We had a great response to our recent call out for volunteers to help with web projects for non-profits and community groups, so we thought we would formalise the process.
Firstly, a couple of caveats.
The organisers of the group don't have time to organise the pairing up of projects and volunteers, or managing that process and relationship. We will be happy to help with any technical issues in mentoring sessions however.
Instead, we encourage you to post projects and your availability and attempt to pair yourselves up through discussions and communications outside of the group.
For organisations, bear in mind that managing volunteers can be time consuming and that peoples availability may be sporadic. In short, don't be too demanding but equally don't vanish off the face of the planet when a volunteer is trying to reach you.
For volunteers, try not to overcommit and try to remain communicative. There's nothing worse than saying yes to everything, freaking out and then vanishing off the face of the planet. Its OK to say no and its OK to say you don't have time anymore. Also people who work for nfps are traditionally very time poor, don't be afraid to badger them for an answer.
That's about it, in your posts try to be descriptive and friendly and all will run smoothly.
Good luck!
Comments
Playground Ideas - a fabulous project looking for help
Hi All,
Ross Gerring here from Itomic. This is going to sound like a sales pitch... which in a sense it is:
We all love playgrounds, right? My 4 kids certainly do. How about helping communities in less privileged parts of the world to make their own playgrounds for their kids? Much better than spending lots of money to send in westerners, build the playground for them using imported materials that the locals can't hope to service and maintain, and breeze out again, right?
Welcome to PlaygroundIDEAS: www.playgroundideas.org
A local Melbourne bloke called Marcus Veerman is the man in the driving seat, and a very inspiring tale he has to tell. He'd love to come to a Drupal Meetup and tell you all more about it.
Itomic didn't design or build the site. We've been providing some pro bono ad-hoc consultancy for the site over the last year'ish. We've recently taken our sponsorship to the next level on two fronts:
Cutting to the chase: PlaygroundIDEAS is now looking to establish a relationship with local Drupal people who are happy to help with improving the site over time - new features, new sections, bug fixes, etc. Obviously the objective is to ensure that the sites works as well as possible to support, help, and inspire people to build and maintain kids' playground in less privileged parts of the world.
Anyone who can lend a hand will be work with/in Acquia Cloud, and a bit with Itomic - at least to ensure that our security update service doesn't conflict with your development work.
Interested? Hoping so! I guess the next step is to post your comments/offers, and we can go from there. But let's definitely try to get Marcus V along to a Drupal Meetup asap. He's a good bloke, and a good speaker.
Thanks very much Chris Ward for giving us this opportunity to bring great causes and great Drupal people together.
Ross G.
URL
http://www.playgroundideas.org/
interested
Hi Ross,
very interested to be involved! can you I email you about this?
Renaee
typo fixed
Thanks Brett :-)
Volunteer/Interest
I would like to volunteer and place my interest in supporting this much need non-profit discussion project. I am a beginner Drupal development & designing, however learning as all are and would offer what I can to support.
Thanks for posting this thoughtful ideas Chris.
Hi Ross -Are you still
Hi Ross -Are you still looking for volunteers? I would like to help.
thanks,
Neil