Feelings seem to be running high about a full-time nonprofit staff member creating a private email distribution list so that he and others in his position can have frank discussions about vendors, products, and services.
Naturally, some vendors don't like this. They have the right to say so, but it's not up to them to refuse (or grant) nonprofit professionals the right to hold in camera conversations.
My only concern about the new "nptechhelp" group is that the individual wisdom of of full-time nonprofit professionals (when making technical decisions) is not always remarkably good. And what about the collective wisdom of full-time nonprofit professionals? Although it's currently fashionsable to praise "the wisdom of crowds," I'd rather bet on Gustave Le Bon's thesis than James Surowieki's.
Nevertheless, those of us who work in the nonprofit sector sometimes need to blow off steam and tell war stories - at a safe distance from the reprisals of vendors, supervisors, funders, and lawyers. Why else would I be publishing this blog anonymously?
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You've put your finger on something that I find annoying about a lot of nonprofit advocacy groups. (I realize that that isn't really the topic of your post, but your post is what triggered the insight.) What is it with nonprofit organization who go around arrogating to themselves the right to grant permission or forbid people to make their own choices? Sheesh! These days, every nonprofit group has a "policy" or a "manifesto" about what everybody else ought to do or believe.
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