Independent Technology Enables USO-Metro to Serve Troops Better

The USO is chartered by Congress to meet the human service needs of the US Armed Forces personnel and their families. While it is a nonprofit organization, most of its outreach centers are located at military bases, hospitals, and airports where servicemen and women can be found. The USO-Metro includes Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Northern Virginia, a region with one of the largest concentrations of United States military personnel in the world. For decades, the USO-Metro has relied on the military for its technology equipment and support, including both administrative networks and computer labs for servicemen to use. Then, after September 11, when security measures tightened, the military designated the USO as a security threat because so many volunteers and non-military personnel could use its network. So, USO-Metro sprang into action to build its own independent network.

Without its own IT department, USO-Metro first turned to its board with executives from leading tech companies for help. "We’ve always been resourceful and we have a great board," says Chief Operating Officer Cheryl Laaker Hall. Board members solicited in-kind donations of equipment from Cisco, Verizon, Microsoft, and Dell. Hall knew that the organization needed help installing and maintaining the equipment, so she contacted NPower Greater DC Region.

At USO-Metro’s administrative offices on Fort Myer, NPower installed a new server, networked staff computers, and created a computer lab and wifi hotspot for military personnel to use. NPower set up the computers and network at all 13 USO-Metro locations on military bases, at airports, and in military hospitals in DC, Maryland, and Virginia.

The new set up enabled USO-Metro to have a shared drive for the first time so all 28 staff members scattered throughout 13 locations could have easy access to each other’s files.

"It helps us communicate better with one another," Hall says. "We’re no longer faxing things, which were burning up paper." Each outreach center, Hall explains, does similar work and can make use of each other’s ideas and promotional materials. "If one center needs a flier to promote a children’s program, they can look at other centers’ fliers on the shared drive and don’t have to create one on their own. It saves time and money." As a result of having the shared drive, they have centralized documents that staff at each location can tailor to their own needs. The new technology has also helped with donor cultivation. "Everyone logs on to the donations record now and sees what everyone else has gotten donated. People can call up and say ‘I didn’t know you got something from that donor. Do you think that person would help with my activity?’ We’ve been able to broaden some donor relationships."

"The open lines of communications have taken the organization to a completely different level than it was before. It’s gotten everyone to think about technology in a different way. Before, we thought of it as just email and internet. Now we’re taking a volunteer management program online, putting in a donor database that multiple people will be able to see, and we have an events program to manage the special events process. NPower has helped us to see the possibilities in technology."

Cheryl Laaker Hall,
Chief Operating Officer,
USO of MetropolitanWashington