Slashdot Mirror
Where Can One Find Computer Related Charity Work?
LS asks: "For a while now, I've been trying to find work that utilizes my programming skills to do more than just help a company win in the market, make me money, and maybe even provide enjoyment. I'd like to contribute to the well-being of humanity and maybe leave a lasting mark as well. I'm working for a start-up that looks like it's about to fold. Can anyone point me to some resources for finding charitable organizations that need computer work, anywhere in the world?" I think that a quite a few of us who wouldn't mind devoting some hackin' time to a good cause. What's the best way to go looking for organizations who need the help? Updated!
Update: 07/15 05:15 PM by C :Miniluv sent in this helpful tidbit on this issue: "In response to the Ask Slashdot article about Charity Work and Technology, I went digging and came up with TechVolunteer. They don't have any searching or volunteer stuff listed yet, but they say the site is under developement. Maybe some encouragement might help them along?"
Macnet is a community "freenet" here in Holland (Michigan). We are always looking for willing and skilled people to help out with our infrastructure and the helpdesk. If your interested check out www.macatawa.org or contact Chris Gould at (616)394-4689
It is targeted primarily at people who are interested in donating to charity, but would also be ideal for looking for employment since it hosts the addresses of all nonprofit organizations that file with the IRS (all U.S. nonprofits earning more than $25,000 per annum are required to file) as well as information voluntarily provided by organizations that do not file.
Technical skills can be put to good use in charity work. It's not a matter of choosing to give luxury items like computers to people who really need medicine. The organizations can use the skills to meet logistical challenges and to keep operating costs low - ensuring that the most resources go towards those that need them.
Check out Catholic Charities, Lutheran Brotherhood, places like that need some serious help!!
Of course it takes the right place, and the pay isn't corporate, but you do feel like you're doing something that matters.
As an example, I recently worked for New City Development Corporation, a non-profit ministry of New City Fellowship, a Presbyterian church here in St. Louis, MO. The organization builds/remodels low-income housing in the inner-city, rebuilding broken neighborhoods. And they are committed to racial reconcilation. I found myself working there in the office and noticed a great need for some hacking. Taking out their ridiculously unstable Win95 firewall, and replacing it with a Linux box would have done them a lot of good. I also had numerous ideas for software projects (that probably would have been well-taken-to in the Open Source community) that would have extraordinarily useful and a drastic improvement over their current way of getting things done.
----
Celebrate the finer things in life
If you cannot commit to being a school sysadmin, you might want to help out through a charity called NetDay. Located at http://www.netday.org, this organization places together IT experts with local schools that need internet access. Unfortunately, the event is organized as a one-day event sporadically. The next NetDay is October 28, 2000...it would be cool to have /. teams across America.
"...What is good for General Motors is good for America." -Charles Wilson, Secretary of Defense and fmr President of GM
There is at least one site that lists some places looking for people with computer and programming talents who are willing to help. Beyond this, if you are of the liberal midset you can usually volunteer at your local PIRG, public interest research group. The site with general listings is: www.idealist.org
However, if you're not the type to get off your ass (:-), Habitat for Humanity folks say that it's always easy to get people to show up for the glamorous parts of building a house - there's other hard boring work to be done preparing for it, and there's a lot of need for money. Send them a check, or Donate Online using credit cards.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
People in science are often looking for help of any kind - under funded, over worked. Possibly in need of good software. Find something that you are interested in mabey in your area.
For example I used to live near a startup astronimical research institute. It's for proffit, but its useful and interesting.
if there's a freenet
that's in or near your city,
they need your help, guy.
If you are in the New York City area, an organization that I help run, Voluntech, might interest you. We are a technical volunteering group, seeking to provide assitance to community-based organizations that can't afford Wall Street-rate consultants or staff. We provide free technical assistance for any non-profit, school, etc... There are many others, including Compumentor, TechCorps, NY Connects, that do similar things.
Hands On San Francisco is an organization that coordinates volunteers for community service projects. There are related organizations in New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Washington DC. They're not a place to find a high-computer-skills job, but they do need volunteers, and high-tech companies in the city are welcome.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I guess this makes senses if you really believe Africa is all the same (ie populated entirely by rat infested grass huts), all over, and needs nothing but tonnes of free food and past-their -sell-by-date medicines.
Its not and it doesn't. Many areas in African states are battling to make a successful transition to a (relatively) modern economy due to lack of skills. The universities are unbelievably under-resourced particularly with technology (many aren't able to even offer CompSci or IT orientated courses). The exception here is South Africa (where I come from) but even here, the best IT skills leave for salaries in strong currencies. The US Peace Corps sent out English and economics teachers and lecturers throughout the 60s and 70s: now I suspect Africa could do with wave of tech teachers.
Sure there are people starving in Africa. But everybody knows that. What you don't get pictures on the cover of Time magazine of is small businesses in tourism, craft manufacturer etc who can't expand beyond occasional passerby tourist trade because there's no way to get the message out that not everyone here lives in rat-infested grass huts.
...weaned, as it were, on the webs of ritual... (Mervyn Peake)
How can people who don't live near a reservation help out through email or IRC?
--
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
I have an idea too. I think we should fix the f*cking system in the first place. If people are being fed, clothed, and sheltered in this country of enormous wealth, our taxes are being misspent in the first place. It should stop going to corporate subsidies and instead the real people who need it.
I'd rather waste some extra money on lazy slackers, than deprive good people who really DO want to get ahead, any opportunity at all.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I volunteer with an organization called Byte Back. http://www.byteback.org Byte Back is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization which collaborates with other DC organizations to provide services to inner city residents. The main service Byte Back provides is computer training for unemployed and under-employed DC area adults and youth in order to increase their skill sets and marketability. Byte Back takes responsibility for equipment, software, curriculum development, volunteer teacher recruitment, training, and supervision. Byte Back has nine partner organizations provide computer lab space and lab time, recruit students, and are responsible for security at the organization's 12 classrooms in the DC area. Byte Back also provides job placement services to its students and graduates. For more info, check out the web site.
"The plural of anecdote is not data."
I'd say find a charity you support, call them up and tell them you've got time to spare and they will probably happily accept you.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
And this is where, after reading all the fucking inane bullshit on slashdot for a year, I totally...
...contribute to it? Nice spew. Feel better now?
Have any of you stopped, EVEN ONCE, and considered what goes on outside the windows of your fucking Lexus?
Why yes, yes indeed. My wife drives it most days so I walk to work instead.
Many developing nations are opting to build universities and educate their people as a means of addressing poverty. I know of someone (a brother of a good friend) who is in Nigeria right now helping a university there set up its computer networks; he began by helping with the building construction, but since he knows a few things about setting up networks he was able to help out here as well.
I suppose you believe that these nations should be growing their economies by waiting for handouts from the West instead? I hate to break it to you, but unless the nation is rich in natural resources such as oil the West would just as soon forget what goes on in a developing country. Case in point: How many Tutsis were slaughtered in Rwanda in 1994? 800,000? IIRC, your "goddamned news" gave it scant coverage after the first week or so. The last time I checked this is on par with estimates for some famous Western genocides (such as the million or so who perished in the Armenian genocide), however suprisingly little effort was made on the part of the West to try to pacify the situation. We seem not to care much about people with brown or black skin who have no resources to peddle.
Opposition to technological investment by developing nations because "people are suffering" is silly and paternalistic. People are starving in the United States too, but we allow the tech industries to thrive--we even prefer "computers in the classroom" over investing in social programs to address these problems.
You could do what I do - volunteer at a local nursing home and help with their
"IT" needs. Of course, it's often not brain-salad work by any means. I'm
helping out at a Good Samaritan nursing home here in Minneapolis, and they are
just now putting their mailing list "online" (by which they mean, in a
computer database vs. on typewritten sheets of paper formatted to Xerox onto
mailing labels). The computer I work on is a 286 (probably almost as old as I am) running MS-DOS 5.0; the database is Alpha Three! Their mailing list is running about 1500 addresses which is more than twice the number of residents in the nursing home...kinda bizarre
-JD
Personally, I've found this work quite fulfilling because I can exercise my coding skills while furthering a goal I truly believe in. If anyone else is interested, check out the Open Source link on our homepage for more about the project. We're in early development now but we should have an alpha release available for download in August. We will have our office running this system by the end of the summer!
Yep, I have compass pages online, and I too get lots of e-mail. I still have my address on the page, but I have an autoresponder that sends a message if certain words are present in the e-mail saying I can't answer in a while, while I finish my (astronomy! :-)) thesis. When I finish, I plan to turn it into a community based Open Content/Source project and get a domain for it.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
First, let me say that LS has his heart in the right place. Giving back to the community, at least in my mind, is a responsibility.
Folks such as myself believe that computers are a necessity. I don't believe that I could live anything approaching a happy live without email.
That said, not a mile from my home is a place where people who regularly go without food sleep. I drive by that homeless shelter every day on the way to work.
The lives of those who visit the homeless shelter can not be improved by programming or high speed internet access.
The kids who go to several of the high schools in my district can't pass elementary level math and science tests. These kids have don't need perl lessons, they need basic, how-do-I-balance-my-checkbook math.
I highly recommend each person find a meaningful cause. Mine is Habitat for Humanity. It is my choice because at the end of the day, I can see progress. I once did a Thanksgiving at a soup kitchen. It was depressing. I knew that tomorrow the same people would be here. All I had to show for the day was empty bowls. I didn't fix a problem, I was helping a person get though one day.
After a day with Habitat, there are walls. Next week, there will be a roof. A few months and there's a house and a family. Years from now, I can drive by that house and point it out to my kid as something I did to make the world a better place.
With soup or even a nice piece of code, what have I left for the next generation to see? Little, I believe.
On the selfish side of the street, Habitat also gives me the opportunity to get some exercise. That's something I wouldn't get if I were using my computer skills for a charitable organization. Also, in a couple years, I plan to build my own house. Having worked with Habitat, I've learned skills that will save me money down the road. My working with Habitat has been very symbiotic.
Everyone should get out there and give back to the community. But, before you pigeonhole yourself into thinking your only skill is computer-related, ask yourself if there is anything else you can provide to the community that might be better utilized. I think you'll find hard labor benefits the community more than any computer project you can hack together (probably on company time {grin}).
InitZero
You, sir, are a moron.
Can you bother to ask yourself the contrary question: "There are countries where people are dying from starvation; why are these countries not well supplied with schooling, money, and IT? Well, maybe because they're too fucking busy trying to eat to survive to care about stuff that is comparatively secondary?
it is in fact possible to pull a culture up to first-world levels of education in a fairly short time, the members of those cultures are not stupid, they simply have tradition, and the older members are often resistant to change.
Drop the euphemisms, e.g., "change" for assimilation. The western world simply does not appreciate that which is worthy in the third world peasant's culture, and aims to replace it with unbridled commercialism, money worship and such.
Are you adequate?
http://netcorps.org
Almost all free software is of use to charities. Linux, GnuCash, Apache, GIMP, Gnome, KDE, Resin, etc etc etc. Commercial versions of these packages would cost a charity upwards of $2000 or more. I suggest working on worthwhile free software projects and preaching free software to your local charities, and even offer to install it for them. Everyone who works on free software is working towards cheap, high-quality software for everyone.
Well, I'm in Norway, and I'm going to do work for the association of blind. Just find an organization you can support and call them up, tell them you want to help. Geeks are important but few, so they will probably be happy to accept your offer to help.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Often you'll find that your city has a non-profit internet service provider, ie a 'FreeNet'. These are prime targets, and are always looking for sysadmins and people to hack code for them.
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made.
In the UK, VOIS might be one to investigate, or FHIT, or Oneworld, or even VSO. The Information Works build database solutions for non-profit groups. There is also an Oxford based charity 'dedicated to strengthening the capacity of not-for-profit organisations in the third world through the use of information and communication technologies'.
Thse guys pioneered a 'circuit riders' concept in the US. The Technology Project in the US is 'dedicated to accelerating social and political progress by building technological capacity for community collaboration and citizen engagement'. For current news about technology and non-profits, see here.
There are several organisations working in 'developing' countries, such as this one working to 'accelerate socio-economic development and education through the use of emerging technologies in Ghana and throughout the African continent'.
In Australia, the Computerbank project works in redistributing computer equipment and providing training.
Many charity recruitment pages also list vacancies for IT professionals.
I have a big bunch of more academic links on ICT and non-profit management if anyone's interested.
-Rob
You should consider becoming a school sysadmin. a lot of schools would be more than happy to hire you for free if you can keep their more "adventuring" students from fscking up their win98 boxen. then again this is hitting on another ask slashdot about getting linux in the workplace. just my 2 cents
Can you imagine a MOSIX cluster of these?
Gospelcom.net hosts the websites for nearly 200 Christian ministries. They're based around open-source tools - Apache, PHP, Perl, mySQL, etc. I'm confident that an email to Gospelcom would result in a list of the different ministries that needed work done on a volunteer bases.
See http://www.gospelcom.net/.
Well, you're right on one point. I don't want to get dirt under my fingernails. I am never going to go stand in the hot sun and hammer nails with Habitat, or stand around doling out soup at a shelter.
There is one reason, and only one, why the standard of living is so high in the developed world and so low everywhere else. That reason is specialization of labor. If I'm a computer geek, I provide orders of magnitude more value by being a *really good* compter geek. If I hammer nails with Habitat for a day, instead of spending that day doing economically productive computer geekery, I have reduced the total quantity of resources available to everyone. Don't believe me? Consider the fact that for what I can earn in a day's worth of computer geekery, I can buy the services of three or four laborers to hammer nails for Habitat--and, by the way, provide a day's wage to three or four people who can't access the skilled IT markets like I can. How can it possibly be desirable for me to waste my time hammering nails?
The real tragedy is that when people like me want to contribute what we can to good causes, we invariably encounter people like you--so we shrug and do nothing. We've been yelled at so much, we're not even listening any more.
-Graham
Open source software isn't the typical 'feed the poor' or 'spend time with those less fortunate' project, but one could argue that free software does help those less furtunate then ourselves.
Keeping
I can only speak about the situation in Belgium and don't know how it is in other countries, but my impression is that the average non-profit organizations are rather unaware of what technology could mean for them and that in many cases budget posts for technology (websites, databases, software development, hardware maintenance) are not, or insufficiently, included in their subsidy applications - so there will be few organizations who have that (paid) dream job ready and available for you. Organizations targeted towards providing media access (alternative local radio, the rare freespeech.org-style non-profit content provider types etc.) might be an exception to this, but I don't think this is the kind of organisation you're interested in in the first place.
Most nonprofits, though, would benefit from technical competence, so I think your wish is a very valid one. I would suggest that, if you find an organization whose goals you approve of, you start volunteering for them, going to meetings, offering help - perhaps not tech-related in the first place, but you could evolve towards showing them the benefits of online presence (creating/improving a website for them), quick and easy ways of communicating (setting up mailing lists, online calendars...), improving administration software and further on ... The clue would be, that you invest some of your free time into getting to know them and doing stuff for free first, making technology a structural part of their organisational model. In the future this might turn into a (partly) paid job by incorporating more technical projects into the organization's workflow and including this in subsidy applications.
The above scenario might work for smaller, flexible and young organisations with not-too-strict administrative models, not for giant NGO mammoths. In the last case, you might just want to try sending spontaneous application letters, doing some phonecalls, etc. Wishing you good luck!
CedarNet is a non-profit ISP here in Iowa. It provides low-cost dial-up and also provides community information. CedarNet is starving for QUALITY volunteers.
There might be a similar organization in your area, however, CedarNet is kind of unique.
"...we are moving toward a Web-centric stage and our dear PC will be one of
EverCode
I'm a Brit, so our "enclaves of poverty" aren't from quite the same source as yours, but we certainly have them.
You say you've managed to reduce unemployment and improve the local economy, by small-scale e-Commerce. Care to share any advice on how to do this ? I've worked on big over-funded startups that completely failed to make money, so I'm a little wary of suggesting eCommerce as a "guaranteed M M F" strategy.
What's the deal here ? What did you find worked, and what didn't ? What are the important skills to impart to people before they start the business ?
Help them setup that US Email system they've been talking about for so long! After all, what better contribution can you make to humanity than increasing the efficiency of the likes of Cliff Claven!?
---
seumas.com
imho, one of the most needed services is some kind of hardware middleman group between corporations and charitable organizations. Many companies have excess outdated hardware that they'd like to get a tax right-off for. Many charitable organizations and disadvantaged people are in need of ANY PC hardware regardless of its minimal crunching power. In my experience, there is a gap in the middle: soliciting the corporations for hardware, refurbing/reconfiguring said hardware, installing software (linux?!), identifying those in need, and delivering. A real ambitious group could grow to include training sessions/classes, etc. ;).... just my thoughts.
I'm sure groups like this exist, but when i volunteered to funnel my companies excess hardware to group homes (social service kids) in our county, i noticed a real need for this kind of service. I basically ended up re-learning about forgotten hardware, swapping components in and out trying to discover what was broken and what wasn't, re-installing software, etc. Needless to say, since this is not my area of interest/expertise, it was alot of time and frustration. A group with a directed goal like this could really make this process more effective and efficient! I'd love to join a group like this, but i've been too lazy to start one myself
cheers ya'll!
stu.
Don't SHOUT, for goodness sake. We can hear you perfectly well. The most important clue to get here is that the developing world is more than one place - it is not all the same, it contains most of the world's people, and most parts of it are neither dangerous nor starving.
Because of the diversity of circumstances in developing countries, different things are appropriate to different people. Just the same applies in the west - in your case a lesson in elementary geography would probably help most, whereas to a teenage gang member in the south bronx, it would be largely irrelevant.
In the same way, there are people in many parts of the developing world whose biggest obstacles to improving themselves are lack of access to communications technology and education. These tend to be people whose elementary needs for food and moderately stable governance are taken care of, but who are excluded from the process of development by distance or by social and economic forces. Some Amerind tribes throughout the Americas fit this bill, as do some people in India and the stabler parts of Africa.
On the other hand, for the people who fit the stereotyped image of third-worlders, and are either starving or in fear for their lives from bandits, terrorists, geurillas or governments (it can be hard to distinguish), teaching then about Linux would indeed be inappropriate.
Speaking as someone who runs a non-profit (foresight.org, nanodot.org), what most non-profits need desperately is consistently-available trouble-shooting and systems administration (i.e. boring stuff), to keep their machines working. Only after that is in place can they take on more-ambitious projects, and those are sometimes given as a treat to the person who does the boring stuff. Only a few nonprofits (like us) try to do fun, ambitious new software (crit.org, etc).
At the The James Randi Educational Foundation, www.randi.org, we've got a number of ambitious programming projects we could use volunteer help on. If you don't know who Randi is, check out our page. If you want to help, contact me at jref@mindspring.com.
(We're a 501c3 non-profit organization that promotes critical thinking)
I am a Systems Engineer for a charity that serves Northern Arizona and we have had a few programers that wrote Databases on a volunteer basses. We are also currently working with some one to develop a Web page. There is nothing non-profits like more than to get volunteers. I think a database of charities that need work done for people like yourself that are interested in volunteering would be a great thing. That way the companies and volunteers would have some place to find each other. I don't know of any web site that has this kind set up. Maybe some one should start one that in it self would be a huge contribution to the community at large. Until then I'm sure you could find some one to help in your area just by picking up the phone book and makeing some calls.
I agree that 15% of charities failing is a pretty amazing number. But I think it's amazing because it means 85% succeeded, which is impressive.
First of all, not all charities are wonderful legitimate causes. There are quite a few scams out there, and quite a few stupid causes.
Secondly, you shouldn't expect or demand charity from the American public. A big part of the foundation of this country is Capitalism. The idea of earning your own money, then giving it away to people who didn't earn it, is a fundamentally Communistic idea. When you talk about "today's unprecedentedly selfish" people, you sound as if you consider yourself part of yesterday's precedentedly selfless people. Well "yesterday's" people said that the idea of forcing the upper and middle classes to give their money to the lower classes (Communism) wasn't just a bad idea, but it was EVIL and they were quite cruel to anyone who disagreed. So don't get up on high horse and preach to "today's" computing community that we're all selfish bastards. And if you feel the need to be that self-righteous, at least have the balls not to post it anonymously.
Lastly, but most importantly, you have shown up at a major hang-out of the computing community. You're frustrated that said community doesn't do enough for charity. Then you see them saying they want to help charities, they're just looking for the opportunity. This is a perfect chance for you to tell them about all these charities that you think they're bastards for not helping. Instead, you just flame them. Why don't you do something constructive: Answer his question! Tell us what charities you think we should be helping instead of criticizing us for not helping!
Vote Smart needs programmers.
I'm a Christian trying to make a cool web community for teens and college students (not nessicarily all Christian stuff) I have a few volunteers but no other geeks to help with the actual programming. (Mostly perl but I'd like to do some Java and maybe Python as well). Anyone who is interested should visit my domain above
Never knock on Death's door:
The Anti-Blog
If you live near a fairly large College, you will often find that professors there will be doing some kind of research to better humanity.
If you head over to the website of some nearby Universities (assuming there's one nearby) and go to their CS department, you can find out what they're working on and decide if you would be interseted in helping with that topic.
A great thing about volunteering there is you can really put your knowledge and talent to use, and learn an incredible amount at the same time.
Well stated.
Historically, Africa was the primary source of colonies for the European nations, typically the UK, for the purpose of raiding its natural resources such as gems. Now that colonization is 'illegal' under international treaty, there is no Western interest in Africa's well-being, since it is too unstable to have large western-owned factories (e.g. Nike or Adidas shoe factories like in Asia) or its denizens are too unskilled or there is no one that wants to deal with corrupt governments.
You want to start education at a grass-roots level. The more trickle-down bureaucracy you have, the less effective the policy and the more waste in time and resources. The effects of bureacracy in America can be seen with failed schools and high crime rate in the cities.
Third world countries are primarily agricultural. With the green revolution, many more have been saved from starvation. The situation, although still ugly, has improved massively throughout the last 30 years. All the press wants to show people is the continual bloodshed, but America is one of the next most violent countries in the world today.
What developing countries need is technology to sustain both agriculture and the electronic industry of the 21st century. If the Americans learn from their own socioeconomic mistakes and grass-roots non-governmental organizations get involved in promoting technology in developing countries, they will become the producers of the next generation as the first world countries are relegated to the service industry.
Pretty strictly cgi stuff obviously, but check the link, there are some people who need help.... http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Jobs/
I just volunteered for a tech thing. Thanks for the reference to VolunteerMatch.org
I'm still working on a clever footer.
Mouse is an orgnaization that gets computers into schools in and around New York City.
They need all sorts of people, proprammers, networking people, etc. I'm not sure whether they have operations in other parts of the country as well.
Hotnutz.com - Funny
However, I got the impression that you're looking to make a (less than ostentatious) living at it.
First off, the magic word is "nonprofit", rather than "charity". As in nonprofitjobs.org and the like. If you drop by your local bookstore, you'll find a number of titles about working in the nonprofit industry.
Be aware that (in the USA) most of the nonprofit agencies which are big enough to make it worthwhile to have full-time, paid IT personnel are located in the greater Washington DC area, close to the source of the grant money which is their lifeblood. If you don't want to live in DC, nor in Manhattan, your options will be greatly limited.
Oh, another tip. In the nonprofit world, the word "development" means "fundraising". Be sure they're talking about software development.
If you're a VB hacker, check out BlackBaud, which is one of the big providers of software for nonprofits. There are others, but that should get you started.
And, of course, there may be a branch or two of the US government whose work you might admire. Again, you'll probably end up in the greater DC area if you want to stay in IT.
If you happen to be a student at Ohio State, you are welcome to join my organization: Fish and Chips (fish-and-chips.org) We are non-profit, although we might not fit your definition of charity. What we do is provide free on-site tech support in the dorms of Ohio State. Once we've fixed our client's computer, we try to open up a dialogue on Jesus Christ, more of an open discussion than preaching. (For those of you who may be thinking, oh great, here's another Christian ready to ram the Gospel down my throat, I recommend that you check out our Mission Statement.) We are a charity in that we are donating a service (our time and skills) to those who need it. However, a lot of people like to write off those organizations whose goal is to overtly minister Christ. (I don't think I'm being paranoid, just realistic :)) On a semi-related note, we are looking for a decent slogan for our ministry. So far the best I've been able to come up with is a Blues Brothers' reference : "We're on a mission from God." Feel free to post or email me suggestions if you can think of anything.
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
Check out : http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Jobs/ There are a number of people looking for help with Perl/CGI.
I know alot about computers, hardware, networking, and such, but I don't exactly work in the field per se. I don't have any certification or any degrees, but I'm sure with enough time and resources (which I'm low on right now) I'll land myself a carreer in the IT field. I think my attitude alot of times is that many of these jobs are overrated (and I could be wrong) but I think that stems from the fact that alot of people in the feild are unwilling to give me the benefit of the doubt (no degree = no knowledge). It could just be the attitude of the folks in the feild in my area, but the people who really respect and are impressed by my abilities are the everyday people who don't know much about computers but really need help. (Semi-pseudo computer literate). So basically, I offer free tech support to friends and family, people at work. I let them know my opinion and the facts and why I believe some things are better than others. I mean, who doesn't do this? Its a sort of charity in itself... if you help people become so computer literate that the machines become second nature to almost everyone as such things as televisions, vcrs, phones and automobiles, the extreme need for things like tech support will wane. So in other words, why pay some guy some ungodly amount of money to help people with their basic issues ("uhh how do I rename an icon on the desktop?") when you can just have a positive influence on everyone you talk to about computers in general. Good computing habits would eliminate alot of the problems we all have today. (I for one, check my email on the server with a little program, and many folks ask me why... well, I have yet to fall victim to stupid macro viruses like melissa, love bug, etc.) Just some thoughts.
FLR
The original question was about what we could do with our computer skills to help charities. Most charities have difficulties getting donations. If there was an easy (online) way to donate, then a simple ad campaign could bring in cash from the (relatively wealthy) online community.
Work doesn't always have to be on the front lines when it's IT: People tend to think of volunteer work as IT courses, Admin, etc, for whoever the "end users" of the charity are, or at least I get that idea from a lot of the postings here.
The problem in Italy with volunteer work not availability, it's beurocracy: Volunteer work can be easily found, especially because it's a great and useful alternative to the military service, so everybody has the chance to do 10 months of it by law. You simply go the the council and get their list of organisations. The problem was that the organisation was financed in very complicated ways, and the whole system was very complicated and messy, and hard to understand for the volunteers.
It all got in the way of what they were trying to do, which was welcome immigrants into the country and try to inform them about laws, places, rights and whatnot that they needed to know in order to get a job, get a place to stay, get their nationality, and send money home, etc.
All of these were very important, and at the base of this they needed a web based database so members all around the region could bring up people's details from their old offices and outdated computers.
Good system design and good technology is a really good way to combat bureocracy, and a lot of the times, people behind these organisations have good intentions, and getting cheap old computers can be doable, but they need the help an IT volunteer can give.
Also, free software means they don't have to buy anything other than the hardware: I've seen GNU software that does all kinds of small office work. These things are indispensible to any kind of charity or volunteer organisation, and the man hours and support you can give by doing this is tremendously valuable to them.
There was an interview with William Gates Sr (Bill's dad). a front page story in the New York Times some months back. about the management of the big Gates charity umbrella organisation. He told of traveling to an African village with exactly one powerline and one outlet to it's name, essentially the totality of the village's electrical supply being used to run one desktop computer. It convinced him that we need to do more thinking in depth when it comes to working in situations like this.
There is an appropriate time to send the Geeks in. After you've gotten people decently fed, housed, and on the road to feeding or at least taking proper care of themselves. And there is probably at least one or more places in Africa that have reached that stage already and are ready for that next level. That's hopefully where the "Geek Team" are being sent.
Of course the opportunity to overcommit yourself really takes off when you have kids :-)
I see a lot of opportunities to get involved with projects in developing web 'stuff' for them nowadays, which is really great because you can:
The great thing about volunteering to do stuff is that everybody is too busy being grateful for them to be too worried about whether you have 'the right qualifications' and stuff. It doesn't matter how bad a job you do, nobody wants you to leave, regardless, and eventually you get better :-)
There are always interesting community projects going on. Go to you local government (council, shire, whatever) office and find some. Lot's of small museums or educational places are underfunded and run on three parts love, one part sweat and one part community funding. Places like this can always handle an extra pair of hands and if you have a proposal they will listen.
Only a really 'commercial' volunteer organisation will turn down help.
Happy Helping!
Andrew.
...has lots of non-profit jobs, as well as a section for IT. The IT jobs right now seem to be in Boston, NYC, and D.C., of course. Looks like the ACLU needs a sysadmin in NYC... -aj
The San Francisco Foundation is a community foundation serving the San Francisco Bay Area, and among the largest community foundations in the country. Like most community foundations, we primarily make grants to worthy non-profit organizations in our area, and we do extensive research on each prospective grantee. We therefore have a database of over 600 organizations in the Bay Area that is the result of much dedicated work on the ground. We are also beginning a program called "Digital-Connect" which is designed to help bridge the so-called "digital divide" in our area. We are at http://www.sff.org, and we'd appreciate the chance to talk to any of you who are looking to do some pro-bono (or partially subsidized) work, or who are interested in finding out about organizations that are doing good work in a particular area of concern for you.
I'll second that notion. I have a friend doing Bible translation with Wycliffe in Russia. From what I hear they could definitely use help from computer techies.
----
Celebrate the finer things in life
well, this is sarcasm but has a grain of truth:
teaching people so they have some education could give them a higher rate of income which means that perhaps they could afford things like condoms, or rice, or basic medical supplies.
EOM
I'm working for a company which is trying to help non-profits by putting together a team of great technical people to build services that NPOs can incorporate into their web sites (we'll soon be doing site hosting as well). These let NPOs collect donations (credit card and stock) online, offer sign-up for volunteer opportunities, handle event registration, etc.
While getting a web site up with services like this is a good first step, it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of getting traffic to their site, so we're also building things which will help internet companies include charitable offerings in their sites.
If we can get sites like Amazon, Ebay, and Yahoo to promote charitable activity, then maybe this internet thing will finally be worth all the effort!
If anyone wants to know more... 4charity.com
I had a chance to travel through the Northern Territory of Australia, which has the highest concentration of Aborigionals in Australia and also the lowest life expectancy in the modernized world. The decrepit condition of the Aborigionals was very depressing to me, and I thought to myself "if I were an Australian, I'd be ashamed." But then I realized that we Americans have a neglected native population of our very own, and there are probablly a bunch of Australians somewhere who would be ashamed to be Americans upon having seen some of our reservations.
The reason I'm posting this is to support the idea of getting involved in the betterment of native Americans. America owes a lot of its success to the results of their land having been stolen, and the least we can do is give them a chance at a reasonibly prosperous career. If I get the charity bug, I may move out west instead of going to Africa.
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
What happened to him is that someone befriended him and mentored him. With that person's help he was able to increase both his math skills and his sellf-image to the point where he worked his way through university by tutoring math. He is now a registered engineer.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
I really want to stress two points. One is that while charitable organizations certainly have a need for computer skills, the kinds of needs most deeply felt are food, shelter, and clothing, and meeting those needs isn't the job for a computer whiz doing computer stuff. Which leads me to my second point. Get a job that pays you according to the market, and your needs, in an organization that doesn't make you feel like you're compromising your deep values. Volunteer your time to an organization that needs help -- doing whatever they need done, computer or not -- and then, and this is most important, give at least 10% of your income directly to the organization of your choice. Some organizations, like my favorite, Portland's Sisters of the Road Cafe, can even set up an automatic withdrawal monthly. Now your incentives to raise your income also benefit others. But please, don't stop at just sending money -- contribute your human touch as well.
There is a California based organization called Compumentor, whose mission is to act as a bridge to the information age for schools and organizations serving low-income communities. They try to hook up computer industry professionals with non profits and the like. Check it out http://www.compumentor.org
If you want to do more than volunteer, work for these folks!
Try Idealist.org matt.
Sites like Allcharities.com already exist to allow charities to collect donations online. Allcharities has the distinction of giving 100% of the donation to the charity -- no fees or anything. In fact, if you want to donate to Heartlight (a non-profit Christian web ministry I work with), you can try the system out! :-)
My wife is a Residential Treatment Counselor for a nonprofit agency of group homes and cottages that house, treat, and help "severely messed-up" kids. They don't have any computer expertise, and I've volunteered my time to help plan their future IT infrastructure, as well as teaching the kids about how to use computers, the internet, etc.
Through this, they'll learn how to do research on the net, a _very_ valuable skill in the real world.
Check out:
Geeks Into The Streets
and
The GITS Agape House Project
To see what you can do in your own neighborhood.
GITS was started by Jeff Covey (of freshmeat fame) and is currently supported by the UMBC-LUG. This is something that you can do in your own neighborhood with very little assistance.
-p.
There are probably several organizations who do work in your community: foodbanks, shelters, historical societies, and groups with an environmental or educational focus. They might need help with a website or setting up an office network. My advice is find something you want to work on (such as helping to feed people), seek out the organizations that do this, drop by and see what they might need. You're more likely to get involved and stay involved if you focus on an issue that you care about.
Try M-Net and Grex for computer related charity work.
... who believes that the computer industry is in due for correction.
I do not own stocks and only read the wsj to read about business.
What is surprising is that Medical stocks have done better Computer/Internet.
ChozSun [e-mail]
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
Also, if you're in Phoenix, Arizona, try St. Vincent de Paul's homeless/jobless shelter as well as the folks down at Andre House. They're both homeless/jobless-centered organizations, and often are looking for people to help train jobless in basic computer skills.
You have concurrently been entered as Exhibit A into the "Having actually Learned Something from all of the struggles that soceities have gone through." exhibit. Thank you.
Specialization of labor is a fact, its not about greed, its not even about Capitalism, as it exists in the theoretical (i.e. not russian or chinese, but philisophical) Communist doctrine as well. Everyone works according to their abilities, which taking the best advantage of each individuals skill sets. It is not more self centered or self serving to want to contribute to society through technology, and it is not self centered or self serving to want to make the most out of your training and skill sets, or in general do the best work you can in a selective and efficient manner.
Waste is a thief.
In Minneapolis, we have the Twin Cities Free Net, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing and showing people in lower-class neighborhoods how to use the internet. It's a completely text-based service which serves the lowest common demoninator through lynx and pine, which means it works on any computer with a modem. If someone wants to join, but doesn't have a computer, we have a supply of text terminals with 2400 modems- slow, certainly, but enough to do text-based browsing and email.
Also, education, as I'm sure many people have pointed out. Menoting to kids in "need" (or just any kid who needs some direction), teaching at schools, especially in lower income areas, the list goes on and on.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
I did something similiar to this. I helped a library that had 1 PC running on an ISDN line setup a small network with 6 additional old Pentiums running Linux.
Went back in a week to see how they were enjoying it. They complained because they couldn't get the plug-in support that IE offered, and they said they were slow "because they aren't running Windows."
The last I saw, the linux boxes were stacked in a storeroom and they were back to 1 box.
Kind of frustrating, but I'd do it again.
load "linux",8,1
This is a great coincidence; I just started looking for a similar job today. When I graduated college, I was a political organizer, which is about the hardest/most rewarding job in the world. So hard, in fact, I lasted two weeks. Now I'm a computer guy at a real estate firm, but I found some great resources (which I am about to avail myself of once again) for computer-related jobs on the front lines: 1) www.idealist.org. This is the BEST site for finding non-profit PAYING jobs. You can select the field that you are skilled in, including Computers/Internet. I first tried this in April 1999; when I most recently tried it last month, it had grown considerably. This works especially well if you're in an urban area. 2) Most computer user groups offer free courses. If you have any teaching talent, this might be a good way to teach night courses to people that need them. It's partially subsidizing the middle class, and partially subsidizing the megacorporations' training budgets, but you also have the opportunity to give some much-needed job skills to working poor people. Of course, ultimately that's just patching a problem with deeper roots. In addition to www.idealist.org, you can always try the monster.com/dice/etc. approach, but since they charge a fortune to list a job, you're unlikely to find the people that need you most. Also: At the risk of jeapordizing my prospects for taking this next job, my girlfriend found a classified in the Nation for me for a labor-friendly law firm that needed an office manager w/ computer skills....I don't know how often jobs like that pop up in magazine classified ads, but feel free to take a look around if you subscribe to any (or, like her, have to read them for a living). Jon
it seems the obvious charity, the one that helped get all of this stuff going and continued to work towards freedoms of all people, would be GNU. they could use your help.
I assume, then, that it isn't exclusively for South Americans if General Suharto, former president of Indonesia, was trained there.
Feeding people in soup kitchens uses skills developed in restaurants. I have never done this. Building housing requires plumbing, carpentry, or brick laying skills that I am poor in, having not done much of this work. But I can write a great perl script, design and implement a database system, or configure SAMBA to talk to PCs. Wouldn't it make more sense to offer to do things that I can do well than offer to do things that I do poorly? There are people in this world who have food, clothing and shelter but would like more or better. If I am going to volunteer my time I think it should help the most people, even if my skills do not allow me to help the most needy.
Internet Cafes, my friend, Internet Cafes. At least that's worked for me. I started teaching UNIX at the Speakeasy Cafe. There are lots of terminals, and people of all types from all backgrounds frequently go to the cafes. I've got 40 and 50 year olds, all the way to a 16 year old high school dropout. They are an excellent group of people.
I would wish that more experienced programmers and developers could offer to help us in helping others.
I run a proffessional outreach in which we use our programming skills to a) try and fund ourselves and b) show by the quality of our work that the PEOPLE we SERVE are WORTH SOMETHING!
This makes running a "charity" costly indeed, and for us it has meant living oon the bread line. BUT its worth it. I get saddened when I see stuff produced to help folk, that is the equivalent of a black and white photocopy - when a "business" would have done a colour brochure!
Our tuff is aimed at suicide prevention amongst youth (of all ages), a shocking and heartbreaking statistic that is on the increase.
And since self-esteem and a sense of failure or rejection is often the cause, its very, very sad when in outreaching to these NORMAL people, they are given "second best" web sites, programs, etc etc. We realy realy MUST show people they ARE important!
ANd what better way of doing that than by us programmers (and a race driver in my case cos our outreach has a race-theme) using our skills to the same level that we would for a commercial project. Probably more to the point is we can't afford the best or dedicated programmers, but gosh we need you!
Please guys and girls, DO offer your great skills to help others. I know our outreach could really do with your thoughts, and we are but one small Aussie group amongst many others world wide.
Thankyou to the person who suggested this thread. And if you get a moment, and if it isnt against FAQ's for slashdot (who were great when our Little Penguins suffered in an oil spill this year), please check out how we are tyring to do things at www.ozgurus.com
Warm reg'ds to all!
Kieran Davies
OzGurus Outreach Racing
JMJ
Try CompuMentor. They are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, but they work around the U.S. as far as I know. My wife and I have both worked with them in the past -- basically, they serve to match up the technology-savvy with the non-profits that need help. They keep a profile on you with your skill sets, and may contact you when they find a non-profit that can use your skills. The only drawback is that you may register, but then not find a "match" for quite a while. Still, I'm pretty happy about them, and I've felt good about the projects I've taken on.
I started looking for an oppertunity to do some type of community assistance a few years ago. Last year I found the Housing Authority of Portland.
The HAP has been fairly proactive about creating a computer-literate community. They started a computer lab (converted one house) and had 20 computers networked (to a single dial-up line...)
Anyway, a lot of people found they liked computers but couldn't afford one. The HAP had a bunch of extra donated computers but no resources that could spend the time to put them together.
I came in once a week and taught a small class of users (4-10) how to put their own computer together. It was very "me" intensive because most people don't seem to want to learn, they just want to do, but there were a few that got it enough to understand what cards were needed, how to swap RAM, and how to load an OS, enough so that we could be working on 3 computers at a time or so.
There was another group called STRUT (STudents for the ReUse of Technology). I think that was started by a teacher, but they got a bunch of donations from companies, made the comptuers work, and forwarded them on (To other charities).
Once I'm setteled in my new area, I'm going to find a very small group who wants to really learn to program. That was my goal but it's amazingly difficult to find people with real computer interest these days, at least it was in Portland.. We'll see if California is any better.
That was one of the better posts I've seen on slashdot this month (good month for trolls).
Details..
How do we find people who want to learn? The idea of mentoring is wonderful - I always wanted to have a mentor, and I would love to give the experience to someone else.
But where? Firstly, your suggested group, those who are about to give up, tend not to be all that visible. That's one of the definitions of 'giving up': dropping out of relevant social circles.
Secondly, other groups? I didn't finish high school, electing instead to skip half of it and flee to college. So I'm maybe as disconnected and uninformed as to the average teen's lifestyle as anyone else here. How do we reach out?
The historical version of mentoring usually involved the 'apprentice' if you will ('kohai' if you won't) begging for the mentorship of a proven expert in a craft. These days, there are very many talented people in CS/IT, but most of what we do is hidden, by closed-source, PR, anything-written-for-the-backend isn't visible, etc,etc. Worse if you're a sysadmin, all here know that you (not me! I quit that racket) are invisible unless something goes wrong. So there's no public visibility, and thus very few guiding lights for youths to follow.
I think I started rambling; but that's fine too - these are things I'd like to talk about.
Seumas, more thoughts along this vein?
hypocracy and vehemence get you nowhere, im just trying to make a point. Don't stand for something and take the high horse if you're just as bad, you could be out helping people right now but you are probably at your boring job typing on /. just like me.
Lemure, wtf! Don't you mean Lemur?
I am an international development professional by trade. I am currently living and working in Egypt on a project not related to information technology.
While I understand that things like Internet access for developing countries may seem frivolous in the face of other very real and very pressing needs, there is sound theory behind it and I believe it is a critical piece of the international development puzzle today.
First of all, nobody is suggesting that we wire developing countries to the exclusion of other interventions. Geekcorps and similar initiatives do not exist in a development/aid vacuum; there are many other organizations working on other worthy projects in a wide variety of areas.
While starvation must of course be addressed when it occurs, it is not sufficient to simply hand out bags of food. Over the last several decades we have seen repeated cycles of starvation in the Horn of Africa which have not been alleviated in the long term - many argue they have been exacerbated - by the mass distribution of food and seeds. We need to look at what causes famine in order to end the cycle. And we can trace many of the complex, intertwined causes of famine back to general poor economic health.
Similarly, we see war and civil instability in many developing countries, and we really have no proven methodologies to end such conflicts once they have started. If we are to prevent them in the first place, we must look to their root causes, and again economics is high on the list.
It's early days yet, but the way that commerce is conducted has already been turned upside-down by information technology and other recent developments in globalization. This trend offers both great perils and great opportunities for the developing world. Developing countries shut out of the IT revolution risk falling even further by the wayside of the global economy. Not only will non-wired countries be locked out of the new economy, but they risk having their old standby exports priced out of the market by more efficient, wired producers. At the same time, this technology twists comparative advantage into new and exciting shapes, and developing countries with even a modest information infrastructure may be able to broaden the base of their economies and compete worldwide in sectors and geographical areas that were completely closed to them before.
Is IT a magic bullet that will end starvation and war? Of course not - there's no such thing. But it is a very important part of a larger equation of economic development that is our best hope of alleviating these and many of the other problems that face developing countries.
These initiatives are serious, they are very badly needed, and they deserve to be supported.
- Rob
-
Give me liberty or give me something of equal or lesser value from your glossy 32-page catalog.
he has examined what he has to offer and realizes the most valuable asset he has is his computer skills, and he wants to share the best he has.
/F and explaining how to shut down Win 3.1 might make it work for another year. Or maybe somebody has donated an old '486, but it isn't even plugged in because the admin person doen't have the time and computer skills to plug it in and transfer the records.
That soup kitchen probably has an ancient 386 just barely handling the admin stuff, and twenty minutes spent running CHKDSK
So he could be a noble, hands-dirty good guy and serve for an evening, donating maybe $20-50 worth of service, or (as he suggests) he could do what he's good at, donating several hundred dollars worth of service, maybe giving access to resources worth even more.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Here are a couple of volunteer posts that might appeal to some Slashdot readers. You don't have to be local to do these. (We don't even have an office.)
SCN gets picked on a lot by policy wonks (and policy wanks), researchers and people looking for an example of community networks, so you'll have a chance to use your Unix-troglodyte personality to keep us universally loved.
We're starting to design a new network, which probably will be based mostly on Linux. If you're better at it than we are, you're welcome to help with this, even if you've just seen a postcard of the place.
- Rod Clark, webmaster@scn.org
Seattle Sites of the Day
Seattle Community Directory
Unix sysadmin:
Expertise in some of these areas (or Unix in general): SunOS, Solaris, Linux. Unix security. PPP, dialup. Sendmail, SMTP, IMAP, Majordomo. DNS, Web domain hosting, Apache modules. C, Perl, PHP, SQL, DB support. Usenet.
Use your system administration skills to make a difference for thousands of people and hundreds of nonprofits and community groups in Western Washington. Administer our network, improve and expand our communications services to the community. Support specific areas of the network or do overall troubleshooting. Work from your own home or office, in whatever hours you have available. If possible, attend a monthly SysOps meeting.
Lead or senior sysadmin:
Build a team of qualified system administrators to support a planned new network. Establish good practices, reliability, current standards. Assure SysOps team's responsiveness to program needs. If possible, participate in the design of the new network.
SCN is seeking a technical webmaster for our Web site at www.scn.org. This individual will support our web editors and the many community groups' Web sites hosted on SCN. Work with the system administrators to improve Unix software support for the current site and migrate to a new system within the next 6-12 months. Many maintenance projects, upgrades and other technical challenges are inherent in this position.
We are looking for someone who has at least 2 years of experience running comparable or larger sites. Prefer at least one year of project management experience, excellent process methodology, and a sincere desire to help the community. This individual will be part of our Executive Committee, and must report progress and contribute to overall planning and problem solving at an Excomm meeting each month.
Step 1: Go to your local high school, or whatever education level you want to work at. Step 2: Ask if they'd be willing to let you advertise for a free, after school programming class. Step 3: If they let you, you could probably find enough kids in a high school interested in the class to teach it. If they don't, go to another school.
it's green.
-8<--
There are thousands of non-profit organizations across the states, and probably millions throughout the world, who need computer help. Here in Sitka, AK, with a population of 8500, there are probably 8 non-profit organizations that could use computer help.
Who are these non-profits?
The SAFE shelter (a refuge for battered women-- there are Safe Shelters in almost every town in the US), a local non-profit which does respite care for the infirm and elderly and also does welfare-to-work case management, a group that focuses on teen intervention (drugs, pregnancy, etc), the local emergency medical team, a writers-in-residence program, and the Sitka Summer Music Festival.
Also, the PBS radio station needs help once in a while.
For you urban dwellers (those of you who have schools in which the children have recess on the rooftops), there are many urban non-profits that deal with everything from under-priveleged education, to big brothers and big sisters (where you can mentor a kid and make a geek out of them), to political action groups that work on awareness issues (a social buzzword, I know).
I've volunteered time at 5 local non-profit groups, and I've never regretted a minute.
- Tony
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
God only knows, the best thing we could do is leave this flaming wreck of a planet for somewhere else.
OTOH, local charities use computers as much as everyone else. They might need software installation, database management, custom software, spreadsheet gurus, or people to help out with their internet presence. Give them a call.
Try volunteering at a shelter or public job training center, teaching basic computer skills so that people can re-enter the modern workforce in a more meaningful position than hamburger flipper.
First find a charity you like, then contact them and see if they need any computer related stuff done. If its a larger (non-localized) charity you probably should find someone higer up, as the first line people may not understand how valuble this would be but those who have to pay the 100/hr consultants to maintain the website certainly would.
I recently voulenteered to do some work for a sailing organization running a race from SF to Hawaii; I had a great time and learned a lot about GD and mercator projections doing boat position plots.
Finally, I'd say coding and contributing free software is also a voulenteer effort in its own right.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
I've got a very simple answer for you: you don't. Or, if you want to, start one yourself. Computer users are just another section of today's unprecedentedly selfish upper and middle classes.
Think about this: last year alone, 15% of United States charities failed. That's a pretty amazing number. And when you think about how the economy was doing in that same period of time, that's pretty scary. Or how about the Silicon Valley area United Way chapter that almost failed until the Gates foundation stepped in at the last minute with the saving donation? Where are you going to find a richer group of people in the entire USA? You won't.
As far as I can tell, Bill Gates is the only computer user in this entire country who's done anything, and even he's still got billions and billions to spare. Hopefully he'll keep it up.
So, what can you do? Talk to Bill Gates or start your own effort, because you won't find any other help in this self-centered crowd.
If you do start your own project, please let us know. Hopefully you'll inspire at least another person or two to look beyond their own petty little world and do something useful.
The question, IMHO, is probably more one of which groups are going to have a positive impact, rather than just add to the problem. (A -lot- of aid to African nations, especially by rich nations and large organisations, has been designed to leave Africa deeper in debt, with even worse environmental chaos, and less ability to independently resolve it's own problems.)
If you want to make a positive difference in the lives of others, ask yourself what the difference will be like in 20, 30 or 40 years time. Will it still be a blessing, for having been, or a curse?
The danger a lot of well-meaning but totally brain-dead organisations pose can be worse than the original problem. Pest control, through the introduction of non-native animals, accounts for a significant percentage of animal extinctions in recent times, never mind the devastation to the local plant-life.
Computing hasn't (yet) caused the total destruction of an ecosystem, the obliteration of native life, or the extinction of a society. But shoddy products, hostile attitudes, stupidly high maintenance costs and corruption amongst more than a few companies that shall remain nameless does not fill me with hope that this situation will last long. Just because someone means well does NOT mean they'll do good.
This isn't meant to dissuade. It's simply a caution. You don't run programs off the Internet blind, so don't walk into a charity blinkered.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I have some fair skill when it comes to Perl/CGI development, and would also like
:)
to do some work for charitable organisations, to see them get online and helping people on the net...
Perhaps there is a need for a bulletin board of some kind for this
- I wonder if Slashdot might be able to host this kind of forum out of the kindness in their blessed penguin hearts
Seriously, a moderated roster of some sort would be ideal - sort of like matching up a
jobsearch site with an employment wanted column... You could even have jobs
that fit a certain criteria emailed to you - each one with an ID number or something along those lines...
Anyone else think this could make more people sympathetic to the open source movement?
HelpGeeks - don't bother visiting, it's not worth it! Really!
I repeat, STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER! Get some damn priorities! Food, clothing, shelter. That's what people need.
And don't give me any of that crap about using computer skills to improve efficiency or some shit like that. That's just a fucking excuse because you are too damn fat and lazy and you don't want to get dirt under your fingernails.
So, Mr. Wizard, what are computers for if not to help improve efficiency? Efficiency saves money. Money that is used by the charity to buy food, clothing, shelter. There is a lot of paperwork associated with any charity organization.
I build database applications for various United Way charities in my free time. United Way provides an excellent way for charities to get in contact with technology specialists that can help them with their specific needs. The reason I get paid very, very well when not working a charity job is that THERE ARE NOT VERY MANY PEOPLE WHO CAN DO WHAT I DO, compared with how many people are capable of filling soup bowls. The charities I work with have lots of people willing and able to 'fill soup bowls'. Unfortunately, they are often short on people who know how to manage large organizations, people who know how to build inventory tracking systems, people who know how to manage finances for nonprofit organizations, and people who know how to build database applications like me.
Since you mentioned shelter, let's focus on that for a minute. Imagine, if you can, a group of programmers gathered together with the intention of building a homeless shelter, "Stepping away from their computers" as you broadcasted. They have roofing tiles, two-by-fours, drywall, plumbing pipe, kitchen fixtures, windowpanes, heating duct, nailguns, electrical panels, sawzalls, skilsaws, roto-hammers, and various other tools and appliances. D A N G E R O U S. Put them back in front of their computers before they hurt people.
Technology work helps charities where they need it most - many I have come to are keeping track of stuff with 3x5 cards and 3-part forms, and spend insane amounts of time sorting, filing, etc. How is all that sorting and filing helping the needy?
The whole point of having a society with specialized disciplines is efficiency. I contribute with what I know how to do best. I can build db apps way, way better than I can build a house for the homeless. By spending a few hours of my time, I can save hundreds of hours of the time of someone whose time could be spent on things more helpful than filing and sorting.
I come to charities' offices that are disorganized and buried in paperwork, and I leave them able to help more people, faster. When was the last time you got dirt under your fingernails, ZikZak? Everyone I know that actually works with charities (key word: work) recognizes that everyone who does help, helps with what they can do best.
As far as Internet access in Africa, believe it or not, there are actually CITIES in Africa. And now, a short statement from our spokesman in the Congo, Tarzan:
"That right, Bob! Not all jungle!!! Internet help economy. Help distribution of wealth from have-money nation to no-have-money nation. Why living condition so bad? Government have less money than banditos! How do Government get more money? It tax businesses! Like Jungle, everything depend on everything else. Not so simple as Cheetah think. This Tarzan, live from Congo."
include $sig;
1;
You could offer your services as a teacher at a local homeless resource center or women's shelter offering job placement training. Or a youth center looking for volunteers -- help show the way to a new generation of geeks.
- lorie
I would suggest trying your local Goodwill. You probably know them better for having a store where you can buy donated stuff cheap. But, at least in my area, they also have classes in a variety of topics, including computers. If you feel up to it, you can always teach one of these.
And not only that, but you can donate your time in the Goodwill (or other charity) office helping with administrative computer stuff. When I was in college, during the summer when I didn't have classes, I used to work an 8 hour day on Wednesdays for nothing at Goodwill working on their administrative systems. Everything from PC support, to new installs, to supporting their database stuff. Chances are any charity in the area would love to have someone come in and help them out with this stuff for free (since most of the other people in the administrative office are paid).
-Todd
---
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
Paul
Currently under developement, techvolunteer.org is stating it's mission is exactly this. Giving the computer community a chance to give to the community at large through volunteer work. Not sure how much sucess they'll have...perhaps people with skills could offer to help develop as a starting point?
Try Volunteer Match, see article below. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/technology/h tml98/webb_010399.html Also SERVEnet.org Have heard about them through plilanthropy groups but have no first hand experience. stanp
One good place to look would be your local CoC. In most cases, your friendly neighborhood CoC will have a listing of local nonprofit groups, a lot of which probably need skilled folks to help out, or they may need your help themselves.
This is a Chao. A Chao says "Mu."
Have you ever heard of the School of the Americas? It is a school for South American governments run by the US government. It teaches courses in how to keep unions from forming, anti-rebel techniques, torture techniques, etc. It is probably the darkest side of American politics and activists have been working for ten years to get this school shut down.
You say that a small elite in Third World countries will end up in power because they have access to technology, and that this is the reason petty dictatorships control the country, but it is schools like this, run by good 'ole Americans, that put them in power and give them the skills and military supplies to keep it. Suharto was trained there, as were most current leaders in Central and South America. Most are rather proud of passing the courses - as if it taught them real leadership.
Technology just gives existing leaders another tool to use in keeping the populace down - it certainly doesn't put them in power in the first place.
© Copyright 2000 Matthew Yeo
i know in new york, the org new york cares has a fairly healthy list of tech volunteer work. looking for a sorta meta-non profit that provides services for other non-profits might be the way to go.
Just raise the taxes on crack.
Maybe we need a central charity collection site, where you can donate to the charity of your choice!
Does anyone know of any charities that are taking donations online already? It sure isn't as personal as door-to-door collection, but it might be easier to get the bigger donations...
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
the really nifty thing is that we can sell it to commercial prospects if we are in dire need of cash. it's good for us, it's good for them. and not only can i help MY community, but i can help EVERYbodies community.
Jeff Eidsness Site Manager - http://thatcalendarplace.com
You want to help the community...
You want to utilize your programing skills?
You want to help the world...
Why don't you move to Michigan, start a web based bulliten board, and ride the internet out of Idaho^H^H^H^H^HMichigan...
Who's the black private dick, who's a sex machine for all the chicks?
Would the author of this article please write me at npg24@home.com? I have an idea that is right up his alley. Unfortunately, I do not have the technical know-how to see it through. Techies united for good...this could be scary! 8)
Go to your local high school, college, or university. Students are often required (or want to) do community service, so schools usually have a central office where they can find places to work. Call or go to these places and find out if they need computer work. A lot of them do. Maybe you can even offer to set up web sites for them on a cheesy free hosting service if they're lacking one already.
main(O){10<putchar((O--,102-((O&4)*16| (31&60>>5*(O&3)))))&&main(2+O);}
main(O){10<putchar((O--,102-((O&4)*16| (31&60>>5*(O&3)))))&&main(2+ O);}
LN2 is cool!
More than anything, a lot of teenagers just want to learn. Sure, they can get HTML classes somewhere, but that isn't going to help them become reliably employable.
I'd encourage people to find a highschool dropout (or one who is bordering on becoming one) or a teenage mother or just about any other kid who doesn't realize they have a future -- and whom others may think the same of -- and, if they have a desire to learn it, you can turn them from a life of being a couch potatoe earning 5 bucks an hour at the mini-mart into an upper-middle-class person with a career and a cool job title.
I've seen this done. To a degree, I'm that person -- only I had to help myself. But there are some other very talented and intelligent kids out there who have completely given up. I don't see a better way to offer your time and energy, computer-wise.
---
seumas.com
Wouldn't it be great if people with real university degrees (as opposed to education degrees) and work experience could volunteer their time to teach a highschool class? For that matter, wouldn't it be great if teachers right out of university could get positions which allowed them to use their grasp of leading edge technology?
Unfortunately (at least in Canada), schools hire based on senority, rather than competence. And if you don't have a teaching certificate, your senority is automatically -1. Teachers unions have been getting in the way of education for years -- Ontario is just the most painful example.
Walk into the office of your favorite local charity, ask them if they want volunteer computer help. If they don't, go to your next favorite. If you get as far as your third favorite local charity, I'd be very surprised.
----
----
Open mind, insert foot.
For anyone in the NYC area and looking to do some good, New York Cares is a non-profit organization that is always looking for people with IT experience to help wire public schools, teach kids, and offer whatever help they can. Click here to read about some of their technology projects. I havn't actually done any technology work for NY Cares, but I've volunteered for several other projects (they have many!) and it's always been a great experience. Have fun!
Do the Evolution
Sponsored by Cisco Systems. Don't know much about it, but the Web site looks cool.
I don't know how many PBS stations do this, but our local PBS station, KTEH in San Jose, always needs technical volunteers who do things like do audio mixing, run cameras, video switching, and many other behind-the-scenes tasks in the studio. Some PBS stations use volunteers for these types of positions whereas others (i.e. KQED) use full-time employees. With the volunteer support I find it amazing what a PBS station can do on a shoe-string budget.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
I work for a national animal/child protection organization - originally as an IS assistant, and now as an independant contractor for (mostly) database programming duties. I give them discounted rates, partly because I support the cause and partly because I can easily live on even half-rate pay and I want to build up more of a track record before soliciting work from for-profit corporations (and gouging the crap outta 'em!).
While my agency doesn't currently need anyone besides me, there are doubtless MANY charities in your area which are just getting by when it comes to computers. A lot of them are stuck with '486s and are far from fully leveraging their existing software. I bet most could really use a website revamp, or a migration of their donor database to something more robust than Access v2.0, or just a few Word macros to help them save some steps in printing address labels... all of which could be tax-deductible (at your usual rate) if you donate your time.
Look in the phone book, find something you can agree with, and give them a call. You can get more than a tax break - you can get some goodwill, letters of recommendation, broader experience, and some great networking contacts. And in my case, I get to visit an office where they allow pets, so there's lots of fun doggies to play with...
I'm surprised I haven't read more people mentioning something like this. While it's not the normal idea of charity, it's still providing people with information/technology that they might not otherwise be able to acquire. I would consider developing free/open source software donating to charity also. The FSF is technically a charity and they always need good coders and tech writers (the latter being more in demand). Sure, it might not directly help someone, but it can help make free software better and easier to use, which in turn can make it easier for charities or people without lots of funds able to afford the technology.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Write an extremely infectious virus that deletes Minesweeper and Solitare from all windows boxes. Now _that_ is service.
You might not have to look farther than ones own church. When I was talking to my Elder's Quorum president tonight, he was talking about how bad of shape the church's computer is in. It got me thinking about what I could do to remedy the problem, either by fixing it, donating some of my computer empire at home, or even setting up a Linux machine for them. I'm doing the same thing for a relative that can't afford a machine either. Most of the time, one doesn't have to look very far to find a need and it's usually appreciated much more.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I am in the process of starting up a non-profit charitable organization that would require a lot of hacking-type computer work. The scope of the organization will be national, and it aims to bring a major increase to the amount that the commercial and professional worlds interact with other charitable organizations to give back to society. In my opinion, it has the potential to make a meaingful and lasting difference in the country. The means of operation is based mainly on computer technology. Since I am in the start up phase (buried in paperwork), me and my few colleagues have not had much time to work on the technical details of the organization. We welcome any help we can get from the geek communtiy. If anyone is interested in more information, e-mail me at robbyland@hotmail.com. Since I'm still in the paper filing phase I don't want to write to much more information about the organization, but I would be happy to discuss more on a personal basis. The whole thing should kick some major ass!
When life hands you a lemon, find some Tequilla and salt.
I think you are looking at the problem backwards. Rather than look for computer related tasks that will go to charities - look for the charity and see if they have computer related work that needs to be done.
In this day and age, almost every charitable orginization has an online presence. Most use computers in their offices too I'm sure. It seems to me the best thing to do is find a charity that you like/agree with and then go to them asking if they need anything done. That way you know that you are working for a cause that you believe in.
What about setting up an ecommerce package so that they can take donations on the web? Who knows what they need - they do, but chances are that most will gladly take your help and work with you to come up with a good project if they don't have something immediate in mind.
That's what I think . . . of course if your real motivation is to help, it's possible that you could be the most help doing something else. Are you open to that possibility?
It's not the fact Africa needs food and shelter more than they need internet access. It's the fact that people want to use thier skills to make a difference. True, maybe it's not the best way to help out others but it will help none the less. The fact that you sit there and berate them for trying to help is disgusting.
LiNT
Talk about ungrateful! So instead of having 7 people be able to access the web, write letters, etc, they went back to one machine. I'd rather work on a slow machine than have to wait until it's my turn for one that's probably not all that much faster. Even if it didn't have the plug in support that IE has, not every website requires IE or M$ only plugins (Thank God!) and would still be useful for those people who didn't need the plugin.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
We have a link on our homepage - http://sharetechnology.org to an excellent web site called "VolunteerMatch" You can visit the site, type in your postal zip code and search for volunteer opportunities in your area. You can specify the type of work you'd like to do, when you'd like to start and so on. Also, there are MANY charities which need computer help and some of them aren't even connected to the net. (I mean, they REALLY need help!) Try contacting your local United Way. Perhaps they could connect you with an organization which could use your help.
Share the Technology computer recycling project Our National Computer Donation Database lists offers an
So if you have connections in Boulder County CO, check us out! E.g. a slashdot clone focussed on Boulder issues would be a great community-builder, and the model could be replicated elsewhere.
See also our list of community network information at Community Networking and Building Community: Online Resources
--Neal
--Neal
Go IETF!
It's not exactly charity, but the most fulfilling computer-related not-for-profit work I've done is to create a simple web page on stars and constellations. It started as a hobby, but it turned into a service when I put my email address on the page. For a while I was answering up to 50 email questions per week, mainly from students and curious adults. It had some ego-boo too (I was referenced in a textbook, and my pages are often linked from Astro Pic of the Day) but the best part is the gratitude I get from people whose questions I answered.
Lately, I've had to remove my email address from the page while I am finishing up my thesis (and to avoid spam), but I hope to get back to it soon.
If you have a particular area of knowledge or passion, share it with others online. It's rewarding in both you and your readers. A particular area that seems to be in BIG demand is online lesson plans for elementary school teachers. I used to get constant requests for such tools.
A fellow by the name of John German (pronounced "germane") created a non-profit organization to do this (while helping older, unemployed IT specialists update their skills -- this was back before eveyone was in demand!). The group is called (I think) NonProfit Computing, but also has a career-oriented subgroup which meets every other Thursday (I think) at one of the Citicorp buildings (around Park Ave. & 51st). Meetings start at around noon and run 'til after 3pm, and are facilitated by one of 3-4 professional "headhunters."
John has won many awards and other recognition for his work. I don't know if he ever got his own Web site up, but some pages should be around on someone's site, so do a search. You can never tell what is needed, but this is a great place to try. (One of his earliest "placements" was getting an intern to China; I think this was a paying position. He also helps with the "getting computers wired in the schools" project, a big thing that happens here in NYC once a year.)
If you can't contact the group any other way, call Susan Werbin (head of Werbin Associates; very professional and ethical placement firm) at [212] 787-2468 (I think -- but that number's pretty unforgetable, don't you think? (-8 ).
... we have a significant outreach program,
and also work with http://www.charityfocus.org.
Check out http://www.craigslist.org, and please note that we're at the very beginning of working with people in many locations.
(It's a much longer story than that, but I'm still in my robe.)
Thanks!
Craig
Actually find a couple people to moderate and run the sub-section. Offer a place for legit organizations and groups to ask for help and a place for geeks to over their help. Sort of a MonsterBoard for geek-good-samaritans. A place to talk about things, including special 'articles' that seem intersting. There's no limit to what a small effort Slashdot puts forward could do, considering the massive amount of energy and knowledge it has access to in its hundred thousand members.
---
seumas.com
Hey, cool! I've been on slashdot for years and years, but that's the first time anyone's called me a motherfucker to my face! Thanks!
http://www.compumentor.org/
http://www.compumentor.org
____________________________________
-- I beleve you'll like this -->
Each project is intended to produce software and/or a turn-key system to make it easier for people, who are visually impaired, to use Internet e-mail and/or various BBS-specific chat-channels to improve their quality of Life and/or their social/business interactions with other people who use compatible communications tools.
On now, at an Open Source design center near you... maybe your own! :)
Radio Hams are -also- welcome, as one of the projects addresses the needs of users of QSO's connected via Amateur Packet Radio.
C.f. http://www.WRS.cx
Radio Hams might find http://www.ARA.cx of interest
In short, rather than coming up with a general system that "reads everything" (e.g. including pine's message sizes, in bytes), we intend to implement a minimal, but very useful, user interface, which incorporates multiple-voices to enhance both the realism & ease-of-use of e-mail and/or interactive chat channels.
Those who don't like Win32 target systems will -not- necessarily want to learn that one module in each project is a cost - if not space - effective replacement for another (expensive) multi-voice, text-to-speech TTS system (e.g. DECtalk).
We intend to use some of the growing flood of slower Pentium boxes (that now find their way to auction) as platforms on which to run our very simple, multi-voice, MS SAPI based TTS module.
We believe that cost & overall interface convenience can be factors in determining whether a visually impaired person ever gets to use a computer in the first place and whether they enjoy the experience enough to justify the continued use of a computer that can help keep them in touch with similarly equipped people.
Nothing in the project vision precludes use of a Linux, FreeBSD or OpenBSD box in the system, provided, of course, that the chosen system can be made as simple to start, use, maintain and shutdown as any other that might compete with it for acceptance by the team.
Interested? Reply to the project using e-mail links at your choice of (above) web-sites. We'd really like to grow the project team a bit.
I see a lot of people responding about Internet Based PC Charity. The Internet is a great way to spread the word about PC Charity, but we need to get more PCs out there to the disabled or under privledged even if they are 486s etc.
Before the organization had to fold, I spent time rebuilding older PCs and fetching them out to the disabled and under privleged. It was definitely a rewarding experience. We also sponsered classes for a small operational fee.
There are many people eager to learn more about computers.
If your ambitious -- launch a PC recycling center. Offer to give a workshop to local students. Offer to give a workshop and have it take place in a community center. Demonstrate basic literacy skills.
It may may be advantageous to offer free pamphlets
Seek community sponsors through businesses.
Just some ideas to kick around at.
Truth like surgery, may hurt, but it cures. - Han Suyin, Chinese Physician and Writer
geekcorps is sending a corps of geeks to Africa sometime in the next few months...
2 1337 4 u!
We're doing some cool things re IT and nonprofit organizations at www.itsourworld.com. Chuck chuck@itsourworld.com
I used to be the sysadmin/webmaster/everything at ECOLOGIA.org, a non-profit environmental organization. I know we put ads in the paper like everybody else.
I know it felt good to be doing something for the environment, until my creditors caught up with me.
Just look for the low salaries...
It depends on why you're helping them. Going out and actually seeing people in need face to face and then helping them with things they need is a powerful experience. Sitting in a back office somewhere hacking PERL scripts pretty much isn't. Both have value. I'd suggest that if you're interested, you give both a try and *then* draw some conclusions.
I LIKE Habitat, (and have done work for them) but some of their chapters are CLUELESS. About 10 years ago, my church young adult group was looking to donate time and money. The local chapter never called us back. I later heard through the grapevine (from other chapters) that they thought our VERY liberal church had to be kidding! We weren't. We had 15 people aged 20-30 and 150,000 dollars lined up for them. The money went to a different housing charity, and we did other works. Left a bad taste for the LOCAL chapter in my mouth.
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Our foundation-sponsored, nonprofit site matches volunteers with local opportunities for free. We've already matched over 20,000 people with over 4,000 opps listed under "Computers and Technology", and there are over 20,000 others listed just in case you want to work with something else. Of course, if you want to volunteer to help US (Linux/Apache/JSP/MySQL), that would be great, too. ;) patrick(at)vaya.org
Check out United Nations Volunteers. There is a demand for volunteers in a large number of areas, including "database specialists" and "network/internet specialists".
Another option is to look for the web site of a charity that you personally care about and find out who to contact from that site. Yahoo has a reasonable set of charity web site listings.
They always need help. More often than not, there is some unknowing person in charge of lots of equipment. If you can deal with older legacy equipment, you should check it out. I served out 4 years volunteering... then I got involved in the politics, and gave up. Word of advice: Get everything in writing - "I am allowed to do this, and this, and this." It will save some trouble in the long run
/. is a commercial entity. goto slashdot.com
Check out: http://www.cpuniverse.com/archives/2000/jun/probon o.shtml It lists some sites.
Even though I am a programmer by nature I while ago I did some charity as a sysadmin.
One of my family members helps out at a toy library for handicap children (the more young handicap children play the more they develop as they grow) that provides toys for families that have handicap children and little money. They have a computer network that they could never keep running. I started going in once a week and got it stable.
I'm not sure how much programming work there is out there but there is certainly alot of admin and teaching work that can be done.
"Do you think we could wipe out world hunger forever if scientists figured out how to make AOL's Free CD's edible?"-
http://www.wycliffe.org/computer/compjob.htm
--
"How many six year olds does it take to design software?"
dinner: it's what's for beer
Cliff, check this out and send me a message: end of Jan.2001 our non-profit will be headed to our host site to install, set up,a computer learning center and mentor basic progarmming skills to Paljorling Tibetan camp, Pokhara Nepal. All nerds, geeks, you can make a difference! Technology for sustainable community development, from programming to e-commerce. The first computer came to the camp 2years ago, with my son a humanitarian geek...it was like the 2001movie when we first linked on. Whoa! robynm@studentsforchange.org
take an adventure in experiential education technology with a humanitarian componant, STUDENTS FOR CHANGE
While mentoring a knowledge-thirsty individual is an admirable goal, is teaching the only kind of work that can be done for charity and public good? Improving someone's quality of life through education is certainly positive work done, but teaching for the sake of teaching seems ciruitous.
What needy/non-profit projects need trained professionals?
Can an IT worker improve the world in a typical job setting?
Back when I was in Des Moines, the CUG (computer user group), well basically 6 people who were part of it, were dealing with several hundred 486's coming in as donations from corporations getting rid of computers that were not Y2k and / or enough hoursepower for win 95 bloatware. There are a heck of a lot of linux boxens to be that are in need of being set up for networks for schools, smaller libraries, non profits, etc, and the people need to be shown how to use linux apps in a less memory intensive environment than say KDE. If you are in the right place at the right time, that could happen. But I have yet to see a person who truly wanted to get into service to humanity who didn't have a path cleared for them. Mind you, I got in via running homeless shelters after kicking over a university lab job, but it is all the same, it will happen. Shalom Mark R
See if you can work with a local high school where talented people are getting short changed. Go to the PTA meeting. Visit the schools and talk to students. Volunteer to work after hours. See if you can't get local companies to donate used equipment. You know what skills people need to build a career because you built your own. A good example and equipment at a high school can go along way to keeping people from needing more traditional charities.
You don't have to actually become a teacher to help out. Think of all the services that a school might need help with. All the money and computers in the world won't help anyone of no one at the school knows what to do with it or how it might possibly be useful.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
pick up the phone! you'll be surprised how many organizations lack websites, or anyone who knows anything about them. We just sponsored PASAW and you'd be surprised how thankful they were. They knew they needed a site, but had very little idea how to go about it. There are a lot of theiving people who would take advantage of that kind of a situation.
This organization is helping out developing countries with technology; they have a trip to Ghana scheduled already and should have more afterward.
w o r l d w i d e w e b e r
I work for several non-profits, all in the same building. Most good non-profits are desperate for technically savvy assistance. If you really want to help, get a job with one or several where you can make a long term commitment to understanding their needs, resources, and providing onsite help. This beats occassional drop in help hands down. For specific groups that could use help, check out http://www.iccnow.org, http://www.worldfederalist.org, http://www.haguepeace.org and post your news on http://www.earthdot.org, the only charity oriented site based on SLASH code. cicctech@somethingcleverabout.spam.igc.org
Find something people need and do it. I do two websites voluntarily for experience, and they are extremely useful as far as job qualifications go. See my URL for the website in question. I also run a website for my local high school, which started out as an unofficial one (and still is) but is loved by faculty and staff. Do something for the community.
Furthermore, find something that could use your assistance, say a web page needing a better perl script, and offer your assistance there. If it's a small page devoted to a good cause then they'll graciously accept your help.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
Write a GPLed OCR software. There is no free OCR software now. And it's an important tool for projects like Gutenberg Project, who are changing all public domain books in free ASCII files. This is an important task : these projects give an access to litteracy to a lot of people, even blind people : ASCII e-books can be displayed with BRAILLE devices, or automaticaly read with speech interface.
"I'm working for a start-up that looks like it's about to fold. Can anyone point me to some resources for finding charitable organizations that need computer work, anywhere in the world?"
I'd say that you're doing charitable work right now. After all, isn't charitable work when you work your *** off, and don't get paid anything at the end?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Offer to network your old highschool or gradeschool! If there are teachers there who still know you, you have a foot in the door already!
-- From my Best Friend (Written to me over ICQ): "i was gonna go to a party...but i had to reinstall windows"
I'm not sure that you'll find employment opportunities for all charities listed on one page. I would advise thinking about the type of charity you want to work for and then searching for umbrella organisations. For example, if you wanted to work for a museum (many of which are trying to digitise their collections, set up web sites, etc, but can not afford to pay market rates for programmers and web designers) you can try looking at http://www.globalmuseum.org/ which lists vacancies at museums all over the world, or at the Museum Computer Group's job homepage (http://www.mcn.edu/jobs.htm) which has several really interesting jobs at the moment.
You might try NGOs such as Oxfam or Medicine San Frontiers (sp?).
No doubt the many anti-landmine organisations could use some help.
There is also Project Gutenberg if you feel like typing.
I am not a robot. I am a unicorn.
I don't know much about these guys but I did stumble upon their site a while back. Seemed to be what you were talking about. http://www.computercorps.org/
You asked to make money, do something interesting, and contribute to the world. All of the suggestions above are great for making a contribution to society, but most of them (notably being a high school sysadmin, or going to Africa), won't make you much money and probably won't be technically challenging. Apply to RedHat, IBM, Corel, SGI, SuSE, 3Dfx, etc.--most companies with lucrative and interesting jobs are still at least 35% evil, but if you can get into the cool parts you can contribute to making Free Software the dominant business model, and get a good salary hacking interesting problems.
I think it's a wonderful idea to look into volunteering your services, but asking where to go? Just look outside your window - almost any (except the Big Name charities) non profit organization has to live off of grants, and can't afford any type of real work on computers.
Use your contacts as geeks - find out about donating old computers (I recently found a bunch of old 486s, which was like mana from heaven for a sexual assault organization), or brush on your basics. If you have to ask others where to volunteer, you don't have enough of a life.
http://www.compumentor.org/
From their web site:
"CompuMentor is a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to act as a bridge to the information age for schools and organizations serving low-income communities."
One of the things that I have learnt in this role is the power of aspiration.
Most of the students at the hall of residence are from the country. They are from a lower socio-economic background and many are here on scholarships and bursaries. For the most part, they are all very smart and talented - but many have no goals or idea where they want to be.
As a tutor, I have the pleasure of telling these students about myself (it's always fun to talk about yourself :-). I've told them how I started like them with no money and bogged down in my university degree. I have also told them how I found something I loved doing (IT obviously) and how that motivated me. I have also told them how I fought to get into the industry that I wanted to be in (eg changed degrees, moved interstate, did work experience for free) because I believed in my goal.
And you know what, I know that several of the students that I have tutored have started to aspire to bigger things. These students aren't accepting that they are at the bottom of the heap, but that they too can have a goal and control where they go.
So like Seumas said, find a person who is desperate to learn, show them what they can do, encourage them, support them and most of all, show them what they talents could produce and where it could take them.
The reward for them is a whole new way to look at life.
Your reward is to know that you have made a difference to a person - which I think is one of the highest rewards on this planet.
It's an organization that took over an old elem. school. The ship clothes, equipment, medical supplies, and computer stuff to missionaries overseas. They always want help because the Christian mission life can be really rough in some of those countries where they kill you for it. Right now there trying to help an upstart Christian ISP in Africa get a foothold (the country is so poor the government buys their access from the Christian ISP....)
Doubley worthy cause, if your looking for that. I don't know that they need programming help, but repairing and building is always fun, and it's a great place to be. Full of hope-inspired people.
carnac.at.vaix.net if your interested : )
The real problem is to make sure that help is always there for those who need it, while simultaneously instilling in people the notion that they cannot rely on that help.
If people think that they can rely on charity, some of them will, and it drags the system down. Therefore, I move that we set aside a portion of our income taxes for charity, and divide it up as follows: 25% health care, 25% housing assistance, 25% food and 25% for a massive disinformation campaign to convince the general public that the other 3 charities don't exist.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Anyways "Charity" is just the buying and selling of another commodity. People feel "good" for helping others. People put their charity and volunteer work down on resumes and college applications. People tell others about their charity work. So is it truly altruism? I think not.
Chaos, Mayhem, and Destruction: Not
Just call up an organization who's work you support and ask them if there's any way you can help out. Most smaller places would really appreciate having a computer savvy person around to help out.
MOUSE (Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools & Education) is a nonprofit in New York City that donates equipment. training, time and large volunteer infrastructure building projects to inner city schools throughout the NY Metro area.
You might consider contacting them to see if they know of similar organizations in your area.
Here in Chicago, we have i.c. stars, which is a not-for-profit organization that teaches computer skills to inner city young adults. My company is associated with them, and I hope to be sufficiently un-busy enough to help out some day.
See if there's something like that where you are.
Make me aerodynamic in the evening air
That's not a reason not to use yer awesome godlike skillz for charitable work. If you don't want to go completely nuts, however, find something you're interested in, something you care about, and find somebody in that interest area that needs you.
The big causes are well served and well funded (and mostly indistinguishable from big business but for selling intangibles), but there's almost certainly some collection of idealists out there who share yourt views who will value and appreciate your contributions. Whatever the cause, from helping educate cute and fuzzy critters to the Toe Jam Liberationist front, there's a protest and/or advocacy group for everything these days. Find one whose rhetoric agrees with you and go to town.
I know whereof I speak; I get paid next to nothing for unholy working hours, and I don't care because I beleive in what I'm doing and I like my work. I can use some help, too. Anybody wanting to donate time, money, hardware, whatever to my cause (which thinks that limited, constitutionally proscribed governemnt, private property rights, and individual freedom are goals worth working for) have a look at our sites, and if you still want to help use the contact info to be found there.
The poor need food. Work in a soup kitchen.
The homeless need housing. Work for Habitat.
Many people in Africa need just about everything. The one thing they don't need, in spite of what Nicholas Negroponte would have you believe, is fucking internet access.
I repeat, STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER! Get some damn priorities! Food, clothing, shelter. That's what people need.
And don't give me any of that crap about using computer skills to improve efficiency or some shit like that. That's just a fucking excuse because you are too damn fat and lazy and you don't want to get dirt under your fingernails. Or worse, you don't want to see any real problems, you just want to remain isolated but still have some lame-ass cause so you can tell yourself that you're NOT actually a fucking empathy-depraved, self-centered prick.
Posting flame logged in and not previewing.
Developing open source and free software is the ultimate in charity work. You get to pick what you are involved in, you can make an impact on a global scale, and your provide quality software to organizations that can't afford commercial software licenses.
If you develop open source/free software and encourage young people to learn about technology, the problems that you hope to address by volunteering will take care of themselves.
Good luck!!
"My works are like water. The works of the great masters is like wine, but everybody drinks water."
"My works are like water. The works of the great masters is like wine, but everybody drinks water."
--Mark Twain
...that needs some help getting spanish language software set up so that the kids can learn to use computers. They also need help setting up the computers in a safe power environment - mexican power isn't very stable. If you're seriously interested, send me email. Please don't just ping me out of curiousity - if everybody does that it'll take more time than me just helping them on my own... :'}
Your advice almost made me throw up. The last thing anyone *needs* to do is find a well-paying job with an established company. Established companies are the laziest of them all - they don't innovate, they don't create, they don't do anything much except sit on their bank account and buy out the occasional competitor.
If someone's goal is to use their programming to help others, then they need to take their best ideas and turn them into free software.
I will be a senior in high school this next year. I've seen my school strugle with tecnology because no one really knows what's going on or what they're doing. This happens at nearly every school. It's too expensive to hire someone who knows what they're doing to work at the school, and no one is going to when they can get better paying jobs with stock options somewhere else. Schools need so very much people to come in and do so many things. Teachers, students and staff need to be taught how to use the technology. They need help setting it up. No one knows how to configure a firewall to protect the school's computers, no one knows how to select the right webserver (nevermind even knowing how to set it up and keep it running.) School don't understand the concept of maintenance. They don't know to keep their computers in shape. They need help setting up networks. They need help with everything. This goes on every single day in every single school on this earth. If you really, really, really want to make a difference and provide someone service, go to you nearby school. Elementary, middle or high school. It doesn't matter. They all need it and they need it now. Whether you know how to program, setup a network or webserver or just know how to keep some machines running in top shape, spend a little time. It may not seem like much to you, but coming from the other side, it's something huge.
Why don't you funnel your talents into a group
... :)
ripe, ready, and willing to use your programming
skills?
And what with their thousands of projects/packages
there is assuredly something you can work on which
will suit your fancy, keep you busy for an
extended period of time, and is assured to be
fairly widely dispersed.
Sounds like quality charity work to me
Besides, since I use Debian, I'll get to benefit
from it as well.
As my father lik@(munch munch)...
Contact grassroots organisations such as your local Amnesty International chapter (http://www.amnesty.org/, Friends of the Earth (http://www.foe.org/, OneWorld.net (http://www.oneworld.net, or any of the myriad of other NGOs. Most of those organisations would welcome people that are capable of tech support, Internet service creation and maintenance, and other stuff. Some might even hire you. Just be sure to do what you promise (I know of experience that nothing pisses people off more than volunteers that dissolve when the work has actually to be done).
I spend about 50% of my time working for aid programmes in Russia and Uzbekistan. It does pay, but not particularly well, however it is kind of different and it sure beats a 9-5 environment or a cubicle.
Note, that I have always found it better to work for something (e.g. living expenses) than totally free. If your work costs the organisation something, then they will manage you better, even if in real-terms it is peanuts.
So select the part of the world that interests you then contact someone like the Peace Corps or even USAID. They may not be able to use you directly but they may have contacts with someone who can.
Hugh.
My sister-in-law is a social worker for Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and their local office needed a basic Access database setup to track their call-backs. Easy enough to do.
/. are as pathetic and hermitic as I believe, then surely you know someone who works, at least part-time, for a charity. If you like it, just ask if they have any computer work that needs done.
Unless most of the people on
Design websites... mailing lists... anything, really. Just ask; they'll answer.
Anyway, look for your neighborhood nonprofits and get hired there and shape the future that way. At least you get paid (not as much as in the private sector, no stock options!!), and you have others that have the same objective.
I know I could be making 3 times what I am right now, but I believe in the work we do. And i'm in college so I can't work 40 hours.
Deepak
2) Hook up with organizations whose goals you support, either local or national. Most seem to be extremely underfunded, so computer expertise is way out of their budget. Attend a meeting or two, then offer your skills and ask if they know how you could help. Be ready for their being unprepared for your offer-- most have adjusted to shoestring computer operations, if any at all, and many can't even think in terms of how computers can help. But computers almost always can! (C'mon, you're a programmer, you can make almost any office run smoother.) So spend time at their office to examine their processes and what you could automate. Many of these places run more on individual initiative than on strong management. Be sure you make things easier, more than you get in the way.
My own choices would be organizations helping children, the homeless, housing (I'm in San Francisco), environmental causes, media awareness/empowerment groups, certain causes and political groups, and many others. But I'm not proselytizing here (beyond encouraging volunteerism in general); choose organizations you want to help, according to your own values. If the first ones you choose are so lucky as to already have enough help, don't stop looking.
Hey, if you're not satisfied with this, you could set up an operation that helps programmers get in touch with those who need them! Don't forget to account for those who aren't tech-savvy-- you may need to do some active outreach, since they won't find your Web site on their own.
mouse.org
1) Form your own organization.
True, you may eventually find a technical position serving a charitable cause that you can agree with whole-heartedly, but if you are keenly aware of your personal moral imperatives (and creative enough to form a technical plan of action around them), then it may be simpler or quicker to establish your own organization, be it non-profit or for-profit.
2) Contribute to free software that you feel will advance your moral agenda.
Who knows? If your contribution is significant, you may be hired full-time by a privately held company that shares your values, or by a publicly-held company that wishes to be associated with the values implicit in the project you contribute to.
3) I'm late to this party, so I didn't see the numerous "educate!" suggestions before I began composing this response.
I agree that education is valuable, but if you want your teaching to advance your moral imperatives, then you might be better served if you taught the abstract or philosophical benefits of your moral foundations than you would be if you taught general comp-sci topics; general technical knowledge might just as easily be used against your moral precepts as for them (and you'd hardly be the first teacher with rebellious students; the historical record goes back at least as far as Socrates and Plato in that regard. One might even view forensics itself as the "technical" field in that particular teacher/student schism, if one were, e.g., a grad student in search of a easy and entertaining dissertation :).
If you think Ralph Nader's campain is worth your time, he is looking for Linux guys.
4. Information Systems Manager Objective of the position: To ensure that internal data management runs smoothly and effectively. Duties include: working with Compliance Officer and Webmaster to incorporate all incoming data into the office's databases; maintaining computer systems for receiving data from webpage; using computer programming to meet new uses of data as needs arise. Experience with Linux and databases required.
I might do it if I didn't need the money my currenty job provides.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
Sneaky Bill Gates has put Windows in our public libraries. (12 Gateways in our town library, thanks, Bill.) I bet most would welcome volunteer workers.
1000 SlashDot sigs
Open source is good, but working with locals is even better.
I have worked on a number of projects where we pay locals to develop software under our direction that they need. They can often program well but certain technqiues may not be well known and project management definitely isn't.
The flip side of working this way is that you start to appreciate that a 486/66 with 32MB is still quite common in some places and different techniques are applicable which you can learn from the locals.
Hugh.
Got a beef? Plug a name into the Bizarre Rumour Generator!
They are sending 6 people to africa in a few months. While I find GeekCorps a fine endeavor, we have enough people here who need help. For those in the SW, why not contact your local Reservation and offer to mentor. With a mean 75% unemployment rate you could be helping a new generation move forward as a society. The Hopi average 85% unemployment, with only 25% of working adults making over $7,000 per year.
Sorry, I just realized that if you have a job, you probably live nowhere near a reservation...
(For those of you who do, please help.)
I have been working with my own reservation for only 2 years, and have watched the unemployment rate drop to 25% with the mean income raised by $15,000 a year for adults. Much of this has come from setting up el cheapo .coms and e-commerce. (Yea Linux...) As an Amerind I can tell you that we'd prefer not to be casino employess and the like. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, the Casinos generally benefit the money men from outside the Res. and do only harm to the residents. (The Pequots being the noted exception and therefore the ones you'll see on 60 minutes.) They are a wasteland of broken promises and corrupt swindlers. (Not that I would mention Kevin Costner by name.)
There are people starving next door. Let's stop giving them fish and start teaching them how to fish.
NYC Activists' Hosting Collective Discussion List is a brand new discussion list that is exploring ways to help activists in their causes by doing free administration, hosting, helping etc. Jesse Sanford jesse@columbia.edu is coordinating it so direct questions to him if you are interested.
My mom runs a not profit organization called Friend2Friend which helps poor people, and refugees who recently entered our country.
:-)
Hundreds of people offer to donate stuff, everybody wants to donate their old clothes, blankets, toys, ect.
But do you know what? Nobody wants to donate their time.
Give time, the best way to help is look for no profit organizations in a phone book, let them know that you want to help out. Not with money. Just help. That makes a true contribution and not the halfass attempt so many people use to get rid of their old junk.
There is nothing like seeing a poor sad person with a broken spirit make a new friend. TEACH others so they can teach too. Knowledge is the most awesome donation ever. It will filter down like a DNS update...
warm regards: C Kizer
hardrain@softhome.net
brainchild out
Another cool thing is to help people start LUG's in towns and cities that are lacking one. For example, here in Tijuana, México there is a LUG being formed (TJLUG), and we are getting help from people of the LUG across the border in San Diego, CA (KPLUG) and from another LUG in Ensenada, México (ELUG). So those 2 LUG's that are well organized and have experience can help other LUG's to be started and everyone wins.
Also, going to schools and donating some time to help in the computers labs, teach children, etc.
--
EHC
For you lefties:IGC - a great place to find yourself a few causes.
For everyone, I think... Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
Also check out Plugged In for a look at a 'drop in center' for inner city youth in East Palo Alto. I'd really like to start something like this up in my own town. Just need more time/money/cajones.
-hc-
-hc- I always get the shakes before a drop...
One option is to work for a university - they need people to both sysadmin and write software which enhances the learning environment, but they can't pay huge salaries or offer stock options so have a hard time with recruiting. On the other hand, they tend to have great benefit and retirement packages and are not as insanely-paced as many startups.
<plug>For example, I work for Highwire Press, a division of the Stanford libraries which puts scientific journals like Science magazine online. By helping scientific societies to publish online, we make scientists' jobs a lot easier.
And yes, we have jobs open if you are interested :)
</plug>
- Help non-profit & charity organisations
- Make money to donate to charities
- Educate children
Help Non-profit OrganisationsThis can be as simple as providing assistance with purchasing decisions. We all know how much difference there is between hardware vendors prices, and a bit of guidance that they don't need a Pentium Xeon to do their word processing. For larger organisations that have a budget for promotion / IT, we can still serve as consultants to evaluate 3rd party offerings.
If we want to go that one step further, you can donate time to building a website for a charity, or that custom bit of software that will save charity workers from paperwork, and let them do their job. Last night I had a phone call from a friend who works with disabled people, and the monitoring of their programs is all done on paper, and then photocopied...
Making Money to Donate to Charities
This suggestion came from one of our course's sponsors when we were discussing this. What was suggested was that we run a half-day course on the internet and what it means to small business owners, and charge a nominal amount that gets donated to charity.
There are heaps of ignorant people out there just waiting to be informed, and what better way than when they know the money is going to charity.
Educate Children
This is the one that we ended up choosing. We have found some local high primary schools with computers, but underfunded computing department, and we are running and internet course for children. This will one-day be extended to basic programming courses. We choose schools in disadvantaged areas, and talk to the principal etc.
We think that this is the best idea, as there is a personal reward of working with children, and you can see the improvement whilst you are helping them.
If you are interested in doing something like this - get together with likeminded people (and the way you find them is to go out into your office and ASK!). That way you have a critical mass, and the number of people you can help goes up exponentially. So the more people involved the better.
Get companies behind you. We are lucky in that we are a scholarship course, so we have contacts with companies in the industry. Macquarie Bank and ComTech have already generously donated. Go to your company and ask your boss if you can use that old computer, or if you can use the training room on the weekend. This is where having an organisation behind you is of benefit. And if companies donate - make sure that you make it worth their while by advertising the fact.
Finally - you need to make a plan, or a mission statement. We fell into the trap that there are so many causes, and we tried to help too many at once. Set your priorities, and then go from there.
If you have any more suggestions for me, feel free to email me: s.farquhar@studentDOTunswDOTeduDOTau
Well since our original investor fell through and it being a who-you-know world and we're unlucky enough to not know anyone else offhand, towerofbabel.com, the multilingual, multicultural online journal and community of arts and ideas, is about to become a non-profit organization. In fact just this morning we had our bubble burst again when we realized that in order to run slashcode on our site we pretty much need our own server which just isn't our reality right now. Kind of a bummer too, because we had high hopes of being a Slashdot for the arts. Take a look around the site and see what you think.
My name is Carlos Montoya. You share files of my music. Prepare to die.
As several people have mentioned, I think that helping people without computer skills to develop some of those skills would be most beneficial.
Instead of saving a charity $50k a year in admin costs, you might show 10 people how to make a living with simple computer and UNIX admin or web administration skills. There are many intelligent people living in shelters or drifting between low paying jobs living in low-rent housing because they just don't have any marketable skills. Get those people out of the packed shelters and low-rent housing so you can get the street people into the shelters so they can get cleaned up and trained. (See, it's a process.)
Apart from that, contribue to open source projects that you find interesting, donate blood, and donate all your organs when you croak. It's not a matter of if, but when. So be prepared. Mark your license AND tell your family.
I've been thinking about an idea I had during the last meeting my wife and I attended last week-- perhaps one way to help our community is to help provide low-cost computers with internet connectivity to people in our neighborhood to help disseminate local news that the mass media (eg. the local paper) won't or doesn't cover. Many people in my area don't have computers yet-- there's a lot of retired fixed-income older people here in Florida :^)
I imagine that setting up an organization that builds low- to mid-range Linux-based computers already set up to use a "free" ISP for people that don't have the means to buy one. These machines would come from either parts bought used at the computer shows that come through town or via donations.
Perhaps some of you will say that Linux isn't the best OS for computer newbies; but when you plan on giving the machines away, Windows/MacOS and their associated applications are prohibitively expensive.
It's just an idea that's been rattling in my head for the past few days... Of course,before I start rolling out these machines, I've got to get my own going satisfactorily, yaknow.
Jeff
I'll provide another idea -- do what you do best: programming, writing code and making money - live and enjoy your lifestyle, but commit yourself to donating your money to an organisation that is doing worthwhile charity work. Allow them to aggregate the channel the resources of many alongside specialised skills and focused/trained people to achieve a more significant outcome than 'dabbling' individuals.
-- Matthew - matthew.gream@pobox.com, http://matthewgream.net
...also has some openings. I don't know about programming, but they have a lot for network technicians, tech support. Plus you get to live down south! http://www.habitat.org/
Ask you public library if they need help. Any given library always has several programming jobs in the queue where there is not enough time/money/skills to actually implement them. This work would mainly be on report generators and data conversion programs as well as other things where the library management software is not up to the task.
Check out http://www.lxk12.org, an initiative to use free and open source software in NY schools. It's something that I've wanted to become involved with for awhile, but haven't yet. It seems like a very good cause.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Your stock options are just as likely to turn to wallpaper as in the computer industry, of course, but you get to feel extremely self-satisfied if it pays off....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Actually, many companies make charitable contributions. But in reality, that would only decrease profits. I doubt they take profit cuts for these donations. So you are actually making charitable donations when you purchase their goods or services. I'm sure you would rather choose which organizations you donate to. Also companies donate a percantage of their profits to charity in another model. So you can help certain charitable organizations by buying their products. How noble of them. But in either situation, charity creates a positive image of a company. I did help a local small run church school for the disabled to upgrade their computers and did some other related things for them. They did give me some unused and older hardware and I can always use them as a reference on a resume or as a reference. So its arguable if it was actually charity, but the school is in a better situation because of it. So just look locally, people would love help.
Chaos, Mayhem, and Destruction: Not
Tho Europe don't have the same type of chairity as the US I'm wondering if there is something to do in Europe? Anyone out there know of any chairity in Sweden? I want to help :)
If I can paraphrase you, you're saying that the tax you pay is already (at least in part) charitable in that subsidises social welfare etc.
Another option is to find a charity that you think already does good work and make regualr donations - a sort of voluntary tax if you like, but you get to decide what proportion goes where.
I make regular donations to Greenpeace, mainly because I suspect that people are going to run out of earth before the earth runs out of people.
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead