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?"

Comments

Re:here's one

[Claudius]

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.

Don't mod me down just cos it's a "me too" :)

[KhaliF]

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?

education

[lorie]

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

charityfocus

[paulschreiber]

check out CharityFocus and the SF Weakness article.

Paul

Not An Organization

[Seumas]

I seriously believe that the best way that you can help is to find a young man or woman who is desperate to learn. I know that when I was a lot younger, I wanted to do a lot of things in computing that I could neither find the resources nor the mentor for. My library didn't have books on writing PERL or C++ or even PASCAL. I wouldn't even have known that you could get the software for free to do it. Further, I wanted to learn Unix, but when I was 12 (this was in the late 1980's), I knew they were machines that only people in college or at big companies had access to.

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

Actual charities

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Find a regular charity

[slag187]

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?

here's one

[Frymaster]

geekcorps is sending a corps of geeks to Africa sometime in the next few months...

Re:here's one

[PhiRatE]

I think you ought to calm down.

Yes, there is untold suffering across the planet, yes terrorists are killing people and cutting off kids hands, yes people are dying from aids and starvation, but the question is why is this happening less in countries well supplied with schooling, money and information technology? I say less because as anyone who has visited the dark side of major american cities can tell you, it isn't limited to the third world.

It would seem to me that education is almost viral in effect. Teach one person to teach, and he can teach a dozen others. Attempting to get the median level of earning up by a small amount is counter to this concept. If you manage to raise ten people $10 above the median wage, what are they going to be able to teach the other 120 people? how to raise their wage $10. Get three people to $100, and you're going to have a far more profound effect.

I think that, (and I emphasise think, since I have no formal training and have done no extensive documented research) that 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. Careful planning, followed by the introduction of, and intensive training in modern technology for a small group would have, IMHO, a far more beneficial effect over the medium term on a large group of people, than attempting to upgrade all of the society a little bit at a time.

Humanity is competitive, it is quick to learn and to teach, and I believe that attempting to shuffle 3rd world countries slowly into the 21st century at a rate which, in some circumstances, isn't even keeping up with the rate of change in the first world, is counter-productive. It leaves those few self-driven individuals capable of making contact with the first world with complete power, hence terrorists and dictators with heavy weaponry, and a terrified, unknowing, uneducated population with no way of coordinating and little knowledge that there is another way.

And so I conclude, running cat5 around villages is entirely to the point, get them out there, make them part of the world, yes it'll be hard on them, but the consequnces of falling further and further behind, as many of the 3rd world countries, laden with debt, are doing now, is far worse.

VolunteerMatch.org (and Vaya.org!)

[pcarroll]

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

You're right - the power of aspiration is powerful

[dustpuppy]

At nights, I work as a residential tutor at a univerity hall of residence. Part of my job description is that I provide pastoral care for the students - that is, besides providing academic tutition, the tutors are there to provide comfort and guidance on a personal and non-academic level.

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.

Some suggestions

[jsm]

1) Teach science, math, or computers at a school in your area. Pick a school that really needs it (school funding varies widely by district). Many schools desperately need teachers in these subjects.

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.

Live near a Reservation by chance??

[HamNRye]

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.

Re:Live near a Reservation by chance??

[Hard_Code]

"There are people starving next door. Let's stop giving them fish and start teaching them how to fish."

Or perhaps even just ALLOWING them to fish.