Daniel Ben-Horin
Encyclopedia
Daniel Ben-Horin is the co-CEO and founder of TechSoup Global, one of the first nonprofit technology assistance providers in the United States.
Founded in 1987 with $2,500 in seed funding, Ben-Horin tapped volunteer resources on The WELL
, one of the first online communities, to create CompuMentor. The early days of CompuMentor, including its birth on the WELL, are described in “The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier” by Howard Rheingold. Today (December 31, 2010), CompuMentor has become TechSoup Global with a staff of 196 and an annual operating budget of $27 million.
From January 2002 when the technology product donation service began through December 31, 2010, has served more than 138,000 organizations, distributed more than 7 million software and hardware product donations, and enabled recipients to save more than US$2.2 billion in IT expenses in 36 countries around the world.
TechSoup Global conducts a range of programs including the operation of TechSoup.Org (providing donated technology products and information to nonprofits), the NetSquared and Nonprofits in Second Life social networking communities, and TechSoup for Libraries—helping public libraries manage public access computers.
The TechSoup Global Network helps connect nonprofits from outside the U.S. to donations of software, technology products, and services. Fundacja TechSoup is the first separately incorporated “regional hub” established by TechSoup Global. It employs a staff of six in Warsaw, Poland, and supports activities in 16 European countries (as well as playing a key role in supporting the Global Partner Network overall). Through 35 TechSoup Global Network partners, the TechSoup technology donation program is available to community-based organizations in a total of 35 countries in addition to the United States, including: Australia, Belgium, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Luxembourg, Macau, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.
Another TechSoup Global initiative developed under Mr. Ben-Horin’s leadership is NGOsource. NGOsource, a project of the Council on Foundations and TechSoup Global, is an equivalency determination service that will help U.S. grantmakers streamline their international grantmaking process.
TechSoup Global and GuideStar International, a U.K.-registered charity that promotes transparency and civil society organization reporting, combined operations in 2010 in order to strengthen their respective capacity-building programs for civil society. The two organizations share a mission to benefit global civil society through the provision of technology, information, and resources.
In his book, Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken writes that the “…hybridization of business, philanthropy technology and nonprofit activity is exemplified in the work of Daniel Ben-Horin...” In 2009, the Ashoka Foundation elected Ben-Horin as a Senior Fellow for his work as a “leading social entrepreneur,” and the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network NTEN gave him its "Lifetime Achievement Award." At the NTEN ceremony, the Surdna Foundation's Vincent Stehle said “… the award is given each year to a person who has pushed the nptech community forward. This push might be in the form of innovation, or thought leadership. In the case of Daniel Ben-Horin ... it's both. Everyone who works in our field owes him a debt of gratitude for revolutionizing how we get and share software and information.”
Mr. Ben-Horin holds a B. A. in Psychology from the University of Chicago
. From 1980-84, Ben-Horin served as the Executive Director of Media Alliance in San Francisco during which period he also taught journalism at the University of California, Santa Cruz
. From 1969 to 1980, he was a working journalist, writing for The New York Times
, The Nation
, Harper's Weekly
, Mother Jones
, Redbook
and many other publications.
In 2004, 2005 and 2007, the Nonprofit Times included him on its annual list of “50 Most Influential People in the Nonprofit Sector.” Mr. Ben-Horin was the subject of a "Boss" column in The New York Times
on November 26, 2007.
In addition to guiding the evolution of TechSoup Global, Ben-Horin speaks frequently on issues related to the underserved's access to technology. Engagements include the keynote address at the ConnectingUp 2007 Conference in Australia, and the closing panel at the SANGONeT
Conference and Exhibition 2007 in South Africa.
In March 2006, Ben-Horin was interviewed by Mitch Nauffts, editorial director of Philanthropy News Digest. That interview, entitled “Philanthropy and the Next-Generation Web,” was published in The Foundation Center's 50th anniversary book, “Philanthropy and the 21st Century: The Foundation Center's 50th Anniversary Interviews.” In December 2007, Mr. Ben-Horin was asked by the Chronicle of Philanthropy to offer his predictions for 2008. In April 2008, The New York Times
story “When Tech Innovation Has a Social Mission” featured the organization Ben-Horin founded and still runs as co-CEO.
At the September 2008 Clinton Global Initiative, TechSoup Global co-CEO Ben-Horin joined co-CEO Rebecca Masisak
and co-CEO Marnie Webb to announce the organization’s commitment to provide technological products and services to nonprofits worldwide, especially in developing countries. In April 2009 his comments led the San Francisco Chronicle
story “TechSoup sees upside for nonprofits in downturn.”
Ben-Horin spoke at the Telecentre-Europe Summit 2009 which took place October 14–15, 2009 in Istanbul, Turkey. He provided the second day keynote address along with Ramazan Altinok (director of the Turkish Prime Minister's e-Government Advisory Group).
On February 11–13, 2010, Ben-Horin spoke at Tech4Society, a 3-day international event at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India. The conference brought 76 Ashoka-Lemelson Foundation Fellows to interact with journalists, engineers, philanthropists, venture capitalists, and business leaders. Ben-Horin focused on “replication,” as distinct from “scaling,” as a critical approach to fostering the spread of innovative, socially beneficial projects. "On the replication side of the equation, I think there’s a pretty simple approach worth testing. If there’s a social problem, a proven solution, and a dynamic network, it should be possible to identify the problem solvers, expose them to other potential problem solvers, and provide a modest subsidy to support knowledge transfer throughout the network. So, in practice, this idea boils down to connecting and supporting small gatherings of potential replicators, where every participant has skin in the game."
Mr. Ben-Horin served on the panel “Social media: A fad or the future?” at the European Foundation Centre 2010 meeting in Brussels, Belgium on June 2, 2010. On September 20, 2010, Mr. Ben-Horin’s speech “The Disruptive Opportunity for Libraries” was a keynote address to the European Congress on E-Inclusion 2010 “Delivering Digital Europe in Public Libraries” conference held in the Flemish Parliament in Brussels as part of the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion.
At the Grantmakers East Forum in Tbilisi, Georgia on October 26, 2010, Mr. Ben-Horin spoke on the concluding plenary panel “Disruption and Positive Deviants” moderated by Melissa Pailthorp, Microsoft Community Affairs Senior Manager for Central and Eastern Europe, and Anna Piotrovskaya, Executive Director of the Dmitry Zimin Dynasty Foundation.
On May 23, 2011, Mr. Ben-Horin provided opening remarks at Conference Sektor 3.0, organized by Stocznia (Unit for Social Innovation and Research-Shipyard), a Polish NGO funded by the Polish-American Freedom Foundation. Sektor 3.0 was the first Polish conference with a focus on the state of information technology, the NGO sector and local rural communities that allowed participants themselves to create the agenda for the meeting. In his talk, Mr. Ben-Horin emphasized the opportunities that new technologies bring for greater connectivity and resource sharing to facilitate social change. “What's true about the Arab spring, is even truer about small projects in little villages. New tools allow citizens to obtain an entirely different level of data about public officials. New tools allow them to publish this data and create a new level of pressure for change. New tools allow communication with new allies. New tools allow best practices and solutions to be shared between Tunisia, the U.S. and Poland. These truths apply to the smallest social change effort anywhere in the world.”
On June 7, 2011, Ben-Horin gave a plenary talk at the Personal Democracy Forum 2011 conference in New York City, joining participants from federal government, major foundations, leading nonprofits, journalists, and Fortune 500 companies around the theme “Agents for Change.”In his address, “Networks of Resources, Networks of Ideas, Connecting the Dots,” he focused on TechSoup Global’s “Global Contributors’ Summit,” a 3-day conference which took place on February 15-17, 2011, bringing together global networks of organizations that need technology support, networks of corporations that are willing to donate their products, networks of funders interested in building the capacity of civil society, and networks of technical volunteers."We realized that we can’t go it alone if we’re going to solve problems and take advantage of resources to create real change," Ben-Horin said, "so we identified our constituency and invited them all to come to San Francisco to meet with our capacity building partners … and what we’re going to do now is to use some old fashioned organizing techniques, taking statements of intent that people made at the Summit and putting them on a blog … and calling on people to make good on what they said they would do … we’re going to drive each of these conversations towards a specific project and ask did it happen, and what’s next…?”
Founded in 1987 with $2,500 in seed funding, Ben-Horin tapped volunteer resources on The WELL
The Well
- Titled works :* The Well , 1986 novel by Elizabeth JolleyMusical albums:* The Well , by Waking Ashland* The Well, 2001, by Jennifer Warnes* The Well, a song from the "Come to the Well" album by christian group Casting Crowns...
, one of the first online communities, to create CompuMentor. The early days of CompuMentor, including its birth on the WELL, are described in “The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier” by Howard Rheingold. Today (December 31, 2010), CompuMentor has become TechSoup Global with a staff of 196 and an annual operating budget of $27 million.
From January 2002 when the technology product donation service began through December 31, 2010, has served more than 138,000 organizations, distributed more than 7 million software and hardware product donations, and enabled recipients to save more than US$2.2 billion in IT expenses in 36 countries around the world.
TechSoup Global conducts a range of programs including the operation of TechSoup.Org (providing donated technology products and information to nonprofits), the NetSquared and Nonprofits in Second Life social networking communities, and TechSoup for Libraries—helping public libraries manage public access computers.
The TechSoup Global Network helps connect nonprofits from outside the U.S. to donations of software, technology products, and services. Fundacja TechSoup is the first separately incorporated “regional hub” established by TechSoup Global. It employs a staff of six in Warsaw, Poland, and supports activities in 16 European countries (as well as playing a key role in supporting the Global Partner Network overall). Through 35 TechSoup Global Network partners, the TechSoup technology donation program is available to community-based organizations in a total of 35 countries in addition to the United States, including: Australia, Belgium, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Luxembourg, Macau, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.
Another TechSoup Global initiative developed under Mr. Ben-Horin’s leadership is NGOsource. NGOsource, a project of the Council on Foundations and TechSoup Global, is an equivalency determination service that will help U.S. grantmakers streamline their international grantmaking process.
TechSoup Global and GuideStar International, a U.K.-registered charity that promotes transparency and civil society organization reporting, combined operations in 2010 in order to strengthen their respective capacity-building programs for civil society. The two organizations share a mission to benefit global civil society through the provision of technology, information, and resources.
In his book, Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken writes that the “…hybridization of business, philanthropy technology and nonprofit activity is exemplified in the work of Daniel Ben-Horin...” In 2009, the Ashoka Foundation elected Ben-Horin as a Senior Fellow for his work as a “leading social entrepreneur,” and the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network NTEN gave him its "Lifetime Achievement Award." At the NTEN ceremony, the Surdna Foundation's Vincent Stehle said “… the award is given each year to a person who has pushed the nptech community forward. This push might be in the form of innovation, or thought leadership. In the case of Daniel Ben-Horin ... it's both. Everyone who works in our field owes him a debt of gratitude for revolutionizing how we get and share software and information.”
Mr. Ben-Horin holds a B. A. in Psychology from the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. From 1980-84, Ben-Horin served as the Executive Director of Media Alliance in San Francisco during which period he also taught journalism at the University of California, Santa Cruz
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...
. From 1969 to 1980, he was a working journalist, writing for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, Harper's Weekly
Harper's Weekly
Harper's Weekly was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor...
, Mother Jones
Mother Jones (magazine)
Mother Jones is an American independent news organization, featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,...
, Redbook
Redbook
Redbook is an American women's magazine published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.-History:...
and many other publications.
In 2004, 2005 and 2007, the Nonprofit Times included him on its annual list of “50 Most Influential People in the Nonprofit Sector.” Mr. Ben-Horin was the subject of a "Boss" column in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
on November 26, 2007.
In addition to guiding the evolution of TechSoup Global, Ben-Horin speaks frequently on issues related to the underserved's access to technology. Engagements include the keynote address at the ConnectingUp 2007 Conference in Australia, and the closing panel at the SANGONeT
Sangonet
SANGONeT is a South African organisation, whose acronym stands for The Southern African NGO Network.It is a civil society organisation with a focus on ICT, which was founded in 1987, and has a history closely linked to the social and political changes experienced by South Africa during its...
Conference and Exhibition 2007 in South Africa.
In March 2006, Ben-Horin was interviewed by Mitch Nauffts, editorial director of Philanthropy News Digest. That interview, entitled “Philanthropy and the Next-Generation Web,” was published in The Foundation Center's 50th anniversary book, “Philanthropy and the 21st Century: The Foundation Center's 50th Anniversary Interviews.” In December 2007, Mr. Ben-Horin was asked by the Chronicle of Philanthropy to offer his predictions for 2008. In April 2008, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
story “When Tech Innovation Has a Social Mission” featured the organization Ben-Horin founded and still runs as co-CEO.
At the September 2008 Clinton Global Initiative, TechSoup Global co-CEO Ben-Horin joined co-CEO Rebecca Masisak
Rebecca Masisak
Rebecca Masisak is an American nonprofit executive best known for her impact in creating a social enterprise model within a nonprofit organizational and governance structure...
and co-CEO Marnie Webb to announce the organization’s commitment to provide technological products and services to nonprofits worldwide, especially in developing countries. In April 2009 his comments led the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
story “TechSoup sees upside for nonprofits in downturn.”
Ben-Horin spoke at the Telecentre-Europe Summit 2009 which took place October 14–15, 2009 in Istanbul, Turkey. He provided the second day keynote address along with Ramazan Altinok (director of the Turkish Prime Minister's e-Government Advisory Group).
On February 11–13, 2010, Ben-Horin spoke at Tech4Society, a 3-day international event at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India. The conference brought 76 Ashoka-Lemelson Foundation Fellows to interact with journalists, engineers, philanthropists, venture capitalists, and business leaders. Ben-Horin focused on “replication,” as distinct from “scaling,” as a critical approach to fostering the spread of innovative, socially beneficial projects. "On the replication side of the equation, I think there’s a pretty simple approach worth testing. If there’s a social problem, a proven solution, and a dynamic network, it should be possible to identify the problem solvers, expose them to other potential problem solvers, and provide a modest subsidy to support knowledge transfer throughout the network. So, in practice, this idea boils down to connecting and supporting small gatherings of potential replicators, where every participant has skin in the game."
Mr. Ben-Horin served on the panel “Social media: A fad or the future?” at the European Foundation Centre 2010 meeting in Brussels, Belgium on June 2, 2010. On September 20, 2010, Mr. Ben-Horin’s speech “The Disruptive Opportunity for Libraries” was a keynote address to the European Congress on E-Inclusion 2010 “Delivering Digital Europe in Public Libraries” conference held in the Flemish Parliament in Brussels as part of the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion.
At the Grantmakers East Forum in Tbilisi, Georgia on October 26, 2010, Mr. Ben-Horin spoke on the concluding plenary panel “Disruption and Positive Deviants” moderated by Melissa Pailthorp, Microsoft Community Affairs Senior Manager for Central and Eastern Europe, and Anna Piotrovskaya, Executive Director of the Dmitry Zimin Dynasty Foundation.
On May 23, 2011, Mr. Ben-Horin provided opening remarks at Conference Sektor 3.0, organized by Stocznia (Unit for Social Innovation and Research-Shipyard), a Polish NGO funded by the Polish-American Freedom Foundation. Sektor 3.0 was the first Polish conference with a focus on the state of information technology, the NGO sector and local rural communities that allowed participants themselves to create the agenda for the meeting. In his talk, Mr. Ben-Horin emphasized the opportunities that new technologies bring for greater connectivity and resource sharing to facilitate social change. “What's true about the Arab spring, is even truer about small projects in little villages. New tools allow citizens to obtain an entirely different level of data about public officials. New tools allow them to publish this data and create a new level of pressure for change. New tools allow communication with new allies. New tools allow best practices and solutions to be shared between Tunisia, the U.S. and Poland. These truths apply to the smallest social change effort anywhere in the world.”
On June 7, 2011, Ben-Horin gave a plenary talk at the Personal Democracy Forum 2011 conference in New York City, joining participants from federal government, major foundations, leading nonprofits, journalists, and Fortune 500 companies around the theme “Agents for Change.”In his address, “Networks of Resources, Networks of Ideas, Connecting the Dots,” he focused on TechSoup Global’s “Global Contributors’ Summit,” a 3-day conference which took place on February 15-17, 2011, bringing together global networks of organizations that need technology support, networks of corporations that are willing to donate their products, networks of funders interested in building the capacity of civil society, and networks of technical volunteers."We realized that we can’t go it alone if we’re going to solve problems and take advantage of resources to create real change," Ben-Horin said, "so we identified our constituency and invited them all to come to San Francisco to meet with our capacity building partners … and what we’re going to do now is to use some old fashioned organizing techniques, taking statements of intent that people made at the Summit and putting them on a blog … and calling on people to make good on what they said they would do … we’re going to drive each of these conversations towards a specific project and ask did it happen, and what’s next…?”
External links
- “Networks of Resources, Networks of Ideas, Connecting the Dots”, Daniel Ben-Horin, Personal Democracy Forum 2011, June 7, 2011, New York, New York
- "Conference Conference Sektor 3.0" Daniel Ben-Horin opening remarks at conference in Warsaw, Poland May 23–24, 2011
- "Technology for Local Empowerment," Third Global Forum on Telecentres Daniel Ben-Horin opening remarks at conference in Santiago, Chile, April 5, 2011
- "Tech Philanthropy," KQED-FM Public Radio Forum Podcast interview with Daniel Ben-Horin, February 17, 2009
- "Tactical Philanthropy Podcast: Daniel-Ben Horin" Podcast interview by Sean Stannard-Stockton, Tactical Philanthropy, May 25, 2007