NCVA eREPORTER - March 23, 2004

In this NCVA eReporter:

Events

• FAPAC Conference – May 17-21, 2004

Funding Opportunities

• Tobacco Control Grants
• Grants for Social Change
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Invites Proposals for Local Initiative Funding Partners Program

Jobs/Internships

• 2004 OCA-AXA Achievement Scholarship Program
• FAPAC Scholarships
• Job Announcement: Campaign Coordinator, Sweatshop Watch
• Job Announcement: Violence Against Women Program Manager, National Women’s Alliance

Tips/Resources

• Fact Sheet About APIAVOTE 2004
• Knowing When You Need a Content Management System
• Who Do You Need: Volunteer, Consultant or Staff?

News

• Head regent alleges system hid admissions-bias reports (Mercury News)
• Young Women Less Likely to Quit Smoking (Australian Lung Foundation)
• Smokers at Greater Risk for Breast Cancer (Journal of the National Cancer Institute)

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EVENTS

FAPAC CONFERENCE 2004

San Francisco

May 17 - 21, 2004

This is the first year in its 19-year history that FAPAC has held its annual National Leadership Training event outside the Washington DC.  In this great city of San Francisco, APAs of all origins share a common history of immigration, struggle, and success. This is a perfect setting for seeing organized diversity in action for the good of all.

Please register the conference ASAP at http://www.fapac.org/confinfo/index.htm.

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FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

TOBACCO CONTROL GRANTS
Asian Pacific Partners for Empowerment and Leadership: The Social Justice and Tobacco Control Grant

(http://www.appealforcommunities.org/index2.php)

The Asian Pacific Partners for Empowerment and Leadership Social Justice and Tobacco Control Grant provides resources for organizations to promote policy change in tobacco control among Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities through community organizing and advocacy. Tobacco policy issues to be addressed may include, but are not limited to: countering racially targeted tobacco marketing and promotion; countering tobacco industry sponsorship; regulating the density of retail outlets that sell tobacco products; reducing second hand smoke exposure/clean indoor air in public places; advocacy for tobacco control and prevention funding for AAPIs; increasing tobacco taxes or price increases; youth access; and, policy enforcement. Nonprofit organizations throughout the United States and the Pacific with experience in grassroots community organizing are eligible to apply. The application deadline is April 26, 2004. Visit the above website for application instructions.

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GRANTS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
Resist

(http://www.resistinc.org/)
Resist is a political organization committed to the goal of an equitable distribution of wealth and power through radical social change. Resist provides grants and loans to small budget, grassroots groups engaged in activist organizing and educational work within movements for social change. Resist's areas of interest include community organizing and anti-racism projects; economic justice; environmental protection; the struggle for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered rights; health, AIDS and disability issues; labor; progressive media and cultural resources; Native Americans and native peoples; peace/anti-militarism; prisoners; women; and youth. Resist also funds local solidarity organizations for movements in many different parts of the world. Nonprofit organizations throughout the country are eligible to apply. Application deadlines occur every eight weeks. Visit Resist's website for more information and for upcoming deadline dates.

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ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION INVITES PROPOSALS FOR LOCAL INITIATIVE FUNDING PARTNERS PROGRAM

The mission of the Princeton, New Jersey-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is to improve the health and healthcare of all Americans.

The Local Initiative Funding Partners initiative, a partnership between the foundation and local grantmakers, supports innovative, community-based projects designed to improve health and healthcare for society's most vulnerable people. RWJF invites grantmaking organizations – including independent and private foundations, family and community foundations, and corporate and other philanthropies - to recommend dynamic projects for this funding partnership.

LIFP provides grants of $100,000 to $500,000 per project, which must be matched dollar for dollar by local grantmakers. The total award is paid out over a three- or four-year period. In 2005, up to $7.5 million will be awarded.

To be eligible for the program, projects must offer community-based services that are new and innovative for the community, if not the county, state, or nation. Significant program expansions may also be considered. In addition, projects must be nominated by a local grantmaker interested in participating as one of the funding partners. Local funders must be willing to work with grantees to obtain sufficient dollar-for-dollar matching funds throughout the grant period.

For more information on this opportunity, eligibility requirements, and detailed application guidelines, see the RWJF Web site.

(http://www.rwjf.org/cfp/lifp)

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JOBS/INTERNSHIPS

2004 OCA-AXA ACHIEVEMENT SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

Washington, DC – The Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA) is teaming up with AXA Foundation to introduce the 2004 OCA-AXA Achievement Scholarship Program. Scholarships and financial aid are critical in helping students attain a college education. Six (6) $2000 scholarships will be awarded. "OCA and the AXA Foundation are dedicated to education in the APA community," commented OCA National President Raymond Wong. "The AXA Foundation recognizes the need to provide opportunities to APA students who do not have access to the financial resources necessary to pursue higher education."

Within the last eight years, OCA has awarded over 1300 scholarships to financially disadvantaged students through its various scholarship programs.

"Education has always been a high priority in the Asian Pacific American community." noted Christine Chen, OCA Executive Director. "Although the average level of education for APAs is high, the statistics are misleading. Although there are many members of our community who have advanced degrees, there are countless APAs who are unable to attend college because of financial difficulties. Through our many scholarships - including the OCA-AXA Achievement Scholarship- OCA is committed to granting deserving APA students a chance they otherwise would not get."

The AXA Foundation is the philanthropic arm of AXA Financial, directing the company's philanthropic and volunteer activities and working to improve the quality of life in communities across the country where AXA has a presence. AXA Achievement is the AXA Foundation's innovative, long-term strategy to provide America's youth with the advice and access necessary to succeed in college and beyond. For more information, please go to www.AXAonline.com/axafoundation.

For more information on OCA’s scholarship programs and an application, students may go to OCA’s website at www.ocanatl.org. The deadline for applying to the 2004 OCA-AXA Achievement Scholarship Program is May 1, 2004.

About OCA

Founded in 1973, the Organization of Chinese Americans is a national civil rights advocacy and educational organization dedicated to advancing the social, political and economic well-being of Americans of Chinese and Asian/Pacific Islander descent. With over 80 chapters and affiliates across the country, it maintains its headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Vana Tran

Dir. of Programs

202-223-5500

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FAPAC SCHOLARSHIPS

FAPAC has Internships open to family members of FAPAC members or non-FAPAC members. Selected interns would assist us to plan, organize, and coordinate the Congressional Seminars and Training Conference.  Interns will receive $2,000 in stipend. 

http://www.fapac.org/confinfo/04Internship.pdf

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JOB ANNOUNCEMENT: CAMPAIGN COORDINATOR

(Full-time Position, based in Los Angeles)

Founded in 1995, Sweatshop Watch is a coalition of over 30 labor and community organizations committed to eliminating the exploitation that occurs in sweatshops.  Sweatshop Watch serves low-wage workers nationally and globally, with a focus on garment workers in California.  We believe that workers should earn a living wage in a safe, decent work environment, and that those responsible for the exploitation of sweatshop workers must be held accountable.  Our programs include policy advocacy, public education and worker education.

Position Summary:

The Campaign Coordinator leads the corporate accountability campaigns; coordinates public education; builds community support; conducts research; and coordinates grassroots fundraising.

Main Responsibilities:

A. Corporate accountability campaigns

* Develop, implement and evaluate campaigns, working closely with partner organizations.

* Organize public actions and media events.

B. Public education

* Develop, update, design and distribute educational materials, including action alerts, factsheets and web pages.

* Conduct public speaking.

C. Community alliance building and support

* Coordinate outreach on local, statewide, national and international levels. . Create alliances with student groups in high school and college campuses, and other key constituencies. 

D. Research

* Conduct corporate research.

* Monitor developments in the anti-sweatshop movement.

* Monitor developments in the garment industry.

E. Grassroots fundraising

* Coordinate membership solicitation drives.

* Coordinate grassroots fundraising events.

F. Projects

* Coordinate other projects, as required.

Qualifications:

Required:

* Commitment to economic, racial, gender and social justice.

* At least two years of campaign experience.

* Excellent oral and written communication skills, including public speaking

* Demonstrated ability to build coalitions and work with diverse community organizations, policy makers, media and volunteers.

* Strong computer skills.

* Able to work some evenings and weekends.

Preferred:

* Proven track record in campaign development, coordination and evaluation, particularly corporate campaigns. . Solid graphic design and web design skills.

* Strong research and analytical skills.

* Experience with grassroots fundraising.

* Bilingual ability in Spanish (oral and written fluency) highly preferred.

* Experience with low wage immigrant workers.

* Knowledge of Southern California political landscape and/or the domestic and international garment industry.

Compensation:

Salary range: $30,000 to $36,000 DOE plus medical & dental benefits, paid vacation and sick time, paid holidays, pension plan.

Application deadline:  April 16, 2004

To apply:  Please send cover letter, resume and references to:

Hiring Committee

Sweatshop Watch

1250 So. Los Angeles Street, Suite 214

Los Angeles, CA 90015

Facsimile: (213) 748-5876

SWEATSHOP WATCH IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER, AND DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE ON THE BASIS OF RACE, RELIGION, COLOR, SEX, DISABILITY OR SEXUAL ORIENTATION.

ALL PERSONS ARE ENCOURAGED TO APPLY.

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NATIONAL WOMEN'S ALLIANCE
POSITION AVAILABLE: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN PROGRAM MANAGER

The National Women's Alliance is a multi-issue human rights and social justice organization devoted to addressing the intersections of race, class, gender, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, and other markers of difference. Using an Intersectional Approach, NWA works at the local, state, and national levels to influence public policy outcomes; increase political participation and action among women/girls of color and low-income women; and bring diverse communities and organizations together to work toward s a multi-issue agenda for social and political change. Through training, technical assistance, coalition building, public education campaigns, community organizing, and resource leveraging/sharing, we strive to help end all forms of oppression and support women of color-led initiatives.

We are looking for a motivated, hardworking, self-starter with a strong commitment to social justice, women and girls of color.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION Working under the direct supervision of the Executive Director, the Violence against Women Program Manager will manage NWA violence against women programs and initiatives. She will be responsible for facilitating trainings and workshops; developing curriculum and technical assistance efforts; and building coalitions and alliances with advocates and organizations dedicated to ending violence against women of color, LGBTQ individuals, and immigrant women.

QUALIFICATIONS: Bachelor's degree required or equivalent in experience; Masters Degree preferred. 2 years training and experience on issues of domestic violence, stalking, and/or sexual assault.  Concrete experience in planning and facilitating trainings to diverse audiences and communities. Ideal candidate will possess strong community organizing and curriculum development skills. Experience with other social justice issues a plus, including, but not limited to, racial and economic justice, the Prison Industrial Complex, welfare reform, the traffick in women, and the environment. Bilingual preferred. Extensive travel required.

SALARY RANGE:
NWA Level 3: $35,000-44,000. Salary commensurate with experience.

You can fax your resume and a writing sample to 202.518.3924 or email it to generalinfo@nwaforchange.org. We are hoping to fill this position as soon as possible. It will remain open until it is filled.

Please note: WE WILL NOT BE ACCEPTING PHONE CALLS REGARDING THIS POSITION UNTIL MONDAY, MARCH 29, 2004.

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TIPS/RESOURCES 

FACT SHEET ABOUT APIAVOTE 2004

Our Mission: The Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote) 2004 is a national coalition of non-partisan nonprofit organizations that encourages civic participation and promotes a better understanding of public policy and the electoral process among the Asian and Pacific Islander American community.  Our objective is to effectively engage the APIA community in the political process by coordinating outreach and educational activities and programs.

Signature Projects for 2004:

I. The National Campaign will forge coalitions among APIA organizations nationally and at the grassroots level in various cities across the country, facilitate the dissemination of uniform multilingual materials, and provide a national forum for a comprehensive public and media relations campaign.

APIAVote will also coordinate voter registration, education and mobilization campaigns in selected regions in nine states in where APIAs have the highest concentration of eligible voters.  In conjunction with the high population, these regions are known either to be a presidential battleground, to have a Congressional or Senate race and/or 5% or more APIA population.  The focus on organizing local coalitions and efforts will be in these nine regions, but activities are not limited to these areas:

Nevada                   Michigan                 New York

Washington             Oregon                   Illinois

Minnesota               New Jersey              California

The National Campaign will amplify the efforts of local coalitions by reducing the amount of redundant work through centralization, developing effective messages on how to reach voters and get them to the polls, and providing current information about the national and grassroots efforts of APIAs mobilizing the community.

II. Voter Registration Drives will fulfill the need to provide more opportunities for the APIA community to learn about the electoral process and to register to vote.  The national effort will provide technical assistance and organize trainings for regional coalitions.  Bilingual educational and promotional materials will be provided for these drives.  A toll free multi-lingual assistance voter hotline, 1-888-API-VOTE, will allow requests for voter registration materials to be taken in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, and Hmong.  A How-To Starter Kit will provide community leaders and volunteers with basic information and tips on how to effectively register their family, friends and community.

III. The Voter Education Project will develop and use language specific materials and resources for the APIA community to empower themselves with the knowledge and understanding of how important voting is and how it impacts their daily lives.

The development of a media and educational campaign will include the creation and placement of posters and public service announcements for ethnic print media, television and radio.  Additionally, multi-lingual election guides explaining the electoral process, voting rights palm cards explaining the voting rights of minority and limited English proficient voters, and voting 101 brochures discussing the basic mechanics of voting and obtaining absentee ballots will be created.  Partnerships with ethnic media will be developed, and many of these materials will be available on our website at www.apiavote.org.

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KNOWING WHEN YOU NEED A CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
A CMS won't do your work for you, but it can be a great tool for helping you get it done
February 25, 2004

Author: Rob Prideaux

Source: TechSoup

This article is the first part of a three-part series on content management systems (CMS). Content management is a large topic that can be quite confusing, and may bring up many questions: What can a CMS do? What do we need from a CMS? How do I make sense of all the CMS solutions available?

In this article, TechSoup will address how you know when your organization needs a CMS.

Content Management Systems
The phrase "Content Management System" means different things to different people. Within the context of the series, I will define it as a set of processes, applications, and databases that help an organization create, store, coordinate, and publish information in a useful format, in a timely fashion, and with a consistent method.

"Content" can be confusing too. For this article, "content" is meaningful information, established in a context and formatted for consumption by an audience.

Types of CMS
Within the CMS world, there are several different types of products, and different styles of each. Elements of various CMS styles can even be mixed and matched. This article will focus on Web content management, since that's what most nonprofits appear to need the most.

Web Content Management Systems (WCMS):This subset of CMS emphasizes managing only Web content. Products vary in functionality, complexity, and range. (You can read more about WCMS in this TechSoup article.)

Enterprise Content Management Systems (ECMS): ECMS emphasize comprehensiveness. They are used to manage all aspects of an organization's content publication processes, including Web, print, and any alternative outputs. The products offer a good amount of functionality, complexity, and range.

Document Management Systems (DMS): Technically, these are parallel to CMS, but they focus on documents (such as Microsoft Word files), and are more for internal use than for presenting content for public consumption. They vary broadly in functionality, complexity, and range.

Digital Rights Management Systems (DRMS): These are also parallel or complementary to CMS. These systems only manage intellectual property rights information for any content that exists. They vary broadly in functionality, complexity, and range, but tend to specialize in areas where Digital Rights are a priority (such as music or video).

Asset Management Systems (AMS): These are also parallel to CMS. These systems manage so-called content "assets" (images, video, audio, and other binary, non-textual content). They vary broadly in functionality, complexity, and range, but tend to be used in organizations where assets like these are numerous (such as photo agencies or graphic design firms).

CMS Styles

Hosted: In this style, the vendor hosts and maintains the CMS, which frees the client from much of the administrative responsibilities and reduces the initial cost. On the downside, a hosted CMS reduces the amount of control the client has and results in larger long-term costs.

Commercial: This means that a vendor builds a CMS application and sells it to the client, who is responsible for maintenance. The client has more control, but more responsibility as well. A commercial CMS is usually more expensive up front.

Nonprofit: There are many CMS built for nonprofits, sometimes they're even built by nonprofits. These styles may be hosted or commercial, but they tend to include features that many nonprofits find useful.

Open Source: As with any Open Source software, there is no cost to acquire the software. The client has a lot of control, a lot of responsibility, is reliant on the Open Source community for support. In general, the products tend to be poorly documented, and focused more narrowly in their features.

Evaluating Your Needs
To evaluate your need for a CMS, look at your own situation, not the available systems or what your peers are doing. Take stock of your content, the people that are dealing with it, any organizational difficulties you are experiencing, the source of those difficulties, and any associated problems you're having.

Type and amount of content
It could take anywhere from an hour to a month to identify all the types of content you have, but the idea is to do a quick pass at it and just rough out the broad types of content. Do you have articles? Collections of small pieces of information, like lists of resources, suites of product information, groups of service descriptions? White papers? Audio recordings of speeches or presentations? Instructional videos? Images, including photographs, diagrams, graphs, and artwork?

Consider how much of these types of content you have. For example, count the number of articles you have and the average length of each. For a list of resources, count the total number of resources and the amount of information you collect for each. What you're after here is a general idea of the size of your overall content base.

Once that's done, examine all your content to determine the general nature of it. Do you find that most of your content is of one type? Or do you have wildly divergent types of content? With an objective view of the nature and size your content base, it's easier to determine how badly you need a CMS, and what kind you might need.

Who is involved?
Take some time to understand the people, or more generically, the roles involved in your content processes. As above, do a quick pass to get a general idea. Usually, the roles are:

• Authors: Identify the types, or roles, of your authors. Who does the bulk of the content creation? Are your authors internal, or do they work all over the country? Is it a consistent group of people, or do they come and go? Are they dedicated to the task, or is it something they do on the side? Is there a team or a group of individuals?
• Editors: Who does most of the editing? Do the authors act as their own editors? Is there a team of editors? Is that a dedicated role, or is it something someone does when time is available? You can examine these questions on per-content piece level, as well as on a site- or publication-wide level.
• Designers: Who works on the design of any given piece or the publication as a whole? Are they technical people or artistic types? Is there a team or a group of individuals working independently? Is the designer or team also responsible for other design tasks in your organization?
• Approvers: Who's involved in approving something for publication? Editors, of course, but what about management? Legal? Partners?
• Publishers: Who performs the actual publication of the authored, edited, and approved content? Who releases the finished Web page to the live Web servers or the final document to the printer?

Where's the pain?
Next, take a look at how these people deal with all the content in your current system. How does your content move from authoring or acquisition, through editing and formatting, to publication and beyond. With a good sense of that process, identify the points that are causing the most difficulty.

This can often take longer than the first two steps. But it shouldn't be too hard: just ask around. Listen for the things that people complain about the most, and the things they most want to change. Look for work that seems to take much longer than you think it should or involves more people that you think it ought to.

Perhaps your article authors are tired of having to e-mail multiple revisions back and forth to their editors, and edits are frequently lost or garbled. Maybe your Web producers are reworking entire sets of HTML files just to fix a typo. The most common pain point is at publishing: your technical people have to take a lot of time to make finished content pieces available to your audience, and heaven forbid you should have to make a change after it's been published.

Hopefully, there are only a few very painful problems. It's tempting to identify every little problem that exists, but you're better off dealing with the top three or four problems (or even the top one). Once you address the main ones, you'll often find that the rest of them disappear or become manageable.

Take a look at your short list of problems, and you may be able to see a consistent theme. Often, it boils down to three themes:

• Speed: It takes forever to get something published, approved, or updated. There are long gaps between requests and when the work gets started.
• Organization: Tasks and content get lost in the shuffle. The processes are overly complex, hard to understand, or full of gaps. Things move along for a while, but then they stop, blow up, or fade away.
• Effort: People have to spend a lot of time doing simple things, or they duplicate efforts. There are tasks that aren't inherently necessary, or perhaps two people are doing the same thing unnecessarily (or one person has to do it twice in two places).

You may discover that you have all of these problems, or other problems entirely. The point is to be aware of them so you know what you're trying to solve with a CMS.

At this point, I'd like to debunk a common myth: Despite what you believe, whatever system you work with is not going to actually do the work. Systems, content management systems in particular, don't create the content, organize the content, make it pretty, put it where your audience can make use of it, or, for that matter, make use of it. All the system is going to do is allow you to manage that stuff; it's only going to do what you tell it to do. It seems self-evident, but often people think that the CMS is going to solve all their problems. No. The CMS is what you are going to use to solve your problems.

Knowing When You're Ready for a CMS
I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that just because some problems have been identified does not mean that your organization is ready for a CMS. There are three main factors to consider: technological readiness, publication readiness, and organizational readiness.

Technological Readiness
Take a look at the state of your technology today. What are you using to author, store, organize, publish, and present your content now? What's the condition of those parts, individually and overall? Does your organization have a fairly cohesive technology architecture and plan, or is it more haphazard? Describe it.

In the case of this question, it's easier to be specific, and you should do so. Your answer might look like this: We're authoring in Microsoft Word, storing the files on a Microsoft Windows 2000 file server, organizing it with a folder structure there, managing workflow by walking around and talking to people, and publishing via FTP to our Solaris/Apache Web servers.

If your overall technology is a big mess, a CMS will only make it worse. In that case, you should focus on cleaning that up and then revisit the CMS question. If the mess is strictly limited to the content management area, then a CMS may end up replacing all that, and that would be a good thing.

A good understanding of where you're at technologically will help you narrow your CMS choices. Trust me, you'll be grateful for any way to limit the field.

Publication Readiness
Examine the state of your content. How well is it organized? Is it easy for audience members to find what they're looking for? Does your categorization scheme serve you, your content, and your audience well? Can your content be presented consistently, or is it a jumble of formats and looks? Does each piece relate well to others when appropriate?

It's important to be objective about this. It's tempting to gloss over publication integrity problems and assume that a CMS will offer a quick fix. However, any problems that exist at this level will just be reproduced within the new CMS if you don't address them first. You don't want to wind up with a CMS that functions as a big, expensive, complicated band-aid. While you can address publication problems during a CMS implementation, you need to go into it with your eyes open and realize that this will extend implementation time.

With a good idea of your publication readiness in mind, you'll be better able to gauge what sort of system might be appropriate. Perhaps more importantly, you'll have an idea of the things you'll need address before you implement that system, or issues that may come up during implementation.

Organizational Readiness
This is another potentially touchy subject, but the fact is, if your organization is not ready for a CMS, they won't use it just because it's been implemented. The more objective you can be about facing the facts, the better.

That said, take a look at your organization, with an emphasis on your current content management processes. How formal are your processes, and how well does your organization tolerate an increase in formality? Are there a lot of checks and balances, with many people touching everything that happens, or does everybody do their own thing? Where is the drive to get a CMS coming from, the people who do the work, or the people who manage them? How does the upper management respond to talk of a CMS?

Consider budget and resource factors. Roughly how much funding is available or potentially available, and how would you secure those funds? How much time could people make available to work on a CMS implementation project? Who in your organization would own the system, and how do they feel about it? Where would a CMS project fit in your organization's overall priorities?

Perhaps most importantly, just how important is content to your organization at a strategic level? Is it something you're willing to invest in?

If the people who do the work won't use the CMS or you lack management support, funds, and resources, then your organization probably isn't ready for a CMS. In that case, you should focus on getting it ready, and then reevaluate your need for a CMS.

Whatever you discover here, it will inform whether or not you should get a CMS, what type you should get, and how you would implement it.

So Do I Need a CMS or Not?
At this point, you should have a good idea of what your content is, who's dealing with it, and the problems you're having. With this information, you can try to answer the question: Do we need a CMS at this point?

On the surface, it's easy to say, "Of course, look at all these problems I've identified." But the real question is whether or not a CMS will help you solve them.

Take a close look at those problems. It's easy to find problems, but more difficult to see how they came to be and harder still to solve them. How did your problems come about? Usually, they're a result of moving quickly and cutting corners. Often what's lost is process management and oversight. Do people in your organization avoid looking at the way they work because they already have more work than they can do? Have they been unable to take the time to address these problems because of deadline pressures? Perhaps it's just that no one's ever taken the time to examine it at a high level as you've just done, so the problems never surfaced in a cohesive way.

Identifying the source of problems is a good way to start fixing them. But before you decide on a CMS as your solution, see if you can address some of these problems through better management. If you have too many people involved in approvals, can you remove some? If it takes too long to get an article published, do you need to make a new position that deals with that task only? If there are too many steps involved in some task, how can you streamline it?

If you make a real attempt to solve these problems with what you have at your disposal today and find that the problems still exist, then you may need a CMS.

Consider again your organization's readiness. You may need to address problems with the way you use technology, your publication process, or your organization's commitment to content before you can really address the nitty-gritty of how a CMS might help.

Conclusion
Only you and your organization can determine whether or not you need a CMS, although there are consultants available to help you with that process.

A consultant is likely to walk you through the steps outlined in this article. You need to understand your content, the people that work on it, the way they work on it, where the problems are, and what your organization is ready for.

Finally, you need to have realistic expectations about what a CMS can do. It's not going to solve your problems; it's going to provide a mechanism for you to solve your problems. If you can solve your problems without a CMS, then avoid all the hassle and just solve those problems. If you can't, then by all means, look into getting a CMS.

(http://www.techsoup.org/howto/articlepage.cfm?ArticleId=540)

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WHO DO YOU NEED: VOLUNTEER, CONSULTANT OR STAFF?

Criteria for making the right decision
May 01, 2000

Author: Anna Mills

Source: TechSoup

Volunteers can be wonderful sources of technology support, but there are some cases where they can be more of a hindrance than a help. Before you bring on a volunteer, you should think through which of your technology needs are suited to a volunteer project, and which would be better met by a consultant or a system administrator. A mismatch between the project and the kind of assistance you seek can waste time and resources for everyone concerned. The bottom line is that your use of a volunteer should be a planned and thought-out part of your overall technology support strategy, as you have worked it out in your technology plan. See the Technology Planning section for help with the planning process.

Before you decide to search for a volunteer, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is your need short-term or ongoing? A volunteer is almost always best used as a short-term solution for a short-term need. For regular maintenance issues, a system administrator or a contract with a consulting firm are better choices. Can the project you have in mind be accomplished in a few hours a week, spread out over two to three months? Volunteers' schedules are often variable, so it's best not to count on a longer commitment than that. It's wonderful if a volunteer decides to continue on, but it shouldn't be part of the initial plan.
• Is the project urgent or mission critical? If so, it's best to hire a consultant or a system administrator. A crucial and time-sensitive task puts too much pressure on a volunteer. From your perspective, a volunteer gives you no guarantees. It's harder to keep tabs on progress on a tight deadline, so you are more likely to end up with an unpleasant surprise when the deadline comes and goes, and the volunteer hasn't delivered. However, if you are more flexible on the timeline for the project, a volunteer may fill your need. For instance, if you need someone to repair your database so that you can access contact information about your clients for daily phone calls, you should probably hire a consultant. If, however, you need training on how to use your database to generate reports for a grant deadline six months from now, a volunteer might be perfect.
• What is your potential budget? A volunteer is a low-cost solution up-front. If what you need is a consultant or system administrator, however, you may be able to raise the money for it, especially if it is a convincing part of your technology plan.
• Is the project limited in scope? An essential feature of a volunteer project is that you can break it down into specific, achievable tasks, and that you can see a definite end in sight. The project should be a small part of the overall technology plan for your organization.
  
  For instance, in CompuMentor's experience, creating and managing a relational database is almost always too big a project for a volunteer. However, a volunteer might be able to do a limited portion of a database project, such as assessing an existing database and making a recommendation for how to develop it.
  
  CompuMentor has also found that most Web sites now require a greater time commitment and follow-up than it is advisable to expect of a volunteer. You don't want to be stuck with an outdated Web site because no one on staff has time or skill to do the updating, and the volunteer has moved on to other things. Volunteers have been most successful with very simple nonprofit Web sites that are not interactive or time-sensitive, but are essentially online brochures. Even if you need to hire a Web developer to create your site, a volunteer might help with part of the process, such as helping you think through what you want the site to offer and who you want to target. For more examples and guidelines on how to define a project with a limited scope, see Defining the Volunteer Project.
• What time commitment does the project require? CompuMentor's volunteer matching program asks volunteers to commit to twenty hours of work over two to three months. If your project requires a more sustained effort, it might be better handled by a consultant on contract.
• What kind of follow-up will be needed? Does the project require ongoing maintenance? If so, you may want to hire or dedicate a staff member. For instance, if you ask a volunteer to create a Web site with a page of information about upcoming events, you may be out of luck when the volunteer leaves. You may not have the resources or expertise to update it. If the project requires follow-up that is relatively easy, however, you can ask the volunteer to train a staff member as part of the project.
• How large is your organization? Some organizations find that with more than fifteen or so computers, they need to hire a part-time or full-time system administrator, or contract a consulting firm to do regular maintenance. Volunteers can still be useful on specific tasks, but they should not substitute for consistent, ongoing support from a staff person or regular contractor.

Basically, for any volunteer project to be successful, your organization must have the ability to manage the project. That means you must be able to define the project in a clear, realistic way; write a scope of work for yourselves and the volunteer; evaluate the skills of the volunteer against the scope; have the capacity to supervise and evaluate the volunteer's work; get complete technical and user documentation, as appropriate; and you must understand the ramifications of the project on ongoing support and cost. Without this ability to manage the project, you'll find that your technical volunteer project will be less than successful.

(http://www.techsoup.org/howto/articlepage.cfm?ArticleId=55&topicid=7)

(http://www.techsoup.org/howto/articlepage.cfm?articleid=54&topicid=7)

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NEWS

March 19, 2004

HEAD REGENT ALLEGES SYSTEM HID ADMISSIONS-BIAS REPORTS

San José Mercury News

The chairman of the University of California Board of Regents accused the university system Thursday of hiding reports from regents that he claims show that most selective UC campuses are discriminating against Asian-Americans in favor of admitting more African-American and Latino students.

University officials denied John J. Moores' allegations of concealing information. And on an 8-6 vote, regents endorsed the ``comprehensive review'' process that UC campuses use to pick students and repudiated Moores' criticisms of that process, most recently aired in Forbes magazine, as not representing the board's views.

Bruce Darling, senior vice president for university affairs, said the data in a September 2002 report identified by Moores as being kept secret were widely discussed on UC campuses. But researchers said they did not share them with regents because they were a work in progress presented in a format that would be difficult to understand.

Officials said the ``report'' cited by Moores was the first step in an effort to determine whether race is playing any role in admissions. A more refined version of the report, using actual admissions data from 2003, found that Asian-Americans are admitted at most selective campuses at a slightly lower rate than perhaps they should have been while similarly qualified African-Americans and Latinos were accepted at higher rates.

Those trends are cause for concern and are being studied to see whether racial bias is playing any role, Darling said, and if it is, changes will be made.

Comprehensive review allows campuses to consider a wide range of academic and personal factors in admissions decisions.

Moores has criticized the comprehensive review process. He cites data showing that for fall 2002, Berkeley admitted 359 students with combined SAT scores of 1,000 or less and that 231 were black, Latino or Native American. Among California students with SAT scores above 1,400 who applied to the same departments, Moores said, 662 were Asian-American and 62 were underrepresented minorities.

(http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/8225396.htm)

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March 22, 2004

YOUNG WOMEN LESS LIKELY TO QUIT SMOKING

Young women are aware of the health risks associated with smoking, but a new study shows that girls aged 14 to 19 are less likely to quit smoking, the Daily Telegraph reported March 15.

A report from Australia's chief health officer found that smoking-related hospitalization for women increased by 11 percent, compared with 4 percent for males. In addition, new research by the Australian Lung Foundation found that young women are the most aware among all age groups of the dangers associated with smoking, yet the least likely to give up smoking.

According to Wendy Oakes, manager of tobacco strategies at the New South Wales Cancer Council, the likelihood of lung and bronchial cancers in Australian women is continuing to rise.

"In the U.S., lung and bronchial cancers are responsible for 25 percent of all cancer deaths in women -- overtaking breast cancer, which now accounts for 15 percent of cancer deaths in women," Oakes said. "It's only a matter of time before those trends are duplicated here."

(http://www.lungnet.org.au/)

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January 12, 2004

SMOKERS AT GREATER RISK FOR BREAST CANCER

A study conducted by the California Department of Health Services finds that women who smoke may be more at risk for developing breast cancer than former and non-smokers, Reuters reported Jan. 6.

The study involved 116,544 women and examined the period 1996 through 2000. During that time, 2,005 of the women were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer.

The researchers found that women who smoked were 30 percent more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer. Also at risk were women who started smoking before age 20, women who smoked the most or the longest, and women who smoked five years before their first full-term pregnancy.

The researchers also found that women who smoked but quit reduced their risk of breast cancer.

The study's findings are published in the Jan. 7 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

(http://jncicancerspectrum.oupjournals.org/)

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About NCVA
Founded in 1986, the National Congress of Vietnamese Americans is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community advocacy organization working to advance the cause of Vietnamese Americans in a plural but united America – e pluribus unum – by participating actively and fully as civic minded citizens engaged in the areas of education, culture and civil liberties.