I’ve spent more than 25 years working in technology and 15 years in nonprofits, noticing recurring patterns, learning practical lessons, and exploring interesting tensions, emerging ideas, and occasional bright spots across nonprofit technology and operations work.

This year, I began a broader nonprofit listening tour to intentionally learn from a wider range of organizations, experiences, and operational realities.

I’m starting these field notes as an effort to share some of that learning, create more open conversation, and do some thinking in public.

Some notes are quick observations. Others are diagrams, visual models, examples, or deeper dives. Most are shared as working thoughts in progress rather than polished conclusions, but always with the goal of being practically useful to nonprofit leaders, operational staff, consultants, technologists, and others doing this work.