Web Development Live

Hoping to give a marketing boost to nonprofit agencies that build and rehabilitate housing, the city of Columbus and a national nonprofit have created a one-stop shop Web site designed to market inner-city homes to current and potential Columbus residents.

The city is partnering with Enterprise Community Partners, a national community development agency based in Columbia, Md., to run the site. Enterprise has a 20-year history in Columbus, at one time running the Columbus Housing Partnership, a nonprofit agency that builds and rehabs inner-city homes, said Phillip Downing, director of the Enterprise office in Columbus.

Now Enterprise wants to help nonprofits that may be good at building and rehabbing, but not so good at marketing and sales.

Homes featured on the site are primarily in south, west and east Columbus neighborhoods around Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Franklinton, Hilltop and the King-Lincoln Arts district. Enterprise is placing homes from nonprofit agencies such as the Columbus Housing Partnership, MiraCit, the Greater Linden Development Corp. and others on the Web site.

Enterprise and the city also partnered with Dublin-based Coldwell Banker King Thompson and Gahanna-based World Financial Network National Bank to provide real estate and banking services to potential buyers.

Chief executive Kerry Dalton says the CAB will use the grant, along with another $340,000 provided by the Consumer Affairs Ministry, to develop a website that will provide information and links to the 50,000 services listed on the organisation’s database. Clients will be able to get free advice from volunteers through a real-time Internet chat facility, in addition to being able to visit any of the CAB’s 91 offices nationwide. The CAB will also install Internet kiosks at its bureaux, which people will be able to use to access its database and e-government services. Ms Dalton says the technology overhaul will take two years and will radically reshape the organisation. “It’s a scale of transformation that occurs very rarely in the life of an organisation. We know that technology is shaping the way people demand information and this is going to give people more choices.” The CAB fielded 600,000 queries from the public last year. About a third were from migrants, who also make up about a third of the CAB’s 2700 volunteers. The organisation provides advice on a wide range of issues from employment, consumer and tenancy problems through to relationship and budgeting advice. Making its services available online is likely to bring new clients to the CAB, Ms Dalton says. The grant was the largest made this year from the Community Partnership Fund, which was established in 2005 as part of the Government’s Digital Strategy. Community Sector Minister Winnie Laban announced last week that $10 million had been allocated to 64 community-related ICT projects. Funding was provided to extend the Computers in Homes scheme to several more disadvantaged areas and to help non-profit organisations put information and services online. The New Zealand Archaeological Association will get nearly $500,000 to create an online searchable national database of archaeological sites. Prison Fellowship New Zealand will receive $40,000 to set up a website “engaging the public about crime and punishment”. One of the smallest grants, $4000, will go to Waiheke Sustainability for computer equipment to record and map noxious weeds.