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Tech-Related Volunteer Gigs
jeffomatic writes "Here's a question for Service Day: what kind of volunteer opportunities are available out there for the technologically-inclined? I'm a software developer and I'm wondering if there's anyone in the field engaged in pro-bono work, like IT or teaching or web design or whatnot. I'm not at all above rolling my sleeves up and working at shelters or the local park, but it occurs to me that my professional skills might be usefully applied in the service context as well. I'd like to hear about what other people are doing, in terms of projects, time commitments, organizations, etc." Or just commit a patch to your favorite project.
...i bet could really use some simple PHP+xSQL database for scheduling and stuff.
Most small non-profits keep records in a smattering of paper and undocumented excel sheets, they could really use your IT expertise.
THL phish sticks
A few things come to mind. You could volunteer and show a few elderly individuals how to use a computer. That sort of thing can be very frustrating or very rewarding depending on who you teach and how patient you are. You could also work on open source projects that aid the disabled. Then there is things like helping an old lady sell her stuff on ebay instead of say a garage sale. I know a lot of elderly folks have many things just laying around collecting dust and could use the extra income. Just a few ideas, I'm sure others will come up with some more inventive things.
All small non profits (women's shelters, food banks, volunteer fire departments, etc) always need someone who can do basic PC maintenance, install software, generally help them USE their computers with a little bit of training, and fix things. I used to do the service work on the PCs, network, and copier at a local woman's shelter when I was in the repair business. It was one of my freebies that I did simply because I was asked.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
CmdrTaco gave you the answer.
If you want to work pro-bono, why don't you just start working on an open source project, that's not big enough to pay you yet?
Simple question. Simple answer.
Depends. I prefer education so it is volunteering for a regional science fair as a judge and giving classroom presentations for National Engineering and Technitians Month (NET Month)out here.
I actually prefer donating labor to the environment through the local park & rec. department. Gives me a chance to get out in the big blue room and move some dirt around through tree planting, landscape maintenance and other things I don't do on a regular basis but are actually kinda fun for a day project.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Volunteer dev in Toronto
you had me at #!
Perhaps not directly relevent to your career background, but amateur radio operators (HAMs) have played a time honored role in coordinating communication for marathons and other very spread out public events. If you happen to have some back ground in anything related to communication technology, I'm sure the local HAM club would be glad to have you, regardless of your morse coding speed (or lack thereof).
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
I had a similar urge some years back, so I volunteered at the local Habitat for Humanity office. They had some need for simple IT work, and I probably could have done just fine.
But... then I got busy with other stuff. And I found my passion for helping people wasn't consistent. Before long I handed back my office key. They probably put more effort into getting me up to speed than they ever recouped from my help.
I think this makes it hard to do good volunteer IT work. Much IT work benefits greatly from low turnover, as opposed to picking up garbage in a park, where turnover rate probably is irrelevant.
So I guess my advice is to avoid talking up your usefulness to the people you're trying to help, until you're sure you'll have the interest and free time to really stick with it. On the other hand, even IT people can still pick up garbage in the park.
I've posted a number of times on this topic. It's a good way to get tech skills and references if you are in school or just out of school and need experience.
Start googling groups in you community.
No kill animal shelters need people to maintain donor databases and websites. As do public radio stations. Non-profit recycling centers/thrift stores often need people to wipe and reload computers (and make sure they have the right licenses). Low income schools need tech instructors.
I've done the tech instructor gig and the thrift store gig over the years. As far as time goes, volunteers are often given large amounts of flexibility. After all, you are not getting paid.
You should check out the organization carefully, interview them per se. Make sure they are serious and high quality. Don't let them dump all their work on you.
If you are doing it for the resume avoid anything too closely tied with political, religous or controversial topics. As the joke goes, explaining why you did volunteer work for the North American Marlon Brando Look-alikes Association may be embarrassing.
HTH
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
My local needle exchange (don't start flaming, they're people volunteering their time to improve the health of their fellow citizens, regardless of what you think of drug use or how best to respond to it) has a couple of contracts with City and State health departments that they need to do a lot of data reporting for (how many clients, how many referrals, etc) which they were collecting slowly and tediously using paper records, then wasting even more time on every three months collating the data to send to the funder. I wrote them a simple php frontend to a mysql database to let them enter data as they go, which then automatically generates the quarterly data files they need to submit to funders, freeing them up to concentrate more on service delivery (and giving them a better sense of how their service was running as a nice side effect).
Most non-profits I've seen in the past five years are using woeful data collection methods; almost any of them would be eternally grateful if someone would spend a few days or weeks to set something up and then maintained it on a volunteer basis.
On a shameless plug note, the abovementioned non-profit needs a new home for its 1U server - if you're in the San Francisco bay area and can donate rackspace & connectivity, drop me a line.
Anybody interested in going this route, as I have, can get a Linux distro targeted towards children (3yrs and up) that runs well on donated second hand PCs.
http://www.quinncoincorporated.org/
We are currently helping others across the country setup their own local initiatives.
http://www.mhall119.com
Johnny's village was too poor to afford basic necessities like clean water, food, and medicine. Thanks to h4x0rz without borders, they were able to set up a 10k client botnet which they used to run Nigerian-style scams. Now they have the things they need to live like water, food, medicine, and satellite TV. You can help a village just like Johnny's, join h4x0rz without borders today!
I helped the local Humane Society get their records modernized using Animal Shelter Manager (http://sheltermanager.sourceforge.net/home.php). The sysadmin there was feeling a bit out of his depth with setting up the SQL database and such. It was easy work, and made a real tangible difference. I love these sort of freebies too, where there is a task with a clear end.
1) I installed the software.
2) Installed and configured the mySQL on their little server.
3) Got the tables setup
4) Trained the sysadmin on what I'd done and how to maintain/backup the system
5) Got the software installed on the desktops with his help
6) Backed out of the picture
7) No Profit
Sheldon
If your good at something never do it for free.
I can't even begin to comprehend that idea.
Seriously. If I'm good at something, it's likely because I've put a lot of time and effort into perfecting it. If I've put a lot of time and effort into perfecting it, it's likely because I enjoy doing it. If I enjoy doing it, then I will do it every chance I can get.
I'm a software developer because I love doing it. I get paid to do it, but I also do it in some of my spare time for free, and I'll happily do it for others who want me to do it for them.
I also play guitar for free, fly planes for free, and have sex for free.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
And that is why sometimes you shouldn't take advice from comic book villains.
On a broader level consider http://www.unv.org/ the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) program.
You make a very valid point. Forcing people to do "volunteer" work is ridiculous. It has the opposite effect that is desired. It makes people hate to help others because it is forced. It is counter-productive to force high-school kids to do menial tasks and call it volunteer work.
However, when you have a certain skill set, such as programming or fixing computers, etc... and you help out people who genuinely need it it is extremely rewarding.
I found this out when tutoring people in college. Of course I did it for money, but I found out that I genuinely enjoyed helping people and now do it for free.
I find this call by Obama and Rahm Emanuel towards "national service" very troubling. His constant call for "sacrifice" and "serving" gets me worried. Instead of holding the people accountable for creating this financial mess we're just expected to become wards of the state. Was Aldous Huxley right when he said people will love their servitude? I sure hope not.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
If I enjoy doing it, then I will do it every chance I can get.
In that case, you should do it somewhere you will get paid and then you can donate the money to the charity.
That is much more efficient than donating your skills to a charity. The assumption of course, is that a business can make better use of your skills than a charity - or, in other words, if you are a high priced SAP consultant, you are better off earning $300 for an hours work and donating that money to get some PHP dev to work for the charity.
It is just the principle of 'comparative advantage'.
So not true.
http://www.treas.gov/education/faq/taxes/deductions.shtml#q2
I have volunteered my time with a local volunteer fire department for about 12 years now. I work full time as a systems administrator for a large network and donate my time to them for because their service is very valuable to my community. Fire departments all over the country are required to submit reports to their state and the federal government to be eligible for grants, etc. There is a lot of data collected for that and has to be submitted electronically in most places. If the your local department does not have the IT and database expertise in-house, they could be missing out on a lot of opportunities for funding from the federal government that could save the local taxpayers a lot of money.
I think you are taking this a way too seriously. First, no one is forcing anyone, or even really compelling anyone to volunteer, if you don't want to do it, you don't have to, with no negative effects whatsoever.
I think the goal is just to make a time where it is more socially acceptably and when people are encouraged to do volunteer work. Many people might have a slight interest, or be unsure of how to get involved, so maybe this day will make that easier, and make them realize how to volunteer more often, out of their own free will.
The same goes for requiring some community service in school. In real life no-one can make you volunteer, but they also can't make you write papers or finish assignments. In school, you get grades for learning, and trying out some volunteer work can be educational.
I'm sorry to take exception to a key tennant of open source theory, but I just don't think its so simple to 'just' commit a patch.
I see contributing to a project as involving a significant commitment. In my thinking, high quality patches require the developer to have a fairly high level of understanding of the internals of the project and the local coding conventions. If the contributor doesn't have this, the patch will need significant rework from someone who does, or the codebase will get ugly fast.
If I'm being too much of a perfectionist please tell me.
I'm a software developer who'd love to contribute to some of the major projects, but I see the personal commitment to positive effect ratio as prohibitive.
The opinons expressed are those of the voices in the author's head and are not necessarily those of the author.
You laugh, but there is a Hackers for Charity, and it's an awesome organization.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Some useful sites I've found are:
Using mostly these sites, I've come up with a very useful collection of apps and utilities totalling under 2Gb, which easily fits on a flash drive with room to spare for data. One example is winaudit, which will generate an extensive report when run on a pc. You can save the reports on various pcs to your flash drive in various formats (pdf, html, text, csv), bring them home, and go over them in more detail to see what needs to be fixed or updated on the various pcs you encountered.