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Ask HN: Best way to “donate” dev hours to charity?

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Re: Ask HN: Best way to “donate” dev hours to charity?

#61

Post by [deleted] »

harlanji wrote: post #52
thenipper wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked at an NGO doing data work for years, this. Sadly most charities aren't in a position to easily accept outside professional help for a variety of reasons. Going down and doing work at a soup kitchen or just donating $$ will have a larger impact.

The best offsites I've gone on have been working for charities/community service. Better than hanging out with drinks or doing some other random 'fun' activities by far. I know that's not exactly the question, but adding that donating labor is also enjoyable to many workers. In my case the best was at the SF-Marin food bank, and Feed My Starving Children was fun too. Even picking up trash around a neighborhood with a…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Best way to “donate” dev hours to charity?

#62

Post by xboxnolifes »

KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #48
tyingq wrote: post #19

It's been a while, but the most rewarding experience I had in this space was engaging directly with a small local charity. I just pitched them the idea of me getting 10 minutes with every worker that had to use a PC as part of what the charity did. I used the time to interview them, and try to identify something that affected the largest swath of workers. As it turned out, what I helped them with wasn't code, but a b…

Can you bill the time as a tax write-off?

Even if you could get a charitable donation deduction here, it would be for $0. Charity deductions are only on the amount being donated, and $0 was donated, $0 is being taxed, so $0 is being deducted.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to “donate” dev hours to charity?

#63

Post by mos_6502 »

goldfeld wrote: post #32
mos_6502 wrote: post #15

Personally, I use my spare time towards organizing a group that supports and nurtures developer communities in my area [1]. My organization is itself a 501c3, and our charitable mission is to provide developers with opportunities to learn and network. We do this by organizing monthly technical meetings, networking events, career panels, and hackathons. All at no cost to our members (no fees, tickets, or dues). We als…

Relatedly, but not charity itself, I try to stimulate open source communities by issuing a periodical[0] with easy tasks for beginners to contribute. By getting new people into open source they can hopefully become long term vectors for good work. 0: https://generativereview.substack.com/p/tasks-open-source-em...

Very cool, one of our community members does something similar with local technology events: https://www.globalnerdy.com/the-tampa-bay-tech-events-mailin...

Re: Ask HN: Best way to “donate” dev hours to charity?

#64

Post by mos_6502 »

beckingz wrote: post #50
mos_6502 wrote: post #15

Personally, I use my spare time towards organizing a group that supports and nurtures developer communities in my area [1]. My organization is itself a 501c3, and our charitable mission is to provide developers with opportunities to learn and network. We do this by organizing monthly technical meetings, networking events, career panels, and hackathons. All at no cost to our members (no fees, tickets, or dues). We als…

What measures to rehabilitate the scene have you found most effective?

Honestly? It's as simple as organizing events, getting people together, and connecting them with one another. It takes some time, but the adage "If you build it, they will come" has a lot of truth to it.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to “donate” dev hours to charity?

#66

Post by iudqnolq »

I've heard that the big issue is when people provide unreliable assistance but require significant up-front investment in time from the charity.

Nonprofits don't want to spend a significant amount of time in meetings figuring out how that ideal app should work if there's a realistic chance you'll end up too busy to implement it.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to “donate” dev hours to charity?

#68

Post by beckingz »

mos_6502 wrote: post #64
beckingz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What measures to rehabilitate the scene have you found most effective?

Honestly? It's as simple as organizing events, getting people together, and connecting them with one another. It takes some time, but the adage "If you build it, they will come" has a lot of truth to it.

Makes sense. Any style of in person event that you've especially liked?

Re: Ask HN: Best way to “donate” dev hours to charity?

#70

Post by cpeterso »

goldfeld wrote: post #32
mos_6502 wrote: post #15

Personally, I use my spare time towards organizing a group that supports and nurtures developer communities in my area [1]. My organization is itself a 501c3, and our charitable mission is to provide developers with opportunities to learn and network. We do this by organizing monthly technical meetings, networking events, career panels, and hackathons. All at no cost to our members (no fees, tickets, or dues). We als…

Relatedly, but not charity itself, I try to stimulate open source communities by issuing a periodical[0] with easy tasks for beginners to contribute. By getting new people into open source they can hopefully become long term vectors for good work. 0: https://generativereview.substack.com/p/tasks-open-source-em...

Mozilla tags some Firefox (and other Mozilla projects’) bug reports as “good first bug” and adds a mentor to the bug.

Volunteer contributors can search these bugs by programming language or product area on https://codetribute.mozilla.org

Some volunteer contributors have become Mozilla employees (myself included :)

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