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 was 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 helped to 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 were primary focuses for the EOLCA.

From 2004 through 2006, the EOLCA was a standing committe of the Community Network. In January 2007 the EOLCA was renamed the Journey Project Coordinating Council and the name EOLCA retire. The work of the EOLCA carried on in that manner.

In 2009, the Journey Project Coordinating Council merged with the the Community Network POLST Paradigm Advisory Group to become the Sonoma County Coalition for Compassionate Care. This continues the tradition of having a diverse coalition of agencies and individuals help guide and support work we’ve been doing since the mid-1990s dedicated to improving end of life care. Our evolution reflects our growth, best use of staff time and community resources. The Coalition emerged as the result Community Network organizing efforts needed to secure funding as one of 18 community coalitions dedicated to promoting the POLST Paradigm .

Boards, Committees and Staff Current

In 2009, with the approval of the Community Network Board of Directors, the Sonoma County Coalition for Compassionate Care began doing business under the nonprofit umbrella of the Community Network. The Coalition Leadership Council guides work being done by the Coalition focused on educating the community about POLST and related issues. 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, Ortensia Angotti, and Sara Lavayen serve as Co-Directors for Latino Program Development.
Gloria Potter, artist in residence with the Community Network since its founding, provides artwork for the Journey Project.
Bo Laurent, Website Consultant, is a partner with Mathias Consulting and works 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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