‘Mentors’ Aid Nonprofit Groups

Two years ago, Maximiliano Torres was a computer novice. But now he’s productively using WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3, PC-File and other programs to help him manage St. Anthony’s Padua Dining Room, a nonprofit agency that serves more than 600 meals a day to low-income and homeless residents in the San Francisco Bay Area.

There is nothing unusual about using a PC to manage such an enterprise. But what is special is the relationship between Torres and Wiley Simonds, a US Sprint engineer who volunteers several hours a week helping Torres refine his computer skills.

Simonds claims that he gets more out of the relationship than Torres. “It’s very satisfying,” Simonds says, “to pass knowledge over to someone who can put it to good use.” Torres, who credits Simonds with a great deal of patience, says his assistance has been instrumental in “making the dining room a more efficient operation.”

Simonds and Torres were brought together by the CompuMentor Project, a San Francisco-based organization that during the past year helped match nearly 300 agencies with about 400 “mentors” like Simonds.

CompuMentor makes matches only in the San Francisco Bay Area but has affiliate organizations in several other cities, including Washington, Chicago, Seattle, New York, Pittsburgh and Boston.

There are no affiliates in Los Angeles. However, Computer Help and Information Program offers computer training and management assistance for Southern California nonprofit groups. CHIP, according to Executive Director Patty Oertel, is exploring whether to launch its own mentoring program. For information, call (213) 623-7080.

CompuMentor was founded in 1986 by former journalist Daniel Ben-Horin. Ben-Horin is proud of the match between Simonds and Torres, but he also points to several other groups that have benefited from access to mentors.

For example, the Chinese Community Housing Corp. used the services of a mentor to help create a database of its San Francisco Chinatown property. The database was put to immediate use after the October, 1989, earthquake, helping the agency target properties that needed immediate assistance.

Mentors can even be lifesavers. A CompuMentor volunteer helped the San Francisco Suicide Prevention Center computerize its information database, reducing its emergency response time from minutes to seconds.

CompuMentor and some of the agencies it serves receive donations of cash, software and equipment from a variety of computer companies, including Hewlett-Packard, US Robotics, Software Ventures and Apple Computer.

Fred Silverman, Apple’s manager of community affairs, praises CompuMentor as “a perfect marriage of technology and volunteerism.” Supporting nonprofit organizations, Silverman says, is Apple’s way of “putting the tools of change into the hands of the agents of change.”

CompuMentor is also helping organizations communicate with each other so that they can share resources and collaborate. Working with a variety of hardware companies, software firms and on-line services, the group has helped nonprofit organizations obtain modems, communications software and access to on-line information services.

A growing number of the organizations supported by CompuMentor, according to Ben-Horin, are using on-line services to share information and resources with other nonprofit groups across the country.

A lot of nonprofit groups, according to Ben-Horin, rely on HandsNet, a Santa Cruz-based on-line service that connects more than 1,200 human service organizations throughout the United States.

HandsNet, which requires a modem and special communications software, provides news and information on hunger, homelessness, housing, community development, health care, legal services and other issues that affect its subscribers’ low-income constituencies.

Organizations use HandsNet to learn about government grants, to conduct collaborative projects and to provide information to various government agencies.

The California Department of Human Services, for example, uses HandsNet to collect information from food banks throughout the state. HandsNet subscribers pay a $25-per-month service fee plus an hourly connect fee. A $100 initiation fee includes the required access software for either the Macintosh or IBM PC. The service can be reached at (408) 427-0808.

On-line services such as HandsNet can do a great deal to break down the isolation so often experienced by staff and volunteers in community-based nonprofit groups. But access to such services requires more than a modem and a password, especially for those nonprofit groups whose staff spend an inordinately high percentage of their time keeping up with the pressing demands of their low-income constituencies.

That’s where CompuMentor comes in. Through its technically savvy mentors, the group provides training and encouragement as well as a certain amount of vision, helping nonprofits use technology to better serve their communities.

CompuMentor will send an information packet to anyone thinking about starting their own group. Write to CompuMentor at 89 Stillman St., San Francisco, Calif. 94107. Phone: (415) 512-7784.

Computer File welcomes readers’ comments but regrets that the authors cannot respond individually to letters. Write to Lawrence J. Magid, P.O. Box 620477, Woodside, Calif. 94062, or contact the L. Magid account on the MCI electronic mail system.