From Homelessness to Helping Others: Technology Skills Make a Difference for Community Housing Partnership Staff

In San Francisco alone, there are an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 people sleeping on the streets, in cars, or in shelters every night. Since 1990, Community Housing Partnership (CHP) has worked in partnership with adults, families, and seniors in San Francisco who would otherwise be without a home.

One of the many ways the organization strives to break the cycle of homelessness is by providing job opportunities for people who have themselves lived on the streets: half of CHP’s employees were formerly homeless. As a result, many don’t have current IT skills or confidence using a computer. “Learning computer skills is essential to being relevant in today’s workforce, which is why expanding our email capabilities was so important,” says Rebecca Dyas, CHP Office Manager and Executive Assistant.

CHP recently requested Microsoft Exchange Server through Microsoft’s software donation program on TechSoup, which allowed the organization to provide every employee with an individual email address for the first time in the organization’s history. Using Microsoft Exchange Server also made managing email accounts easier and more efficient. “I can create a new email account in under a minute,” says an excited Dyas. She notes that CHP employees are developing better and more comfortable relationships with computers as a result of having their own email addresses.

Now that all employees have access to email during their work shifts, the organization encourages them to use their email account daily. While many of us may take having an organizational email for granted, for some of CHP’s employees, this is their only access to email, and is helping them build confidence and skills. In addition, access to email is ensuring that formerly homeless employees can make the most of opportunities to grow at their careers in the organization. For example, the Human Resources department at CHP uses an organization-wide distribution list for important messages, which contributes to better communication and a greater sense of connectedness among employees. Because the organization shares new job openings with internal staff a week before they are posted publicly, assigning a unique email account to every employee ensures that they have first crack at these opportunities and that CHP can grow its employees from the community that it serves.

A year ago, the organization also undertook an organization-wide upgrade to Microsoft Office, allowing employees to take advantage of the new capabilities and speed of the software. "In 2010, Community Housing Partnership received a total of $47,068 in donations from Microsoft for our Exchange and Windows Server Software as well as our Office Professional software," shares Dyas. “Not only has the Microsoft software donations program allowed us to re-direct precious resources to programs and services, but it has given us the tools we need to be effective in our day to day operations.”

The upgrade to the latest version of Office was significant in many ways. According to Dyas, not only did it have a better look and feel, but it was also faster, more intuitive for non-technical people to use, and ended previous compatibility issues with CHP’s outside partners, including contractors and architects.

“I love that Microsoft Office allows our employees to easily turn Word documents into PDF files,” says Dyas. “I feel strongly that many documents distributed outside of our organization should be in PDF format. Achieving that was a much more challenging process before the upgrade.”

CHP employees use Project Professional to manage projects and Outlook to book meetings and conference rooms. “Before, everyone had to email the building manager to see if a room was free,” says Dyas. “The process is much more organized now and people are held accountable for the rooms they reserve.”

CHP is also rolling out an electronic time-keeping system now that employees are getting more comfortable with using their computers to help inform, organize, and manage their workdays.

Before the end of the year, CHP plans to upgrade its Microsoft file server’s capabilities through the TechSoup donation program. “This will enable better access to files when employees are working remotely and off-site,” Dyas says.

Overall, getting donations of Microsoft products has allowed CHP to greatly reduce its administrative burden and focus more of its resources on supporting formerly homeless adults and children in retaining their housing and leading stable, productive lives.

More nonprofit technology resources:

Microsoft has a global software donations program that brings the benefits of affordable software to nonprofits around the world. Does your favorite nonprofit know about the program? Find out more here.