JP’s photo
arrives from his card; until then this box

Since I was 15 at FREED, I have kept Nevada County’s nonprofits running on whatever technology they could afford.

Now that means writing the broadband and digital‑inclusion grants, putting AI agents on the phone and the calendar, and sitting down with people whose devices don’t work. From Grass Valley, for 25 years.

Book a free 20‑minute intro or consulting by the hour, $120–150 sliding scale

What I do for an organization

Win the funding

CASF Adoption, DDGP, LEP, FCC BDC challenges and the CPUC letters behind them. I write them, file them and answer the questions.

Run it with agents

A fleet in production: a phone assistant that takes messages and books, a help desk, newsletters, a compliance calendar. You keep the keys.

Fix the tech in the room

GrapheneOS and Linux, home networks, privacy, assistive devices. For people, not just organizations.

$120–150 an hour, sliding scale

Services, with prices

Plain numbers, so you can decide before we talk. Sliding scale means we agree a rate your budget can carry.

Work with me

Free 20-minute introfree
A call to see whether I can help, and what it would take.
Consulting by the hour$120–150 an hour, sliding scale
Grants, agents, networks, devices. Remote, or at your office in Nevada County.
One-screen Workspace tracker$1,200–1,800
A Google Workspace tracker your team actually uses, built with you in about a week.
Managed phone systemfrom $30 a seat a month, $150 monthly minimum
A hosted phone system for a small office, set up and looked after. Phones extra, E911 at cost, setup billed hourly.
Grant-readiness checkprice on request
A read of your registrations, budget and story before you apply.

Hosted for you

On servers I run, in the United States, backed up nightly. Setup is billed hourly; domains at cost.

Website buildfrom $1,500 for a small nonprofit site; $3,000–6,000 for a standard one
WordPress or static, with forms, a donate button and, for 30 percent more, a Spanish version.
Hosting and care$59 a site a month for WordPress, $25 for a static site
Backups, updates, one small change a month included, and a monthly check-in.
Booking page$15 a month
What book.jphein.com is: people pick a time and it lands on your calendar.
Newsletter$19 a month, sending at cost
What TechEMPOWER's newsletter runs on. Your list, your words, no tracking pixels you did not ask for.
Help desk$29 a month
What techempower.org/help runs on. A ticket inbox your whole team can answer.
All four together$119 a month
Hosting, booking page, newsletter and help desk for one organization.
HIPAA-ready client recordscoming
A client record system for care organizations; ask me where it stands.

Where I work

FREED Center for Independent Living — Grass Valley; my first job at 15, still a partner
Nevada County Media — Grass Valley; where “Wait, I Qualify?!” is made
Madelyn Helling Library — Nevada City; proposed navigator site (2027)
San Juan Ridge Community Library — North San Juan; proposed navigator site (2027)
551 Whiting Street — Grass Valley; county partners
County surplus — where the reused computers come from

Twenty‑five years, one trail

2000First job, FREED Center for Independent Living, age 15
Assistive technology and equipment reuse: repairing and matching donated devices to the people who needed them.
2004donkeyco.com
A web design shop, archived since April 2004.
2006jphein.com
The consulting site, online since November 2006; on WordPress since 2013.
c. 2009Technology lead, Community Beyond Violence (DVSAC until 2018)
Fifteen years, through mid-2024, as the sole IT for the domestic-violence and sexual-assault agency: confidential client data, shelter networks, phones.
c. 2011Connecting Point / 211 Nevada County
Built and ran the Nevada-Sierra Connecting Point Public Authority's site (ns-pa.org, now connectingpoint.org) on WordPress, 2011–2016.
2011locomotioncircus.com
"Fools with Gusto!": the site for Locomotion Circus, archived since July 2011.
2013ncproducersguide.com
A shared calendar of every event and venue in Nevada County; the ancestor of the county calendar now on techempower.org.
2016BoXenLinux
An Ubuntu LTSP distribution for nonprofits, with zero, thin and fat clients from one server.
2017The how-tos that became TechEMPOWER
Plain-language posts on jphein.com (a free electric car for low-income Californians, unlocking a carrier phone, a $15 point of sale) while keeping Sierra Harvest, the California Survey Company and other Nevada County clients running.
2018–19Thin clients and cloud desktops for nonprofits
LTSP builds and PXE menus, Windows cloud desktops for a nonprofit, half-price internet for nonprofits, OpenWrt on a WNDR4300; 4 Elements Earth Education joins the client list, lithium packs from laptop cells, Windows Server under KVM.
2023Founded TechEMPOWER, a 501(c)(3)
Plain-language guides to programs that lower the cost of internet, phone, food and healthcare.
2025"Wait, I Qualify?!"
A public-benefits show on Nevada County Media: five episodes in the first season, 24 more in production.
2026JPHein Consulting restarts; book.jphein.com live
Broadband and digital-inclusion funding for small rural nonprofits, and running an organization on AI agents.
2026California Department of Technology Digital Inclusion Partner
Northstar, digitalLIFT and Human-I-T partner; Nevada County Digital Navigator Initiative in design.