making sure that you are promoting that equitable usage for your staff and your constituents. I had a mentor in the past that really stuck with me. If you are wanting to provide any sort of service or product and you’re so focused on the customer or the community member always being right, that is not the best way to get your impact out there. What you do is you start out with your staff, because those staff members are not going to be able to believe in the mission if they themselves are not being taken care of in a holistic way.

That means not assuming any technology expertise. That may mean not assuming that folks know how to use a Gmail account or know how to use Google calendars or Microsoft Teams. Oftentimes folks think that is an inherent practice that everyone just knows. That is a really tricky thing to get into if you’re assuming that those baseline things like email or Slack aren’t something that you need to provide training and onboarding to. The way NTEN uses Gmail and Google Calendars is not going to be the same way another organization uses them. Don’t assume even the most basic pieces of technology are an expertise that folks have. You still are required to provide a good onboarding to how that technology is used in relation to the work.

Moving along with that, making sure that the training is accessible. Are your trainings captioned? Is it online or in-person? How can we best serve those who are getting that training in a way that they’re going to receive that information comfortably? I used to work in education and was a long-term sub for kindergarten for a while. It was a beautiful thing to see kids learn in so many different ways. I would offer the word “differentiation.” How are you differentiating your training as best as you can to match the learning style of any employee that you may have?

Examine your professional development. Is it happening only once when they walk through the door on their first day, or is it happening consistently throughout their time at your organization? Equitable use promotes that that’s happening consistently. We all know we get emails about updates on terms or new tools. Providing training for those updates creates a flywheel of training for your staff.

Also, what stakeholders are present when you’re creating those trainings? Are there community members that are a part of the training process? And here is another one: working from home. When the pandemic came about, you’d be surprised at how many folks approached NTEN asking why they should provide tech for folks who already have laptops at home. That’s an assumption. If you are requiring technology for work to get done, it is incumbent upon you to provide that for your staff. The “Bring Your Own Technology” approach is a barrier for folks who maybe aren’t making very much. That may be their whole first paycheck, and that’s just not tenable.


Data Use

Let’s talk about data use. Minimizing extractive data practices is at the top of the list because I know a lot of you are thinking about the hot topic right now: AI. I do want to say that AI is probably the headline of extractive data policies and practices. A way to navigate this is making sure that you are being prudent and critical of new tools that are coming in. That means going through with a fine-tooth comb and understanding exactly how they have their hands on your organization in terms of data—data that you are willingly sharing and data that you may not know you are sharing. You don’t want to inadvertently share any of your constituents’ or community members’ data with a company and then find you can’t get it back. Now it’s out there and you have to do a crisis management plan to let the community know you messed up.

I would caution folks to ease up on the urgency to acquire new pieces of technology just because they’re shiny and new. Those terms come and go. AI is different, but it still holds that mantle of creating a shiny luster for a lot of folks. A lot of folks come to us and say they’re missing the bus or they’re behind the ball on AI. But does it even make sense for you, or are you just hyped up on this new thing and don’t know how it fits into your home? I’ve been a part of that where I’m like, “We didn’t need this,” and somehow it’s getting shoehorned into my work.

Slowing down ensures that the tools you have are what you want to be using and that you have a deep understanding of what data you’re sharing. That means having a protected stored data plan. Is it on the server? Is it in the cloud? How are you monitoring it to make sure it is secure?

Encouraging self-determination is a bit more tactical. How are you collecting data from your staff and community members? Here is the example I’m going to use: At the top of the call and in my name right here, it says Navajo. I’m half Navajo and I’m half Black. Growing up in central Kansas, there were standardized tests we would take—the scantron forms—and we’d do the demographic stuff first. Our test was called the ITBS test, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Oftentimes, there were only five options and it was “pick one.” I identified with both. I can no sooner pick one than rip myself in two; both of my parents would be upset by that. But I was forced to choose.

I would encourage “self-determination,” which means providing more options for folks. A very specific tactical piece of that is making some of those demographic fields multiple-selection. Those of us who work in tech or live in Excel spreadsheets are probably thinking that makes for messy reports. But that’s the human experience. Humans are not Excel spreadsheets. They are nuanced and beautiful. When you’re collecting that data, add in the self-determination of multiple selection. We’ve learned that people appreciate that. People who have multiple identities feel more seen and are more inclined to participate in your organization.

Finally, how do you procure technology? Are you spending those funds in a smart way? Do you have a technology roadmap? I remember I was working years ago for the Boys and Girls Clubs. I was the area director over clubs in a specific part of town. Admin had gotten this grant. They quickly submitted it, got this money, but didn’t know how they were going to spend it. So they bought a bunch of iPads—about 200 of them. There was no forethought about giving these to kids—they needed bumpers because kids drop things. What software needs to be installed on all of them to keep them safe from questionable websites? All of those things were not thought of. I was responsible for distributing them and it didn’t feel good.

I told them we needed software and cases, but it wasn’t a part of the budget. So what did those iPads do? They sat in a closet and collected dust for three years. That’s what I mean when folks are chomping at the bit to fold something in, but there’s no forethought on how to be a good steward of those tools. I don’t know where those iPads are now, but we all have that story of the closet full of iPads. How are you keeping things sustainable? And how are you planning for if any of the people implementing IT find a new job? Is there a contingency plan for the knowledge that person has? Thinking about those technology strategic plans is important, even more so now than then.