Looking for Volunteer Project for Team of Web Developers
September 12, 2018 7:53 AM Subscribe
My new company includes 8 hours of paid volunteer service per year as a perk. I'm project manager for a small team of developers (mostly web applications and Python scripts) working in Southern California. We're trying to come up with a project we could work on together.
Any ideas?
We're trying to find a small but meaningful public service project that takes advantage of our professional skills. One of the developers on our team used to work with a non-profit assisting the homeless so she's reached out to them but is still awaiting a response. Collectively we could probably contribute 30-40 hours, depending on how many people sign on.
The team would love to do a one-day hack-a-thon so I'm trying to come up with something that would lend itself to that. As a project manager, I'm wary about taking on more than we can reasonably do or working on something superficially impressive or gratifying but that proves difficult to use or maintain.
The AskMeFi preview page offered up this thread which I plan to share with the team. Additional ideas, caveats, advice, and helpful links are welcome.
We're trying to find a small but meaningful public service project that takes advantage of our professional skills. One of the developers on our team used to work with a non-profit assisting the homeless so she's reached out to them but is still awaiting a response. Collectively we could probably contribute 30-40 hours, depending on how many people sign on.
The team would love to do a one-day hack-a-thon so I'm trying to come up with something that would lend itself to that. As a project manager, I'm wary about taking on more than we can reasonably do or working on something superficially impressive or gratifying but that proves difficult to use or maintain.
The AskMeFi preview page offered up this thread which I plan to share with the team. Additional ideas, caveats, advice, and helpful links are welcome.
Best answer: I am a web developer and I donate my services. I admire your motivations but respectfully, 8 hours is not remotely enough for requirements gathering and the inevitable back-and-forth (let alone the actual work and ongoing support). A real organization doing real work will most certainly need small chunks of your time on an ongoing basis. 8-40 hours all at once is really just PR/HR - you would do so much more good in the world if you could commit to even a couple hours per week! If you can do that, the search term would be "volunteer match".
Also, as a huge hackathon enthusiast, the whole idea is that you get a break from your daily code-monkey-for-hire routine and flex your software engineering skills on something technically interesting and of your choosing. Please do not subvert this wonderful idea into yet another day of work-for-hire. Service projects are grunt work, not hackathon material. Be prepared to do a lot of data entry and customer service :)
Good luck and thank you for taking the time to volunteer, there is a lot of need out there.
posted by rada at 9:04 AM on September 12, 2018 [7 favorites]
Also, as a huge hackathon enthusiast, the whole idea is that you get a break from your daily code-monkey-for-hire routine and flex your software engineering skills on something technically interesting and of your choosing. Please do not subvert this wonderful idea into yet another day of work-for-hire. Service projects are grunt work, not hackathon material. Be prepared to do a lot of data entry and customer service :)
Good luck and thank you for taking the time to volunteer, there is a lot of need out there.
posted by rada at 9:04 AM on September 12, 2018 [7 favorites]
Could you pick an open-source project, potentially one that benefits your local community, and devote a day to attacking already-filed GitHub issues/feature requests? If you're in the U.S., Code For America is a hub for a lot of volunteer-driven civic tech projects. Find one that is being actively worked on and check out the open issues.
posted by rogerrogerwhatsyourrvectorvicto at 10:33 AM on September 12, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by rogerrogerwhatsyourrvectorvicto at 10:33 AM on September 12, 2018 [4 favorites]
"or maintain"
If nobody on the team is going to commit to volunteering on this project in their own time outside of this, there is no maintenance. If you're doing stuff for nonprofits, remember that even something like setting up WordPress is setting them up with something they're going to have to pay somebody else to manage when you're gone.
Hackathons work for proof-of-concept stuff but don't produce production applications, much less production applications that can stand with no ongoing maintenance indefinitely. If you really wanted to work on something dev-related, the only thing I could think of offhand is looking for a local nonprofit with a website that already has some kind of issue and fixing that, so at least they don't have any new maintenance problems, just the same one they already had.
posted by Sequence at 11:33 AM on September 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
If nobody on the team is going to commit to volunteering on this project in their own time outside of this, there is no maintenance. If you're doing stuff for nonprofits, remember that even something like setting up WordPress is setting them up with something they're going to have to pay somebody else to manage when you're gone.
Hackathons work for proof-of-concept stuff but don't produce production applications, much less production applications that can stand with no ongoing maintenance indefinitely. If you really wanted to work on something dev-related, the only thing I could think of offhand is looking for a local nonprofit with a website that already has some kind of issue and fixing that, so at least they don't have any new maintenance problems, just the same one they already had.
posted by Sequence at 11:33 AM on September 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
I have this idea that you should do the opposite of programming for your volunteer hours. Go paint a house or make art with little kids.
Alternatively, can you work with a local school to offer their kids an Hour of Code program?
posted by SyraCarol at 11:42 AM on September 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
Alternatively, can you work with a local school to offer their kids an Hour of Code program?
posted by SyraCarol at 11:42 AM on September 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
To do something for an organization, it would probably be more effective for the team to spend one hour on an initial meeting, then each person spends two mornings (3.5 hours) in subsequent weeks on the project. Incidentally, this kind of relay-race programming will make good documentation / design / planning really important.
Sometimes tech / class literacy is all it takes -- could you hop in on a tax prep workshop, review resumes, etc.?
posted by batter_my_heart at 11:13 PM on September 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
Sometimes tech / class literacy is all it takes -- could you hop in on a tax prep workshop, review resumes, etc.?
posted by batter_my_heart at 11:13 PM on September 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
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posted by sammyo at 7:57 AM on September 12, 2018 [1 favorite]