
Any advice on donating programming skills? - ra_ra_robyn
How did you find organizations&#x2F;businesses&#x2F;non-profits&#x2F;just regular ol&#x27; people that needed help?<p>If you&#x27;re employed did you have any issues balancing your time?<p>How was your experience?
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drallison
There are numerous issues that need to be considered.

If you are employed, what disclosures do you need to provide to your employer?
What disclosures do you need to provide to the folks you are helping? Check
your contractual relationships for possible conflicts. Get written riders to
contracts as needed.

Will you treat your programming as an "in-kind donation" for tax purposes? If
so, you should check with your tax professional to find out exactly what is
needed.

What will be the intellectual property status of what you create? If you are
creating code or compiling data, who owns the results of your effort? If you
are working as part of a large multi-participant project there needs to be a
work-for-hire agreement for all concerned.

As with any project, you need to have a plan and execute to the plan but
provide a way to adapt the plan as situations change. It is usually smart to
define how decisions get made and who is responsible.

Finally, you need to consider what happens when the project is in production.
How do bugs get fixed? Who is responsible for maintenance? Will you be
supporting your creation forever?

~~~
ra_ra_robyn
The goal here is to do something constructive with my free time, hone my
skills, network, give back to my community, etc.

Good points about disclosures, intellectual property, and never ending
support. Makes me a bit weary.

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davewasthere
I'm doing Random Hacks of Kindness this June.
[http://www.rhokaustralia.org/](http://www.rhokaustralia.org/)

There are tons of ways to donate time to charities. But yeah, time can be a
factor if you're busy with work projects.

I used to balance military with donating time to an SPCA rescue unit. We did
high-angle technical rescue of trapped animals. I did struggle balancing the
two time-wise, but ended up being more of a do their website, help with
exercises, photography, general dog's body... Great people and I loved helping
out.

I'd totally recommend doing whatever you can...

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jseliger
>How did you find organizations/businesses/non-profits/just regular ol' people
that needed help?

One rarely-discussed issue is that most organizations, even the ones that say
they want volunteers, don't actually:
[https://jakeseliger.com/2014/06/19/most-volunteering-is-a-
wa...](https://jakeseliger.com/2014/06/19/most-volunteering-is-a-waste-of-
time-for-anyone-except-the-volunteer/) and the volunteering infrastructure is
actually more expensive and difficult to maintain than actually hiring
employees.

I like the advice someone else proffered: teach coding instead. There does
seem to be a lot of demand for that, and the people trying to learn are likely
to be motivated.

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tedmiston
One alternative to donating programming skills to other people's problems is
to donate your time to teaching programming through organizations like Girl
Develop It.

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dandelion_lover
See also: Ask HN: How can I do social good through programming?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14375014](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14375014)

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type0
Haven't used it but some folks find it helpful:
[https://www.freecodecamp.com](https://www.freecodecamp.com)

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uber1geek
I am a junior python/ django dev in need of mentorship. I am an avid learner.
If you are interested in mentoring me, Please reach out.

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closeparen
There have to be some limits on the utility of "drive-by" coding. I suspect
it's much more useful to (encourage your organization to) offer
free/discounted products to nonprofits that are maintained over the long term
for other reasons, or to directly give money.

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tmaly
I have not tried to donate programming skills outside of younger family
members and junior programmers I work with.

I was at a NY Tech meetup a few weeks ago, and there was an intro about TEALS
where they were looking for people to teach high school students in the NYC
high schools.

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ndc33
just join kde, its a huge umbrella organisation. kmail and akonadi need some
serious code love :)

