| epi | Technology Service Providers

After extensive research, we have selected trust-worthy SaaS providers to support the tech culture of our organization.  We use technology sparingly and only when required. In person or on paper is always preferred.

Technology provides a foundation for outreach, education, research and economic development.  However, technology is not our work. Our work is on-the-ground, community engagement and place-based research with local people and by local people.

We continue to provide training and guidance regarding protecting security and privacy online.To learn more, sign up for our newsletter and be notified when next we hold a workshops on digital independence, GDPR privacy protection, and the newly implemented Digital Services Act of the European Union.

We utilize other providers and contact us for a consult or training if you’d like to learn more. Utilizing privacy aware tech tools is congruent with our core values. Teaching this knowledge is however not central to our mission other than when working directly with our volunteers, staff and partners.

Since 2019, we’ve utilized the GDPR compliant groupware, OnlyOffice, for online collaboration.


RESEARCH BACKSTORY   Our IT story and development timeline:  The social fieldwork site was built in 2017 to test WordPress.org and Open Source SAAS as a replacement for cumbersome Drupal and its ERP.  Back in 2009, we led in development of IT based collaboration for a start up nonprofit.  Since then, emergent technologies have both eased and hampered our efforts and that of many aligned social justice and environmental nonprofits; we needed to navigate this minefield.

WordPress.org benefits from development by many independent contributors. These developers teach and practice solutions and provide open source guidance to counterbalance big tech.  We pre-launched the site in February 2020, and have minimally added/refined content since.  Concurrently, we also moved our site to new servers due to the risks of working under the newly formed EIG conglomerate. Note:  In the course of a few years (2014 to 2017), EIG acquired and merged most web hosting providers in the U.S.  First we went to Canada and then we went with the eco-friendly web server providers to which numerous excellent US based tech support staff fled. In full transparency, our current webhosting isn’t perfect and we welcome support to strengthen our IT platform in even new directions.

Also since 2017, we continue to test open source GDPR level resources rather than rely on simple clickety-click GUI solutions.  We protect our contributors contact info, privacy, interests, intellectual property and individual autonomy on what matters most. We do not use web beacons or cookies that contribute to mining data in any way.

The previous paragraph recounts the story of an unexpected technological “superpower” that had to be mastered in order to continue in our trajectory.  The founder conducted IT sourcing and development primarily solo while working part time as a bookkeeper. Her choice to workaday in bookkeeping and many other small town trades also strengthens the trust that one can place in her efforts to create an ethics-driven organization.

We launched this site in beta form in 2020. We continue to refine our technology solutions for collaboration in ways that protect people.  We have replaced the transitional econ4peace site (drupal to wordpress).  Eventually, we may migrate content for the Guild to this newest framework of themes and builders for wordpress.  It’s a solid, tight framework.

We welcome web development volunteers and are willing to train individuals with at least six hours per week of time to dedicate. In addition, we hope to staff this position through our sustaining donor campaign.

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