Lowell Community Technology Consortium
6/01/01 (Camp Maude Eaton, North Andover, MA)

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WHAT'S WORKING

• sharing technical resources
• access to people & equipment
• people / human resources
• technical knowledge
• sharing ideas and resources (even non-technical ones)
• email and internet access
• meeting community needs that people recognize as important
• common goals & serve diverse settings
• various lines of communication
• amount of resources
• able to reach larger parts of the community
• leveraging resources
• leveraging relationships
• leveraging support from members
• better cross reference
• information about where technology is going and trends
• hearing about other programs
• learning
• able to act as a leader in communities outside of Lowell
• using lots of volunteers
• learning and having choice of things to learn
• momentum
• improved infrastructure for the entire organization which has moved beyond technology program and into organization
• sense of moving towards a future
• motivation to move forward because of resources and support are there

NOT WORKING

• decisions may have tendency to be staff driven
• priorities are driven by DoE funding at this time
• DoE focus
• need to get better at sharing curricula and specific knowledge
• need to find mechanics to share programmatic info
• need to improve information / content sharing
• better and easy to access resource pool
• centralized decision making (
• more leadership throughout the Consortium
• better mechanisms for staff to receive feedback
• involve folks more
• create more of an open forum
• better use of economy of scale
• facilitators for teens or ESL or workforce etc.
• need more info on individual programs

SOME SOLUTIONS

• mobilize sub / working groups better
• more collaboration of sub-groups
• train the trainer
• need some programmatic goals
• technology goals
• a new mission statement
• actually LTC is a good lead for this project
• some centralization needed - a clearinghouse
• Sustainability of Consortium could included by-laws, mission statement, advisory board
• funding strategies like an annual appeal - luncheon for area businesses
• would be good to document the value of this to us and why working collaboratively is important
• an evaluation of all of the CTRS and their programs would be great
• Another sustainability issue is how to spread commitment beyond the individual into the organization
• Get formal understanding w/ organizations to include position commited to CTC programs
• build management
• Tools to make the case to management of value of CTC
• individual orgs to create their own sustainability plan
• include more organizations in consortium
• provide opportunities to visit other programs around the country and perhaps swap personnel

FUTURE GROWTH

• Board or Steering Committee
• Loose collaboration with LTC or something else
• Stronger identity / entity for LCTC
• Making better long-term decisions on technology purchases
• Each organization should keep strong funding process AND combined funding
• Funding plan for LCTC
• Document value of time working collaboratively - useful for funding / justifying time to higher - ups
• Find outside evaluator to study consortium and invidyak members
• identify LCTC representative at each agency
• Develop sustainability plans to maintain current level of service / technology by each agency
• Help other nonprofits beyond LTC
• Look for best practices beyond Lowell