About Us

Appropriate Technology offers us a way to acknowledge and integrate our values into the way we use our tools. It reflects a concern for enhancing our skills and self-reliance, in utilizing our local resources to create employment within our communities, and in using available resources in a conserving and sustainable manner.
Sam Sadler

Who We Are

Community Network

The work assembled and organized on this site was made possible by the Community Network for Appropriate Technologies (The Community Network) with funding provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Rallying Points Program. The Community Network is a 501©3 nonprofit tax-exempt educational and charitable organization serving the greater Sonoma County region since 1978. We work primarily as public interest planners, educators and community facilitators. In the process of our work we routinely produce works in print, audio and video. Susan Keller, M.A., M.L.I.S, was a founding member of the Community Network and has served as Executive Director/Principal Planner since its founding.

Community Network Journey Project

Journey to Life’s End: A Traveler’s Guide is an example of work that we have produced and publish. The Journey Project launched by the Community Network in the early 1990s did this work. The Journey Project was conceived and manifested in response to the absence of palliative care and community-based long-term care for the frail elderly and dying. The Traveler’s Guide and related community workshops were the results of scores of volunteers doing work needed to bring all this to life.

End of Life Care Alliance of Sonoma County

In 2000, the Community Network joined with a number of area hospices and others to create the End of Life Care Alliance of Sonoma County (EOLCA). The EOLCA is comprised of professionals working in the field dedicated to the mission of “compassionate care at the end of life that honors the values and goals of each member of our community.” Through regularly scheduled meetings and educational activities, they help promote and support the provision of quality care for the frail, dying, their families and caregivers. Peer support, information exchange, and advocacy for good end of life care planning and palliative care are primary focuses for the EOLCA.

Since 2004 the EOLCA has been a standing committe of the Community Network. In January 2007 the EOLCA was renamed the Journey Project Coordinating Council and the name EOLCA retire.

Boards, Committees and Staff Current

In 2003, with the approval of the Community Network Board of Directors, the EOLCA began doing business under the nonprofit umbrella of the Community Network. The EOLCA Steering Committee now named the Journey Project Coordinating Council provides guidance and assistance with Journey Project development including the End of Life Issues workshop series. The Journey Project Latino Advisory Council provides assistance working to develop the Journey Project “End of Life Issues” training program in Spanish language. Additionally, they advise us on issues concerning outreach and inclusion of other diverse cultures in our region.

Staff and Volunteers

Susan Keller provides professional staff support to all these endeavors as the Community Network Executive Director/Principal Planner and author of Journey to Life’s End: A Traveler’s Guide.
Teresa Fernandez, Cristina Briano, Ortensia Angotti, and Olivia Sandoval serves as Co-Directors for Latino Program Development.
Magdalena Donaldson provides translation assistance and support for work of mutual benefit.
Gloria Potter, artist in residence with the Community Network since its founding, provides artwork for the Journey Project including this website.
Cheryl Chase, Website Consultant, is a partner with Mathias Consulting working with nonprofits to develop data-driven Web 2.0 websites and on-line fundraising efforts.
Volunteers assist with all our work on an ongoing basis.

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