Tech Citizenship
2006
Carolyn Macedo, of the New England Technology Foundation, reads to children at one of the foundation’s charities in Cambridge.
Tech Help
Don’t let the name fool you — the New England Technology Foundation doesn’t exist for the benefit of the technology industry. But it does have a tremendous impact on the agencies and charities it serves. And the intangible rewards of serving the community, its members say, are huge.
The nonprofit foundation helps raise funds for charitable organizations that don’t have in-house fund-raising operations. Simply put, the all-volunteer organization’s aim is to pull the technology community together to serve the social, educational and medical needs of children in New England.
“The idea is for leveraging everybody’s connections in the tech community, to create an interest and a sense of excitement in the tech community,” said NETF president Carolyn Macedo. “We all have full-time jobs, but if everybody does a little, it helps tremendously to lighten the burden. And because we all have full-time jobs, I really believe that everyone truly wants to be involved.”
For Macedo, that desire evolved from personal experience — her daughter, Nicole, was born with craniosynostosis, a premature fusing of the sutures in an infant’s skull that requires corrective surgery.
“I’m very thankful to have had the insurance resources and the help that we had to get through it, and I really felt compelled to give something back to the community,” she said. “I wanted to work in an organization where I could really make a difference.”
NETF includes a vice president, secretary, treasurer, 10 board members that serve on a half-dozen committees, and a 15-member advisory board. The foundation raises money through two annual events — a golf tournament in the spring, held this year at the Tournament Players Club in Norton, and “Open Your Heart for Kids,” a fall event that includes Texas Hold&rsqquo;em poker, casino games, a live band and a silent auction. With the help of corporate sponsors such as Bluefin Research Partners Inc., Bain Capital LLC, Parametric Technology Corp. and U.S. Trust — where Macedo is a senior vice president — the foundation has raised $1.3 million since its inception in 1992.
The money raised, minus the cost of the events, goes to about 20 recipient organizations per year who apply via the company website at www.netechfoundation.org.
And the foundation’s sponsorship reaches beyond New England to companies such as Toshiba America Inc. of New York and Silicon Valley Bank, based in California.
“It’s an opportunity to give back, particularly because of the children’s charities that they support,” said Maxine Bressler, a Toshiba senior account manager and former foundation board member who has run the silent auction for 10 years, collecting items and bringing in participants from Toshiba connections.
Silicon Valley Bank also serves as a solid conduit among potential tech sponsors, as was the case with Skyworks Solutions Inc. in Woburn.
“The foundation intrigued me and continues to intrigue me, and that’s the basis of support for their endeavors,” said Paul Vincent, Skyworks’ vice president of finance. “(The charities are) non-mainstream charities related to families and particularly kids and single parents. Those groups are certainly not less needy than the larger ones, and we’ve never changed that understanding of, and love for, this particular activity.”
“The interesting thing about New England Technology Foundation is they concentrate on grassroots organizations,” said Sharon Lisnow of the Michael Carter Lisnow Respite Center in Hopkinton. “It’s very hard when you’re starting out and don’t have a track record, and they really help the smaller groups.”
Lisnow founded the center with special-needs teacher Mary McQueeney in honor of her son, Michael — “the inspiration for everything we do here” — who was born with cerebral palsy and died 10 years ago at age 10.
The center functions to provide emotional and physical support for disabled children and adults and their families. It features medical day care, after-school and weekend programs as well as life skills for disabled adults.
With about a third of its expenses state-funded, Lisnow says, the center is two-thirds dependent on foundations.
“People come to us and we tell them, ‘We can help you.’ And if they tell us, ‘We don’t have any money,’ we can say, ‘We can still help you.’”
Over in Cambridge, in the shadow of MIT, is another beneficiary, the Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House, a 104-year-old community organization that serves more than 1,000 people in the city’s low-income neighborhood with day care, a food pantry, computer labs and other youth, elder and family services.
“They have been a fantastic funder for us,” said executive director Barbara Kibler of the foundation, which has provided funding for the past seven years. “Our scholarships for the summer program went to 18 kids, and that’s 18 kids that wouldn’t have been able to attend.”
Macedo says it’s a continual challenge to raise funds in a post-tech-boom world, but the payoff is big for all involved.
“What’s great is that our sponsors can impact smaller organizations and know that we are doing the due diligence.”
Jay Rizoli is a freelance writer in Franklin.
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