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The US community technology movement 333locally and regionally have caused redundancy and prevented the movementfrom leveraging its collective experience nationally. In 2000, the University ofMichigan released a study of CTCs and their efforts to share lessons learned,aptly titled Surely Someone Knows How To Do This: Organizing InformationFlows of Community Technology Centers (Sandor and Scheuerer, 2000). Theirfindings included the need for more networking opportunities and betteraccess to documentation of others’ practices.Third, the community technology movement currently faces huge challengesof achieving scale and sustainability. How should we address the digitaldivide in the many places that do not benefit from the existence of CTCs?Should we devise a way to create CTCs in these places? Replication of thosemodels that have demonstrated success is one possibility, but has alwaysseemed better in theory than it has worked in practice. Locally based organizationswork because they are rooted in their local context; this makes suchmodels difficult to transfer. Or should we construct mechanisms that enableexisting CBOs and other local organizations to build the capacity necessary toaddress the technology gap? One vision is that of CTCs playing key roles asthe community institutions of the future, functioning as gathering places, traininginstitutions, and family learning centers. Another vision would positionCTCs as stopgap measures, functioning to fill a present void only until existinginstitutions can gain sufficient capacity to address the technology gapthemselves.The most realistic way for CTCs to achieve scale and sustainability isthrough partnerships with existing institutions such as CBOs, schools, andlibraries. Such partnerships will help to institutionalize the goals of thecommunity technology movement and enable it to reach many more people.The community technology movement is also mature enough to have generateda set of intermediary organizations and trade associations. These organizationscan help to create scale by documenting and disseminating bestpractices, educating funders about the problem of the digital divide andcommunity-based solutions, and connecting with other community-basedmovements that have complementary goals.Fourth, the community technology movement has yet to fully align its effortswith the community building movement, an interrelated and parallel movement,which seeks to revitalize distressed communities, that has emerged overthe past half-century. Many community technology practitioners are onlybeginning to situate their work within the context of much broader efforts tocatalyze community change. Analogously, many community building practitionersare only now considering how to incorporate information and communicationstechnology into their community outreach activities. In Bridging theOrganizational Divide: Toward a Comprehensive Approach to the DigitalDivide (Kirschenbaum and Kunamneni, 2001), researchers at PolicyLink
334 Lisa J. Servon and Randal D. Pinkettcoined this disconnect, the “organizational divide,” and highlighted programsacross the US that are integrating community technology and communitybuilding successfully. As a recent Seedco (2002) study found, however, theseCBOs remain the exception.Fifth, and finally, as the original funding sources for community technologyprograms continue to diminish, it will become increasingly incumbent onprogram directors to identify alternative sources of support as well as newand innovative approaches to service delivery. Scale and sustainability arecritical current issues for the community technology movement. These areperhaps the movement’s greatest challenges as well as its greatest opportunitiesas they may force practitioners to wrestle with each of the aforementionedissues of capturing the late majority, disseminating best practices,moving beyond access to outcomes, and facilitating greater alignment withcommunity builders. In other words, the strategies needed to sustain themovement could serve to elevate those programs that have utilized resourceseffectively and necessitate changes among those that have not.Naturally, there are a number of CTCs that have overcome these hurdlesto play a significant and effective role in the communities they serve. In somerespects, they could be considered models for the future of the communitytechnology movement, serving as new “public spaces” or places that engagediverse groups of people and contribute to positive local change.CONCLUSIONSThe community technology movement has grown up at the edges of establishedinstitutional arrangements, in the interstices between traditional policyspheres and existing community-based movements. It has incorporatedaspects of community development, economic development, education, andorganizing. This movement is a response to the larger socioeconomic transformationthat has created the information society. The response has resultedin a new set of locally based institutions and programs – community technologycenters – that act to diffuse technology, engage people in civil society,and connect traditionally disadvantaged groups to the opportunities offeredby the new economy.In the short time that they have existed, CTCs have helped countless individualsand communities to harness the power of the information society andreap its benefits. But CTCs are too small, scattered, and vulnerable to thevicissitudes of the funding world to be the answer for society at large. Ontheir own, they are unlikely to make a significant dent in the problem of thedigital divide or to substantially narrow other longstanding divides.CTCs are a growing, new form of community organization. Although
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334 Lisa J. Servon and Randal D. Pinkettcoined this disconnect, the “organizational divide,” and highlighted programsacross the US that are integrating community technology and communitybuilding successfully. As a recent Seedco (2002) study found, however, theseCBOs remain the exception.Fifth, and finally, as the original funding sources for community technologyprograms continue to diminish, it will become increasingly incumbent onprogram directors to identify alternative sources of support as well as newand innovative approaches to service delivery. Scale and sustainability arecritical current issues for the community technology movement. These areperhaps the movement’s greatest challen<strong>ge</strong>s as well as its greatest opportunitiesas they may force practitioners to wrestle with each of the aforementionedissues of capturing the late majority, disseminating best practices,moving beyond access to outcomes, and facilitating greater alignment withcommunity builders. In other words, the strategies needed to sustain themovement could serve to elevate those programs that have utilized resourceseffectively and necessitate chan<strong>ge</strong>s among those that have not.Naturally, there are a number of CTCs that have overcome these hurdlesto play a significant and effective role in the communities they serve. In somerespects, they could be considered models for the future of the communitytechnology movement, serving as new “public spaces” or places that enga<strong>ge</strong>diverse groups of people and contribute to positive local chan<strong>ge</strong>.CONCLUSIONSThe community technology movement has grown up at the ed<strong>ge</strong>s of establishedinstitutional arran<strong>ge</strong>ments, in the interstices between traditional policyspheres and existing community-based movements. It has incorporatedaspects of community development, economic development, education, andorganizing. This movement is a response to the lar<strong>ge</strong>r socioeconomic transformationthat has created the information society. The response has resultedin a new set of locally based institutions and programs – community technologycenters – that act to diffuse technology, enga<strong>ge</strong> people in civil society,and connect traditionally disadvanta<strong>ge</strong>d groups to the opportunities offeredby the new economy.In the short time that they have existed, CTCs have helped countless individualsand communities to harness the power of the information society andreap its benefits. But CTCs are too small, scattered, and vulnerable to thevicissitudes of the funding world to be the answer for society at lar<strong>ge</strong>. Ontheir own, they are unlikely to make a significant dent in the problem of thedigital divide or to substantially narrow other longstanding divides.CTCs are a growing, new form of community organization. Although