A Brief Review of the Early History of Nonprofits and the Internet

Posted February 19, 2009
Updated March 25, 2009

A Brief Review of the Early History of Nonprofits and the Internet
(before 1996)

If you have corrections or additions to this page, please let me know. All information received should relate to 1995 or before 1995 regarding nonprofits and the Internet and be at least marginally verifiable (for example, reference a web page or even an old URL that's no longer valid or an old USENET posting, etc.). Please don't write me and just say, "You should talk to so-and-so! He was doing something." or "We were doing things in 1995 but I can't remember what" or "Buy my book and read these 100 pages!" Instead, send even just two sentences about what trainings, materials and other resources the organization or project undertook to help nonprofit organizations use the Internet in 1995 or earlier.
Given how many indignant emails I've gotten from organizations who don't make the cut because they didn't get started until 1996, perhaps someone wants to write a sequel focused specifically on nonprofits and the Internet in 1996?

The Internet was built to allow people and organizations to network with each other - to share ideas and comments, and to collaborate. It was built to be interactive and dynamic. There's nothing new about "online social networking" or "online professional networking" -- such is as old as the Internet itself (and the Internet is more than 25 years old).

What nonprofits are doing now with the Internet is, in fact, not much different from what they were doing in the 1980s and early 1990s. In the 1980s, there were already several nonprofit organizations and many dedicated volunteers who were helping to promote nonprofit use of the Internet. So many nonprofits were far ahead of their time regarding use of the Internet by nonprofits, and there were more than a few people donating their time and expertise in their spare time, outside of their full-time job responsibilities, trying to help more nonprofits get real value out of Internet technologies. This page attempts to list the efforts of these early supporters in the 1980s, through 1995.

Given its emphasis on collaboration and sharing, it's no wonder that at least a few nonprofit efforts were using the Internet from the very beginning. And the primary credit for nonprofits using the Internet in the 1980s -- when many people were using bulletin board services (BBS) rather than the World Wide Web -- has to go to nonprofits themselves:

In June 1986, a conference called "Computers for Social Change" was held in New York City at Hunter College. According to the still-available conference report by Stan Pokras, "the image that non-profit groups and community organizations are using new technology to their benefit was in strong evidence. For one thing, this conference was planned for a relatively small number of people, but the response to it was overwhelming and people had to be turned away." Most of the conference was focused on using computers alone, not the Internet, to help nonprofits and grassroots organizations do their work more efficiently and be more far-reaching. But Ed Madara of the New Jersey Self-help Clearinghouse said that his organization had helped to develop over 340 networked self-help groups in New Jersey. Pokras said, "Ed feels that bulletin boards and conferencing systems are going to be one of the major sources for self-help, especially for the handicapped and the homebound. He described existing online meetings for handicapped and forums for this activity." Also presented at the conference and in Pokras' report is information about the Women's Bulletin Board, from Angela Luecht and Beva Eastman of the Seeger Micro Computer Center. They said their bulletin board system system (BBS) had been running since February 1986. "Before going public, the system's moderators spent two months learning how to use the board and in some cases how to use a computer from scratch! The system has a separate moderator for each topic area, many of whom put in more than an hour each day writing new material and responding to issues raised by the callers."
Beginning in 1987, the Institute for Global Communications (IGC) began working to bring advanced communications technologies, including the Internet, to grassroots organizations worldwide working for peace, human rights, environmental sustainability, women's rights, conflict resolution and worker rights. IGC offered Internet dial-up and emailing/online community services focused specifically on grassroots and nonprofit organizations. IGC's flagship global computer networks were PeaceNet, EcoNet, WomensNet, ConflictNet, LaborNet and AntiRacismNet. IGC co-founded the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) in 1990, and IGC and its APC partners were the primary information and communications service provider at several UN world conferences, including the 1992 United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, the 1993 United Nations Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo and the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing -- all of which involved nonprofit organizations and grassroots organizations worldwide.
HandsNet, a national nonprofit organization, launched its first online network in 1987, to promote "information sharing, cross-sector collaboration and advocacy among individuals and organizations working on a broad range of public interest issues." HandsNet provided its members email addresses and email-based mailing list services, as well as an online forum for members, courses on using the Internet, online publishing, website design, mail list management and more. By the end of 1995, the HandsNet online had some 5,000 public interest and human service organizations across the United States among its subscribers. Members include national clearinghouses and research centers, community-based service providers, foundations, local and state government agencies, public policy advocates, legal services programs and grassroots coalitions. My contact at HandsNet once upon a time was the ever-helpful Susan Dormanen.
Around 1990, a nonprofit organization called Desktop Assistance (desktop.org) was formed, focused on helping Western USA states with technology issues, including using Internet tools. The earliest version of its web site at archive.org is from 1995. Some of its activities are listed at Marshall Meyer's personal web page.

There was a growing number of nonprofit organizations using the Internet in the 1990s, particularly in the USA, through the efforts of the aforementioned nonprofit efforts and several universities, as well as more widespread availability of Internet access through commercial providers, such as through Compuserve, the first major commercial online service in the USA, and America Online. Still, nonprofits continued to lead their own:

In June 1993, the Boston Computer Society Nonprofit Training Institute organized the New England Computers and Social Change Conference which included workshops on "Telecommunications Basics: Modems and Bulletin Boards" and "Communicating via the Internet."
By mid 1995, there were at least four free guides available on the Internet from various Web sites, FTP sites, Gopher sites and USENET newsgroups that profiled nonprofit use of the Internet and helped nonprofit organizations learn how to get online:
By 1995, there was also a very active online community for nonprofit organizations: soc.org.nonprofit, a USENET newsgroup that was also available by email subscription (and called USNONPROFIT-L via email). It was founded in 1994 by Michael Chui, then of Indiana University. The gateway between the newsgroup and email group was operated for many years as a public service by RAIN.ORG of Santa Barbara, California. The archives are available via GoogleGroups.
Some of the people who volunteered their spare time outside of their full-time jobs to post regularly to soc.org.nonprofit in 1994 and 1995 were:
More on me and soc.org.nonprofit later...
Impact Online was founded in 1994 (it's now called VolunteerMatch). The archived version of its history says, "Using Internet technology to facilitate and increase community involvement was the idea behind Impact Online." Impact Online was founded by four MBA students: Steve Glikbarg, Cindy Shove, Mark Benning and Joanne Ernst. As Glikbarg notes in the Impact Online history, "Being well-trained MBA alumni, we diligently developed a business plan, made financial statements three years into the future, extrapolated the rapid growth of the Internet and explained how this new medium could revolutionize community involvement. But we were early and few people seemed to grasp the potential... charitable foundations assumed we were looking to fund a technology project (something few do) instead of funding a community outreach project (which many do fund)." Impact Online, and particularly Steve Glikbarg, deserve a lot of credit for getting nonprofit organizations in the USA online, particularly on the West Coast, both through the web site and through the founders' many meetings with and events for nonprofit organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area. They also deserve credit for something else: in 1996, Impact Online secured funding for what became The Virtual Volunteering Project.
And then there was the legendary Steve Cisler and Apple Computer. In 1994, Steve organized "Ties That Bind: Building Community Networks," to help representatives from schools, nonprofits, foundations, businesses, media, and government agencies realize how networking via technology can be used as a tool to help advance the goals and needs of the community. He organized "Ties That Bind: Converging Communities" as a followup conference in 1995, with the Morino Institute. Both were hosted at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California. In addition to attending the first conferences relating to nonprofits and technology and being on the cutting edge, participants also got a t-shirt!
The Contact Center Network was a New York city-based nonprofit founded by Ami Dar that launched a web site in the summer of 1995 to serve as a directory of nonprofit resources on the Internet, including links to web sites of nonprofit organizations world wide. The Contact Center Network later became Idealist.
Similarly, in July, 1995, CharityVillage went online. Based in Canada and founded by Doug Jamieson, CharityVillage quickly became the leading online source of information, news, jobs, services and resources for the Canadian nonprofit community.

How were nonprofits, primarily in the USA and Canada, using the Internet in the early days? I referenced an older version of my own document, "What use is the Internet to mission-based organizations? (nonprofits, NGOs, civil society and public sector agencies)", and found that participants of various nonprofit-related Internet discussion groups I was involved in the early 1990s said they were using email to:

"send out agendas, meeting notices and minutes to board members"
"shorten meetings by using email to educate participants and develop consensus before meetings"
"leave e-mail to my boss about why I'll be late"
"with one message, send the same information to lots of people much more quickly than 'phoning or faxing around!"
"subscribe to a list" (discussion groups or announcement lists via e-mail focusing on marketing, fund raising, technology, policy issues, legislation, etc. Almost every interest or topic has an online group)
"request information on grants, application deadlines, federal resources, etc."
"remind volunteers to check in with their hours of service, progress reports, etc."
"send an electronic newsletter to a targeted online audience (volunteers, donors, board members, etc.), with information on program updates or new information on our Web site"
"send a message to supporters regarding upcoming legislation in the state house or senate and how they can contact their representatives"

They were also using the Internet for research relating to their work. Some research topics they reported back in the 1990s:

how to get funding for a position
where to find certain government documents
things to remember when developing a database
mortality rates of children in comparison to other cities
current legislation concerning welfare costs
what other agencies are doing about crack cocaine
where to find grants to buy a computer system
info about a problem with word perfect
tips for creating a newsletter
"latest stats on the Nuggets for a group of kids I'm working with"
volunteer recruitment and management information
cool graphics for the agency xmas card
why NPOs should get on line!

Chesapeake Area Recovery Communities, a nonprofit provider of housing for alcoholics and addicts, had a particularly interesting benefit to relate regarding its use of the Internet in 1996:

"Last fall by chance we stumbled over information on Attention Deficit Disorder and that this disorder is linked to the presence of particular gene.
The gene identified happens to be the same gene other medical researchers have identified as being present in hereditary alcoholism. Accessing the Internet through a local university, we researched the Cork database at Dartmouth on alcoholism, found information on ADD at a web page at MIT and checked out the Web page from the Genome project.
"Were it not for the access to the free flow of information provided by the Internet we would not have been able to make this correlation. Nor would we have been able to learn of medical professionals interested in this subject.
Thus at least for us, the Internet has had a significant impact if only for the availability to information which we would never have known about."

Ofcourse, nonprofits were also using the Internet in the mid 1990s to promote their work, via the then relatively new World Wide Web and via various online communities, to recruit volunteers, via Impact Online and the many similar volunteer matching web sites that quickly followed its launch, to involve clients in online self-help groups or online communities, and to mobilize activists. Nonprofits also reported to me, via soc.org.nonprofit, that they were using cyberspace to:

set up accounts for internal operations in addition to those for public access
provide patient referrals
match volunteer or staff counselors with clients online
become a public clearinghouse for particular constituency contacts, resources, and ideas
sponsor an electronic discussion list with hundreds/thousands of subscribers
build a text and image archive for a ftp site (remember FTP?)
hold online public forums
involve volunteers online

The momentum from all these interactive online activities and the buzz they created, as well as the real value generated to nonprofits through 1995, lead to an explosion in 1996 of web sites, online discussion groups dedicated to issues relating to nonprofit issues, and efforts relating to nonprofits and the Internet. New online communities appeared for specific topics and for specific nonprofit audiences, and web sites for nonprofit organizations were suddenly the norm, something a potential donor, volunteer or client to any nonprofit expected to find. 1995 and earlier years laid the groundwork for not only what happened in the immediate years to follow, but what is happening now regarding nonprofits and the Internet.

Look up the people listed on this page; most are still active regarding nonprofit organizations. The people and organizations listed on this page all deserve a pat on the back for their early vision and support.

What about online volunteering/virtual volunteering? Certainly the Internet itself, particularly USENET, could be categorized as a form of online volunteering -- users helping users. But the earliest example I have been able to find of formal online volunteering, where volunteers were mobilized specifically to contribute to a specific not-for-profit project meant to help others (other people, the environment, animals, etc.) via their home, work or school computer, is Project Gutenberg, which began in the 1970s and which mobilized online volunteers to create electronic versions of public domain books. More about the history of online volunteering/virtual volunteering is detailed on this page on Wikipedia regarding online volunteering.

Also see this terrific early article about nonprofits and the Internet from 1996 is this article by Putnam Barber.

And where do I, Jayne Cravens, fit in to all this? My experience with the Internet started with a colleague printing out Munn Heydorn's guide in 1994 and giving it to me and suggesting I explore some of the resources recommended, as she was too busy to do such. Somehow, soc.org.nonprofit jumped out at me most, and I joined as soon as I could figure out how to do so, some time in 1994. The World Wide Web seemed so boring to me then -- it was just online brochures -- whereas USENET was interactive, and its newsgroups felt like communities. I soon became involved helping to maintain the nonprofit FAQs sometime in 1994.

This was one of my early posts to the Internet, via both soc.org.nonprofit and comp.sys.mac.databases (still can't find my first post, however, which came at least a few months earlier):

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.databases From: Jayne_A._Crav...@livewire.com (Jayne A. Cravens) Date: 26 Oct 1994 00:15:16 -0800 Local: Wed, Oct 26 1994 9:15 am Subject: database principles I helped the non-profit organization I work for develop a list of database principles -- basic guidelines for setting up membership databases -- using our own experiences and lots of input from people on the usnonprofitl list-server. If any of you would like a copy of this list, please e-mail me at either of the addresses below, and I will happily pass them along. ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Jayne Cravens Communications Manager Community Partnership of Santa Clara County San JosŽ, California e-mail: jcrav...@aol.com or jayne_crav...@vval.com ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| *************************************************************************** ** Transmitted via LiveWire, a Virtual Valley/Metro Newspapers service ** ** San Jose, Calif. USA voice: 408.298.8174 e-mail: onl...@livewire.com ** ** modem: 408.298.8646 (FirstClass, VT-100, TTY) fax: 408.271-3520 ** ***************************************************************************

This list of database principles became a part of my first web site, launched in January 1996. The "database principles" was probably my first big "claim to fame", at least as far as nonprofits and technology went. I also compiled one of the first articles about how nonprofits were using, and could use, online technologies (probably in 1996), which I've tried to update every year since.

I loved soc.org.nonprofit so much that I volunteered to served as the facilitator of the community for three years. On Jan 19 1999, after receiving a quick answer to his question on the group, a soc.org.nonprofit user wrote, "Man - this is one helpful and responsive newsgroup!" And it was! Most of the active volunteer participants were interested in helping others and in networking their own efforts, as well as learning as much as they could about communicating successfully online. But, unfortunately, junk emailers got the better of soc.org.nonprofit, as did one self-proclaimed "human rights activist" whose frequent daily posts drove most of the regular contributors away and killed much of the usefulness of soc.org.nonprofit by the early part of the new century.

I met Cindy Shove of Impact Online through soc.org.nonprofit, among many other people I have listed on this page. Our online meetings lead to offline meetings with Steve Glikbarg, and these lead to my being hired to run the Virtual Volunteering Project, first for Impact Online, and then for the University of Texas at Austin. And I even babysat Cindy's twins one day - nothing virtual about THAT experience...

One last note: The WHOIS database, archive.org and the archive of USENET newsgroups at GoogleGroups proved invaluable for researching dates for this article (although the GoogleGroup USENET archives aren't very reliable before 1996), as did the "about us" and "history" pages on many organizations' web sites. A blanket "thank you" to everyone who has contributed information to this page.

If you have corrections or additions to this page, please let me know. All information received should relate to 1995 or before 1995 regarding nonprofits and the Internet and be at least marginally verifiable (for example, reference a web page or even an old URL that's no longer valid or an old USENET posting, etc.). Please don't write me and just say, "You should talk to so-and-so! He was doing something." or "We were doing things in 1995 but I can't remember what" or "Buy my book and read these 100 pages!" Instead, send even just two sentences about what trainings, materials and other resources the organization or project undertook to help nonprofit organizations use the Internet in 1995 or earlier.
Given how many indignant emails I've gotten from organizations who don't make the cut because they didn't get started until 1996, perhaps someone wants to write a sequel focused specifcally on nonprofits and the Internet in 1996?

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