Rebecca Masisak
Encyclopedia
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. Under her Co-leadership, TechSoup Global has become the largest technology assistance nonprofit in the world, coordinating an international network of 32 technology support organizations and serving more than 300,000 nonprofits and libraries each month in 2009.
In FY2010, TechSoup Global distributed $453,871,287 worth of product donations to organizations in 36 countries (including the U.S.). The TechSoup.Org site receives 188,000 unique monthly visitors from 190 countries.
Ms Masisak received her MBA from the Columbia University Business School, and worked as a management consultant with Coopers & Lybrand for 9 years, and in leadership roles in several Internet businesses thereafter. She joined the San Francisco nonprofit, CompuMentor (now known as TechSoup Global) in 2001, with the task of building the organization’s relatively small ‘product philanthropy’ program into both a programmatic hub of the organization and a revenue engine that could support other nonprofit and educational programs as well.
In her role at CompuMentor, Ms. Masisak designed a supply chain that addressed the needs of corporate product donors, end-user recipients and CompuMentor itself. In 2002, she led her team's creation of a business plan called DiscountTech which won a $100,000 grand prize in the Yale School of Management, Goldman Sachs, Pew Charitable Trust's "National Business Plan Competition for Nonprofit Organizations," among over 650 entries.
The organization’s success in the competition attracted the attention of the Nonprofit Finance Fund, which led to CompuMentor undertaking its first loan--$1.4M to build the technology backbone for an expanded product philanthropy system. Three years later, CompuMentor repaid the loan.
In recognition of her achievements, Ms. Masisak became co-CEO of the organization, joining founder Daniel Ben-Horin
in 2006. Marnie Webb was also named co-CEO at that time, forming a 3-member co-CEO office that continues to lead the organization. (In 2009 the organization formally changed its name from CompuMentor to TechSoup Global (with the name of its primary web site still known as TechSoup.))
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.
After establishing the program in North America, Ms. Masisak developed a global expansion model called the TechSoup Global Network (TSGN). At the September 2008 Clinton Global Initiative, Ms. Masisak joined TechSoup Global co-CEO Daniel Ben-Horin and co-CEO Marnie Webb to announce the organization’s commitment to provide technological products and services to nonprofits worldwide, especially in developing countries.
Fundacja TechSoup, the first separately incorporated regional hub established under this initiative, employs a staff of six in Warsaw, Poland, and supports activities in 16 European countries (as well as playing a central role in supporting the global partner network overall). Through 35 regional Partner NGOs and regional affiliates, the TechSoup technology donation program is available to community-based organizations in the U.S. and 35 other countries, 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. TechSoup Global held its third "PNGO Summit" in San Francisco in 2009, and its first "Contributors' Summit" in February 2011.
The financial success of TechSoup.Org's Donation Program has enabled TechSoup Global to obtain and leverage additional philanthropic support (primarily from the Gates, Surdna, Mott, Kellogg, Zero Divide and California Emerging Technology Fund foundations) and create a portfolio of innovative programs including NetSquared, TechSoup for Libraries, GreenTech, and the Refurbished Computer Initiative (RCI). Ms. Masisak played a particularly instrumental role in designing the latter program, through which one-generation-old corporate IT equipment is made available at low cost to nonprofits and low-income families. In 2008, the initiative was awarded a $500,000, two-year grant by the California Emerging Technology Fund, enabling to scale up to a statewide level.
In recognition of the RCI effort, Ms. Masisak received the Full Circle Fund’s "Full Impact Award in Technology" celebrating her innovation and leadership as a social entrepreneur.
In 2008, The New York Times highlighted the organizational model Ms. Masisak created in the article “When Tech Innovation Has a Social Mission.”
Two themes of Ms. Masisak’s tenure as co-CEO have been that the organization needs to diversify its social enterprise, in terms of business sustainability, and also that there is currently a huge, unmet need for reliable data about civil society organizations worldwide. This need is widely cited by philanthropists, academics and civil society advocates. The widespread enthusiasm for better nonprofit data represented, in Ms. Masisak’s view, an untapped market that TechSoup Global could serve in an economically sustainable fashion.
In 2008, Ms. Masisak designed and led TechSoup Global’s successful bid to receive the Council on Foundation’s formal endorsement to create NGOsource. NGOsource is an equivalency determination service that will help U.S. grantmakers streamline their international grantmaking process. NGOsource intends to simplify the often expensive, complicated, and duplicative task of evaluating whether a non-U.S. organization is equivalent to a U.S. public charity — a process known as equivalency determination, or ED. NGOsource is scheduled to launch in 2012, pending regulatory approval from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the IRS.
Obtaining the Council on Foundations’ tender, combined with TechSoup Global’s existing eligibility determination mechanism which it had built to support product donations, put TechSoup Global in the forefront of the creation of global data standards for NGOs. In March 2010, Ms. Masisak consolidated the organization’s position by orchestrating a combination (the term under British law) with Guidestar International, a noted international NGO with a competency of creating a publicly visible data structure for civil society organizations in participating countries. The merger of the two organizations was welcomed in philanthropy media and Ms. Masisak’s leadership role was widely acknowledged.
Ms. Masisak is a frequent writer and speaker on topics relating to the integration of social enterprise and nonprofit mission, as well as on the topic of Digital Inclusion, or e-Inclusion. In March 2010, she joined Matthew Taylor (Chief Executive, RSA), Nick Clegg (MP), Jonathan Welfare (Chair, Nominet Trust) and Tristan Wilkinson (Inclusion Lead, Intel) as a Plenary speaker at the fifth annual National Digital Inclusion Conference in London. A video of her presentation was posted, along with other speakers at the conference (which included a keynote speech by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown). In late May 2010, Ms. Masisak participated in the European Foundation Centre’s annual “Foundation Week” in Brussels, publishing her reactions in one of philanthropy’s major publications, Alliance Magazine.
In recognition of her leadership for nonprofit and NGO development in the technology sectors, on February 3, 2010, the Telecentre.org Foundation Board of Trustees appointed Ms. Masisak as a member of its Advisory Council, and then in April 2011, appointed her to the board itself. Telecentre.org’s social investors include Microsoft, Canada's International Development Research Centre, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. On March 3, 2010, Ms. Masisak gave a talk at the International Telecentre Forum in Manila, “Telecentres for Promoting Digital Opportunities.” Ms. Masisak again traveled to The Philippines as a member of Telecentre.org Foundation’s International Advisory Council on November 24, 2010.
On November 11, 2010, Rebecca Masisak joined TechSoup Global co-CEO Marnie Webb in presenting a panel at the BoardSource Leadership Forum 2010 in which they shared their experience guiding TechSoup’s growth as an international organization, operating in 34 countries with three distinct boards of directors.
Ms. Masisak's philosophy can be illustrated in a 2008 interview with the Columbia Business School Alumni News. "Some months ago, when I was visiting NGOs in China, I met a woman in her early 30's — a cancer survivor and single parent — who had enrolled in a Microsoft Excel course at a technology-training center for the disadvantaged that our program has benefited. She described Excel to me this way: ‘It’s like magic.’ That may sound funny to us, but Excel changed her life. It taught her a whole new skill set and gave her a sense of excitement about the possibilities in life ... on a holistic level, I’m inspired every day by the fact that we are doing something that is game-changing..."
Social enterprise
A social enterprise is an organization that applies business strategies to achieving philanthropic goals. Social enterprises can be structured as a for-profit or non-profit....
model within a nonprofit organizational and governance structure. Under her Co-leadership, TechSoup Global has become the largest technology assistance nonprofit in the world, coordinating an international network of 32 technology support organizations and serving more than 300,000 nonprofits and libraries each month in 2009.
In FY2010, TechSoup Global distributed $453,871,287 worth of product donations to organizations in 36 countries (including the U.S.). The TechSoup.Org site receives 188,000 unique monthly visitors from 190 countries.
Ms Masisak received her MBA from the Columbia University Business School, and worked as a management consultant with Coopers & Lybrand for 9 years, and in leadership roles in several Internet businesses thereafter. She joined the San Francisco nonprofit, CompuMentor (now known as TechSoup Global) in 2001, with the task of building the organization’s relatively small ‘product philanthropy’ program into both a programmatic hub of the organization and a revenue engine that could support other nonprofit and educational programs as well.
In her role at CompuMentor, Ms. Masisak designed a supply chain that addressed the needs of corporate product donors, end-user recipients and CompuMentor itself. In 2002, she led her team's creation of a business plan called DiscountTech which won a $100,000 grand prize in the Yale School of Management, Goldman Sachs, Pew Charitable Trust's "National Business Plan Competition for Nonprofit Organizations," among over 650 entries.
The organization’s success in the competition attracted the attention of the Nonprofit Finance Fund, which led to CompuMentor undertaking its first loan--$1.4M to build the technology backbone for an expanded product philanthropy system. Three years later, CompuMentor repaid the loan.
In recognition of her achievements, Ms. Masisak became co-CEO of the organization, joining founder Daniel Ben-Horin
Daniel Ben-Horin
Daniel Ben-Horin is the co-CEO and founder of , 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...
in 2006. Marnie Webb was also named co-CEO at that time, forming a 3-member co-CEO office that continues to lead the organization. (In 2009 the organization formally changed its name from CompuMentor to TechSoup Global (with the name of its primary web site still known as TechSoup.))
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.
After establishing the program in North America, Ms. Masisak developed a global expansion model called the TechSoup Global Network (TSGN). At the September 2008 Clinton Global Initiative, Ms. Masisak joined TechSoup Global co-CEO Daniel Ben-Horin and co-CEO Marnie Webb to announce the organization’s commitment to provide technological products and services to nonprofits worldwide, especially in developing countries.
Fundacja TechSoup, the first separately incorporated regional hub established under this initiative, employs a staff of six in Warsaw, Poland, and supports activities in 16 European countries (as well as playing a central role in supporting the global partner network overall). Through 35 regional Partner NGOs and regional affiliates, the TechSoup technology donation program is available to community-based organizations in the U.S. and 35 other countries, 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. TechSoup Global held its third "PNGO Summit" in San Francisco in 2009, and its first "Contributors' Summit" in February 2011.
The financial success of TechSoup.Org's Donation Program has enabled TechSoup Global to obtain and leverage additional philanthropic support (primarily from the Gates, Surdna, Mott, Kellogg, Zero Divide and California Emerging Technology Fund foundations) and create a portfolio of innovative programs including NetSquared, TechSoup for Libraries, GreenTech, and the Refurbished Computer Initiative (RCI). Ms. Masisak played a particularly instrumental role in designing the latter program, through which one-generation-old corporate IT equipment is made available at low cost to nonprofits and low-income families. In 2008, the initiative was awarded a $500,000, two-year grant by the California Emerging Technology Fund, enabling to scale up to a statewide level.
In recognition of the RCI effort, Ms. Masisak received the Full Circle Fund’s "Full Impact Award in Technology" celebrating her innovation and leadership as a social entrepreneur.
In 2008, The New York Times highlighted the organizational model Ms. Masisak created in the article “When Tech Innovation Has a Social Mission.”
Two themes of Ms. Masisak’s tenure as co-CEO have been that the organization needs to diversify its social enterprise, in terms of business sustainability, and also that there is currently a huge, unmet need for reliable data about civil society organizations worldwide. This need is widely cited by philanthropists, academics and civil society advocates. The widespread enthusiasm for better nonprofit data represented, in Ms. Masisak’s view, an untapped market that TechSoup Global could serve in an economically sustainable fashion.
In 2008, Ms. Masisak designed and led TechSoup Global’s successful bid to receive the Council on Foundation’s formal endorsement to create NGOsource. NGOsource is an equivalency determination service that will help U.S. grantmakers streamline their international grantmaking process. NGOsource intends to simplify the often expensive, complicated, and duplicative task of evaluating whether a non-U.S. organization is equivalent to a U.S. public charity — a process known as equivalency determination, or ED. NGOsource is scheduled to launch in 2012, pending regulatory approval from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the IRS.
Obtaining the Council on Foundations’ tender, combined with TechSoup Global’s existing eligibility determination mechanism which it had built to support product donations, put TechSoup Global in the forefront of the creation of global data standards for NGOs. In March 2010, Ms. Masisak consolidated the organization’s position by orchestrating a combination (the term under British law) with Guidestar International, a noted international NGO with a competency of creating a publicly visible data structure for civil society organizations in participating countries. The merger of the two organizations was welcomed in philanthropy media and Ms. Masisak’s leadership role was widely acknowledged.
Ms. Masisak is a frequent writer and speaker on topics relating to the integration of social enterprise and nonprofit mission, as well as on the topic of Digital Inclusion, or e-Inclusion. In March 2010, she joined Matthew Taylor (Chief Executive, RSA), Nick Clegg (MP), Jonathan Welfare (Chair, Nominet Trust) and Tristan Wilkinson (Inclusion Lead, Intel) as a Plenary speaker at the fifth annual National Digital Inclusion Conference in London. A video of her presentation was posted, along with other speakers at the conference (which included a keynote speech by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown). In late May 2010, Ms. Masisak participated in the European Foundation Centre’s annual “Foundation Week” in Brussels, publishing her reactions in one of philanthropy’s major publications, Alliance Magazine.
In recognition of her leadership for nonprofit and NGO development in the technology sectors, on February 3, 2010, the Telecentre.org Foundation Board of Trustees appointed Ms. Masisak as a member of its Advisory Council, and then in April 2011, appointed her to the board itself. Telecentre.org’s social investors include Microsoft, Canada's International Development Research Centre, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. On March 3, 2010, Ms. Masisak gave a talk at the International Telecentre Forum in Manila, “Telecentres for Promoting Digital Opportunities.” Ms. Masisak again traveled to The Philippines as a member of Telecentre.org Foundation’s International Advisory Council on November 24, 2010.
On November 11, 2010, Rebecca Masisak joined TechSoup Global co-CEO Marnie Webb in presenting a panel at the BoardSource Leadership Forum 2010 in which they shared their experience guiding TechSoup’s growth as an international organization, operating in 34 countries with three distinct boards of directors.
Ms. Masisak's philosophy can be illustrated in a 2008 interview with the Columbia Business School Alumni News. "Some months ago, when I was visiting NGOs in China, I met a woman in her early 30's — a cancer survivor and single parent — who had enrolled in a Microsoft Excel course at a technology-training center for the disadvantaged that our program has benefited. She described Excel to me this way: ‘It’s like magic.’ That may sound funny to us, but Excel changed her life. It taught her a whole new skill set and gave her a sense of excitement about the possibilities in life ... on a holistic level, I’m inspired every day by the fact that we are doing something that is game-changing..."
See also
- Nonprofit technologyNonprofit technologyNonprofit technology comprises information and communication technologies that support the goals of nonprofit, nongovernmental, third sector, grassroots, and other mission-based organizations...
- Daniel Ben-HorinDaniel Ben-HorinDaniel Ben-Horin is the co-CEO and founder of , 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...
- NTEN
- NTAPNTAPNTAP is an abbreviation of nonprofit technology assistance provider.The term generally refers to organizations and individuals that specialize in providing information and communication technology support to nonprofit organizations, without regard for whether the provider itself is formally...
- e-Inclusion
External links
- TechSoup Global
- “Expanding Internationally through Partnerships: Practical Lessons for 21st Century Nonprofits” Remarks by Rebecca Masisak and Marnie Webb, TechSoup Global co-CEOs, BoardSource Leadership Forum, November 11, 2010
- “Private Sector Approach to Leveraging Technology for Social Change” Video of Rebecca Masisak, Plenary Session Speaker, Fifth Annual National Digital Inclusion Conference, London, March 11, 2010
- “TechSoup sees upside for nonprofits in downturn” The San Francisco Chronicle, March 22, 2009