GroundWork group held its Third Annual Members Conference for an audience of nearly 200 nonprofit and business leaders and provided a variety of educational opportunities throughout the day focusing on a wide variety of information technology related topics.

As one of our member participants stated "IT is an area that if you are not an expert within the field you can at times be intimidated by all of the information needed to get by day-to-day. By attending this conference and participating in two of the breakout sessions, Stretching the IT Dollar and Data Management Lost and Found, I discovered that as long as you have resources like GroundWork group to educate the non-experts in IT and to help guide us through the steps needed to get by day-to-day, it is not as intimidating as it seems."

GroundWork group met its goals for the day: to present ideas for nonprofit organizations on developing partnerships, to provide educational opportunities involving technology solutions and strategies, and to provide opportunities for nonprofit staff members to network among each other, area businesses and potential funders. Participants went away with new information and ideas to take back to their organizations.

"Nonprofit organizations of all types have made it through turbulent waters by pulling together, pooling resources, and sharing knowledge," said E. Gordon Gee, President of The Ohio State University and our Opening Keynote speaker, "I firmly believe that our greatest successes - whether in the classroom, the community, or economic development - come from partnerships." We at GroundWork group could not agree more.

We were fortunate to have business sponsorships for our conference including our Keynote Sponsors: Battelle, NetJets, United Way of Central Ohio and Oracle. We appreciate their support as well as all of our sponsorships for this year's conference.

Participation in GroundWork group's Annual Conference grows every year and we will continue to strive to "put a human face on nonprofit technology" not only with our conference but with every educational opportunity that we present throughout the year. Watch for emails with more details on our monthly educational events. To view the Powerpoint presentations used by our presenters at this year's Conference visit our website at www.groundworkgroup.org .

Where does someone turn when home is no longer safe? Who can they confide in, get support from, brainstorm ideas with and not feel blamed for the situation they are in?

CHOICES, Eliminating Domestic Violence is committed to the principle that violence is not acceptable. To relieve suffering and foster prevention, the agency offers a 24-hour crisis and information hotline; temporary shelter for women and children; outpatient counseling; legal system and community advocacy; children's programming; transitional services; outreach programming for underserved and

CHOICES work is three-fold ~ the agency responds, educates and advocates.

CHOICES responds to requests for assistance in domestic violence situations. The agency advocates for and influences public policy, assists in developing legislation, and promotes research and the study of domestic violence theory and intervention practice. CHOICES believes education is the first step to preventing family violence and has instituted an aggressive outreach program through speeches,

GroundWork group and CIVIC have been instrumental in providing CHOICES with the tools to reach the community with its message. A data base housed in CIVIC with the ability to be segmented in various ways has kept up with CHOICES work toward creating a community in which every home is a safe, non-violent home.