

Ask HN: Listing of software projects needed by non-profits? - tjr

Anyone know of a listing / online community / whatever where you can find out about non-profit organizations needing or desiring software, web sites, etc? Ostensibly such work would be provided to them free of charge.
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callmeed
I don't know of any such site but I'm not sure why it would be needed outside
of vertical software for donor/member management.

I'm all for charitable work, open-source software, and non-profits (and I'm
actively involved in some), but you have to remember: _non-profit does not
mean non-budget_.

I personally don't think every 503(c) entity deserves free products and
services simply because they are a non-profit. Some large charities or
churches have huge budgets with an extremely high % of their income (i.e.
donations) going to administration.

I've done pro-bono work for my church in the past and I've given away our own
products to support fund-raising efforts.

I guess I'm just saying that hackers/founders need to use discretion in this
arena. I think applying your skills to charity is important, but you need to
be careful about who recieves it.

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Sapient
Wow, that sounds like an awesome idea if it doesn't already exist!

Feel-good software.

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known
<http://civicrm.org/>

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Mz
I did volunteer work for a small homeless shelter for a time. They were
thrilled to pieces to have me do little things like create more effective
sign-in sheets for meetings and generally help improve their ability to meet
the high paperwork burden of living with grants and similar office head office
efficiency type stuff. I didn't write any software. I wouldn't know how. My
then-husband was in a computer science program at the time and considered me
to be a computer twit. The folks at the homeless shelter thought I walked on
water and was some kind of computing goddess.

My point: Depending upon the NPO in question, "software" might be more
ambitious than what they need.

