Technology for Good

Jim’s Book Notes

I’ve been talking about doing a book for a couple of decades, but the opportunity came thanks to a 2023 Bellagio Residency (thanks to the Rockefeller Foundation), where I had a month to write the first draft! The opportunity to share the stories of more than sixty nonprofits powerfully using tech for social impact was irresistible. Although there are thousands of books on how to get rich starting tech companies, I felt it was important to talk about the more important work of using tech for social good. My hope is that my book inspires many more technologists to make the move from money to meaning, and solve some of the thousands of problems waiting for a nonprofit tech team.

The accepted wisdom in big business is that the only worthy ideas are ones that make a lot of money, preferably billions. But Jim Fruchterman believes there is a different path for technology. What if tech returned to its roots and made people more effective and powerful? Even bolder, what if the benefits of technology came to the 90% of humanity traditionally neglected by for-profit companies in favor of immense profits gained by focusing on the richest 10%?

In Technology for Good, Fruchterman explores that question and delivers a comprehensive how-to for leaders who want to create, expand, join, support, and improve organizations that see building technology as a key element of delivering on their social good mission.

The author makes a strong case that tech is required for social change at scale. He then offers guidance on how to structure, fund, staff, manage, scale, and sustain nonprofits that leverage technology for social good. The book includes actionable, proven practices; compelling case studies of nonprofits that have “cracked the code” on tech for good; and the author’s own stories of what he has learned as a tech-for-good entrepreneur. With 80% of the examples in the book from organizations and individuals outside the U.S., Technology for Good is a call to action with a genuinely global focus, blazing a path forward where human beings come rightly and justly before profits.