Civic Nexus ( http://cscl.ist.psu.edu/public/projects/nexus/ ) is a three-year participatory design project with the goal of working with geographically-based community groups to understand how they learn about technology and develop the capacity to implement technology projects. In the Civic Nexus project, we study technology use and work practices occurring in nonprofit organizations as they work to achieve social and communitarian goals. Nonprofit community organizations are important to study because they employ a significant number of workers and they address social issues that impact the well being of most communities. In the United States alone, almost six percent of all organizations are in the nonprofit sector encompassing over 1.6 million organizations and 9.3 percent of all paid employees ( Salamon , Sokolowki , & List, 2003).