Sustainable informal IT learning in community-based nonprofits

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) play a substantial role in the economies of many countries, in the delivery of social services, and in many quasi-government functions. But NPOs face many resource challenges; for example, they depend on volunteer labor that is often under-trained and has high turnover resulting in limited knowledge acquisition and decreased sustainability. Ethnographic data from a three-year multi-organizational analysis reveals the occurrence of social and technical patterns during informal technology learning. Construction of a pattern schema grounded in organizational learning and activity theories will enable the development of lightweight interventions in establishing information technology sustainability, self-directed learning, and management processes in NPOs.