This year, I’m attending the 2026 Nonprofit Technology Conference virtually. As always, I’m sharing my learnings and thoughts as I go.
Test your website’s accessibility starting…now!
ME! Mark Root-Wiley, MRW Web Design
Session Resources for “Test your website’s accessibility starting…now!”
It was an honor, privilege, and relief to kick off my 26NTC as a presenter! After getting extremely positive feedback to this same presentation in-person at 24NTC in Portland, I decided it made sense to reach a new audience and give it again.
It went great! Most attendees entered with very limited knowledge of a few website accessibility practices. In our lightning-paced hour together, we learned two new skills and built a practical understanding and appreciation of what it actually means to make an accessible website that is equitable and inclusive.
I was proud to see people sharing both their successes and ares for improvement in the chat, and committing to sharing what they learned with their coworkers or applying these new skills to an impending redesign!
One benefit of giving the same presentation again is that the session resources just keep getting better and better! The slides come at least close to standing on their own as a resource, and I have assembles lots of additional resources and two demo testing pages all about DIY accessibility testing.
Decolonizing philanthropy: Identity, power, and who gets the money
India Phoenix (by the brujas), Jamie Rasmussen (by the brujas), Morgan Carpenter, GPC (Carpenter Nonprofit Consulting)
Collaborative notes for “Decolonizing philanthropy: Identity, power, and who gets the money”
Slides for “Decolonizing philanthropy: Identity, power, and who gets the money”
Saying that “philanthropy has colonial roots” is a literal statement.
“Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Charity focused on relieving immediate suffering. Justice asking what are causing the symptoms and how can we address them? Working for justice is moving from addressing relief to repairing root causes of inequities.
In the present, we see “gatekeeping” where those in power control access to resources that keep themselves in power. This leads to an interesting definition of “Power” and “Privilege.”
Power: Control despite resistance.
Privilege: Advantage without effort. (Doesn’t imply intent!)
You may benefit from privilege in systems which you did not create and may not have power to control. But think about how you can use your privilege.
Be intentional! Acknowledge inequities. Give power back to impacted communities. And don’t oversimplify the work required to achieve justice.
How philanthropy enforces existing power structures
So let’s get to brass tacks. How is philanthropy retaining power and privilege?
- The administrative burden on organizations applying for and receiving grants can be a huge barrier to entry for small organizations that may need funds the most.
- Funding structures that are project-based don’t fund the general expenses required for any organization to function
- The need for funding can cause organizations to soften critiques of power and not focus on root causes of inequities in order to gain access to money. These incomplete, softened narratives get repeated and influence others.
- Competition for funding can discourage collaboration.
Always important to note: Nonprofits (and nonprofit consultants!) participate in this culture and reinforce these inequitable systems too. It’s not just philanthropic organizations. This is the pernicious impact of structural injustice!
How do we make change?
I really like this framing. There is a tension between these two, and what’s important is intentionality.
- Compromise is “We’ll soften our language so funders don’t walk away.”
- Clarity is “We’ll hold our ground to honor community voice.”
One isn’t right or wrong, but both are strategies. What’s important is noticing the choice and not defaulting to one unconsciously.
This is about playing the long game.
Thinking about my own work, I notice that there can be so many pressures to “stay in your lane”, whether that’s based on job responsibilities, organization, role, sector, identity, etc. I try to notice when there are opportunities to speak out, even when it’s “not my job”.
Equitable Grantmaking Models
What do better systems look like?
- Participatory grantmaking: Giving money to the people most impacted. This empowers folks to align resources with meeting their real needs. It can fight back against tokenism. It requires real participation and commitment.
- Trust-based philanthropy: Takes the “value” of trust to a real funding strategy with multi-year, unrestricted financial support underpinned by strong relationships between funders and fundees. Centers the values of learning, humility, and shared accountability.
- Reparative & redistributive funding: Acknowledges that wealth was build on extraction and exploitation and seeks to return and redistribute resources (not out of generosity!). This is a strategy of truth-telling. “Who has benefited? Who has paid the price?”
The Trust-Based Philanthropy Project has these six key practices of trust-based philanthropy:
So how can we be a good partner for this work?
- Advocate for unrestricted funding
- Normalize asking clarifying questions
- Provide feedback
- Align with funders using the above models
- Lean into shared learning, rather than compliance reporting
Using a Reproductive Justice Framework For Technical Decisions
Lou Blumberg (Digital Defense Fund)
Collaborative Notes for “Using a Reproductive Justice Framework For Technical Decisions”
Session slides for “Using a Reproductive Justice Framework For Technical Decisions”
The Digital Defense Fund seems like an amazing organization, offering free digital security for organizations advocating for bodily autonomy!
Reproductive justice is a term coined by two black women in the 90s. It highlights 4 key human rights:
- To own their own bodies and control their own future
- To have children
- To not have children
- To parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities
That last point really ties reproductive justice to environmental-, migrant- and other social-justice movements. It’s about looking at the whole system.
It’s rooted in analysis of power, intersectionality, centering the most marginalized, and joining together across issues and identities!
So how does this tie to technology? Technology reinforces societal norms, processes, and beliefs:
- How do our tech choices “encode existing power structures”?
- Can everyone use our technology?
- Does our tech oppress people around the world?
- How can we build movements with our technology choices?
As an example of how: rejecting web surveillance technology and protecting people’s data/privacy and not using companies that support war and genocide.
Positive things to do:
- Use open-source tech!
- Respect user privacy
- Do your best to avoid and explore alternatives to big tech
NextCloud came up as an alternative to the big tech “productivity suites”.
Especially with the rise of AI, I appreciated Lou calling attention to this quote from a 1979 presentation:
A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision.
Those of us who make technology decisions should be accountable for the results. Technology tools can be a form of an “accountability sink”.
And a great reminder from Lou, “Don’t let perfection get in the way of progress!”
Asked what we can specifically do, I shared the following thought:
This has me thinking a lot about data collection. Even if we are currently stuck using big tech tools, we can still try to make the choice to collect less data that is fed into big tech systems (almost always without real consent from people submitting the data)
Lou smartly added that there are things to do about data encryption as well—especially data “at rest,” not just in transit.