- Dien S Yuen
Asian American nonprofit groups are spread over the U.S. with the majority of them concentrated in states such as California, New York, Hawaii, and Texas. While regional directories exist, there is no comprehensive directory of groups in the U.S. that serve the Asian Americans/Pacific Islander community. Organizations such as the Asian Pacific Fund (San Francisco Bay Area), Asian American Federation (NY metro area), Asian Pacific Community Fund (Los Angeles area), and the Institute for Asian American studies at UMass Boston (Boston area) have listings of affiliate organizations. Now, there is a new directory for the DC metro area.
The Metro Washington DC/Baltimore Chapter of AAPIP created CONNECT! a regional guide of nonprofits serving Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders. There are 26 nonprofit organizations listed. The Cherry Blossom Giving Circle of Greater Washington will use Connect! as their official giving guide. It is hoped that the tool will be used to engage potential volunteers, board members and donors.
While these directories are useful to locate groups and resources for the community, I believe they are not donor-friendly tools and cannot be effectively and easily shared with others. These guides are general listings, with descriptions and contact information. Some are hard copies while others are online listings - usually in large pdf files. Unfortunately, they do not describe detailed programs of needs or issues, provide budget information, make it easy to give, or generally evaluate the work of the organization. In other words, they do not create an easy way to engage donors, i.e., provide a platform for them to give or learn. The information is also not presented in a format that creates communities.
It seems to me that we need a national, online platform that incorporates social media tools and communicates the work of our organizations. If we want to engage donors and volunteers, then we need to make it easy for them to find us and learn about our work. The platform must also provide an effective mechanism for donors to give and if desired, be able to share it with others. It should also provide a way for donors that have similar interests to engage with each other.
Directories of nonprofits are like the yellow telephone book for businesses. Now, let's see if we can build a platform that is user-friendly for donors in web 2.5 format.
Photo courtesy of rutty