Getting started

A note from our Founder and Executive Director

When I started Northeast Tech 4 Good I was in an odd place.

I was losing faith in the nonprofit sector and philanthropy as a whole and was trying to figure out what was next for me professionally. I remained solid in the belief that one should always give back and however that occurred it should be as lean and impactful as possible.

I started my technology journey in 1998 as a system builder, and PC gamer. I built two of my earliest gaming systems with parts cobbled together from Ebay and with a lot of trial and error. That effort gave me a setup that was the envy of the small group of fellow gamers in my circle. I networked my first apartment, discretely wiring almost every room and learned how to optimize bandwidth the old fashioned way.

Later in life I would teach myself how to manage inventory, upgrade components and was the go to nerd for all my family and friends.

Still later, I got my first real IT job, and then came management and director level roles at Nonprofits.

In-between the two I started Community Assets, an IT consulting firm that specialized in providing IT consulting (and later Managed IT) to the SMB and Nonprofit markets. This felt like a move in the right direction. Of course I still managed full time work on top of all that.

Multiple passions, technology and nonprofit work cleaved together but something was still missing.

My nonprofit work, although fulfilling, was equally frustrating,

As an IT professional in organizations with heavy technology use, but minimal technology investment, I always felt undervalued. Constantly doing more with less while capacity was being built to support fundraising, little capacity was being considered to support the technology that made fundraising possible.

I pushed for higher budgets, more staff, more resources in general and for my self more control and equitable pay. I was shown disrespect, disregard and a general sense of being taken for granted in return. In retrospect there were opportunities offered but they always came with caveats.

I was not without shame or blame, as I often pushed back in ways that were counterproductive and personally damaging. I would ask for forgiveness instead of permission, especially when I knew I was right and 95% of the time, I was. But being right doesn’t allow you or your work to be seen, often, just the opposite.

From my experience and speaking for others who were even less powerful than I, I’ve been publicly critical of nonprofits , especially ones that I believe have strayed from the equity part of their mission. Either I was disputing their commitment to pay equity and transparency or chiding them for valuing education over experience in hiring or some other misalignment with the publicly stated “core values” of the org..

So instead of trying to get others to do the right thing, here I am doing it myself.

As I did with Community Assets, this is being built with intention. The intention of always operating with transparency, constantly adjusting how we operate so that there is as close an alignment with our values as possible and adjusting accordingly when that alignment is off. We are shaping our organization, and our board with our mission in mind and will not have riders or fundraising requirements or buy ins that often limit board membership to the well off.

Unlike CA, I’m not doing it alone. We have a board dedicated to our organizational mission and are building that aspect of our organization with intention as well.

We are building a network of community partners. beginning in Litchfield, and New Haven Counties and expanding organically, only as much as our capacity allows us so that we do not overburden our board, staff and volunteers. We all know from juggling day jobs and family that burnout is real.

We will be fundraising with intention as well. We intend on producing quarterly reports to all stakeholders illustrating our spending, what we have in trust and what our goals are. Not only including donors but publishing those numbers on our publicly facing website as well. Respecting the privacy of everyone involved but factually reporting every penny in, and out.

This is a lot. But one thing I’ve always said, and one thing I intend to always strive for is to do better. To take every critical remark I’ve made about business and nonprofits and turn them into positive, definitive action.

Technology is more than ubiquitous, digital education, not only about how we use devices or services, but what access to them means to communities and culture along with informed access is one of the most important determinants of success.

Knowing this, I wanted to put my effort where my mouth was and so Northeast Tech 4 Good is born.

Michael R Clinton
Founder/Executive Director and President
Northeast Tech 4 Good

Friday May 2 2025