TechMission History

History of TechMission

TechMission, then called the Association of Christian Community Computer Centers (AC4), was first established when a group of leaders of Christian computer centers saw the need for increased collaboration and support. Staff from Christian computer centers across the USA were involved in the early discussions and process of founding AC4 - including Rudy Carrasco from Harambee in Pasadena; Marcus Thorne of Lawndale in Chicago; and Angel Halstead, Kevin Chien and Andrew Sears from the PREP Computer Center of Bruce Wall Ministries (BWM). In addition, the AC4 advisory board helped provide guidance to the organization.

AC4 was launched out of the PREP Community Computer Center, which was a partnership of Bruce Wall Ministries (BWM) in Dorchester, MA and the Cambridge Vineyard Christian Fellowship and Dorchester Temple Baptist Church. From 2000-2002, BWM acted as the fiscal agent and provided support. AC4 initially had only 50 ministries on our list of Christian computer centers with only 20 as members. Around 30 ministries attended the first AC4 conference in May 2001. AC4 now has over 500 member churches and Christian organizations.

TechMission became a separate non-profit entity in 2002. The next year, following the success of the AC4 program, it launched the TechMission Boston Program which provides full-time interns to serve in after-school, teen, and adult technology education programs, as well as providing the curriculum and software benefits of AC4 membership. In 2004, TechMission Boston received AmeriCorps backing which enabled it to expand to Los Angeles. The program, now known as TechMission Corps, now sends out interns to organizations in Boston, Los Angeles, Denver, New York City, and Chicago.

In 2005, a Department of Justice grant enabled TechMission to start its Safe Families Program, which promotes online safety through providing free training and web-filtering software. The TechMission Volunteer Network was launched the following year. In 2007, TechMission introduced UrbanMinistry.org, which is an effort to use "Web 2.0" technologies to further promote collaboration and resource-sharing between Christian community development ministries. Finally, in January of 2008, TechMission acquired City Vision College, an accredited online institution designed to equip urban ministry workers to manage and develop their ministries.

TechMission draws much of its ministry philosophy from the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) and was started based on the needs identified in discussion with CCDA members. CCDA emphasizes three key principles as a part of their ministry philosophy: racial reconciliation, indigenous leadership and economic development. TechMission and CCDA have been in partnership for the past several years; currently, TechMission provides hosting for the CCDA website as well as assisting in membership management.

 

Year	Budget	Staff at HQ**	Staff at Sites**
2002*	$136,354	4	0
2003	$306,438	7	1
2004	$597,881	8	7
2005	$840,245	12	20
2006	$1,015,524	16	20
2007	$1,191,483	17	30
2008	$1,301,295	19	35