Tag Archives: crowdsourcing

Hackathons for good? That’s volunteering!

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I recently tweeted out this message to my Twitter followers, and a few other people retweeted it to their own followers as well.

4 good examples? Like those by , & ( Internet Rallies/AIR)?

(you can follow me on Twitter here)

My goal was to write a detailed blog about all these different hackathons for good, and maybe even develop a web page on how to organize these kinds of episodic volunteering events (group volunteering events that don’t require a long-term commitment, that require just one day, or just a few days, of participation) related to technology.

Unfortunately, I have not had any response yet… but I’ll go ahead and blog about the examples I know about, and hope it leads to more examples:

The first event I ever attended that brought lots of web designers into one room, or one site, at multiple computers, to do something to help others for a few hours, was a web-building event by the Metropolitan Austin  Interactive Network (MAIN) in Texas in the 1990s. These web-raisings don’t happen anymore, at least not by MAIN, but what’s replaced it in Austin is something even better: the Accessibility Internet Rally, or AIR Austin, by Knowbility. This competitive event not only helps nonprofits get web sites – it also helps educate web developers and nonprofits about web accessibility for people with disabilities. It’s my favorite volunteering event – the perfect combination of fun, food, volunteering and making a difference. It’s so successful that not only does it happen year after year (it started in the late 1990s), not only do many of the web designers come back year after year to volunteer for the event, but the event happens in other cities as well.

I think Knowbility’s AIR events are the perfect hackathons, because they not only get work done – they also educate the participants about a critical issue. That isn’t just awareness – it’s transformative. The experience affects the web designers in how they approach their work when they get back to their day jobs. They design differently, and they think of nonprofits differently.

Hackathons have been around since the 1990s, but just the practice, not the name; now with its new branding, this form of episodic volunteering seems to be becoming all the rage.

One of the most high-profile hackathon groups is the nonprofit Crisis Commons, which produces “hybrid barcamp/hackathon events which bring together people and communities who innovate crisis response and global development through technology tools, expertise and problem solving.” Crisis Commons co-hosted the Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) event with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, NASA and the World Bank in 2010, with events taking place in cities around the world including Nairobi, Jakarta, Sydney, Washington DC and San Paolo. Software developers, usability experts, emergency planners, technologists, “social media knowledge workers,” project managers, NGOs and university professors met in each of the cities to volunteer or, as Crisis Commons put it, to “crowdsource open source solutions to very real humanitarian problems. There are seven main projects ranging building SMS applications to report amputee needs, near real-time UAV imagery processing to creating a people finder application.” Geeks Without Bounds (GWOBorg) has been a part of several Crisis Commons activities.

Also new on the scene of hackathons for good is Code for America, which, among many activities, hosts or co-hosts hackathons where developers and designers come together in, say, 24 hours, to “build applications for social change” and, sometimes, compete for prizes. Code for America offers its own suggestions for ingredients for a successful hackathon, based on its own experiences.

Jumping on the hackathon bandwagon as of 2007 is GiveCamp, which “a weekend-long event where technology professionals from designers, developers and database administrators to marketers and web strategists donate their time to provide solutions for non-profit organizations.”

Also new on the scene is Data Without Borders, which hosts various kinds of hackathons, also called Data Dives, that provide nonprofits with data analysis (data collection, analysis, visualization, and decision support) by volunteer “data scientists.”

Also listen to this presentation from SXSW about a hackathon in San Francisco related to DonorsChoose.org.

One thing that is both amusing and sad to me about all these hackathon events is that these organizations rarely use the terms volunteers or volunteering. The people contributing their time and talent are teams or pro bono researchers or Data Heroes – anything but volunteers! Very strange… and sad.

Anyway…

If you know of other hackathons for good, hacks4good, hacks for good, onsite crowdsourcing – whatever you want to call these volunteering events – please note the names of such in the comments section of this blog. Web addresses would be particularly helpful!

Also see:

Short-term assignments for tech volunteers

My voluntourism-related & ethics-related blogs (and how I define scam)

 

Do online petitions work?

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Online petitions got off to a very rough start when the Internet went mainstream back in the early 1990s. You may remember one of those early efforts, if you have been on the Internet as long as I have: it was the 1990s, and you got an email written by someone at Brandeis University who wanted to help the women in Afghanistan suffering under the warlords and the Taliban. That email accurately told you about the situation for women in Afghanistan. But the email was inaccurate in suggesting that signing your name to the bottom and forwarding it to all your friends would have any impact on those in power in Afghanistan. The petition’s author was totally unprepared for the consequences of her email petition, and hadn’t thought through how her efforts would pressure any change on a country that had no means to receive her petition, let alone take it seriously. It was one of the earliest forms of Slacktivism or Slackervism – all sorts of people signed it, and I’m sure most of them did nothing else, like giving money to an NGO that was actually trying to help in Afghanistan, because, hey, they signed a petition!

I’ve always wondered what happened to that woman…

Online petitions have evolved since then. While some remain ineffective — just unverifiable names on an online document no one who matters will read — some do generate impact. Online petitions that generate impact have this in common:

  • They are web-based. People sign them via the web, not email. That puts the petition in ONE place, and makes it easier to find online.
  • Signers are required to use a verifiable email address (one that actually works), and to submit full names and full mailing addresses.
  • Each time a supporter signs the petition, an email is automatically sent directly to the person or organization at the government or company being targeted, with the supporter’s full name, full mailing address and his or her message.
  • Signers receive tools and information to help them talk about the issue via their other online activities, as well as their face-to-face, offline activities with family, friends and colleagues.
  • Signers are encouraged to take offline action, and are given all the information they need to do this: to make phone calls, to hand write and mail letters through the post, and to contact their elected officials regarding the issue.
  • The petition has momentum in the media; there are stories in newspapers, on TV, on the radio and in blogs about the issue, and at least some mention the petition drive.

Change.org credits its online petitions with a number of public relations victories on many different issues, including:

Here is more about How Change.org petitions work.

I’m quite transparent about my petition activities.

More about Online Action Creating & Supporting Offline Action

Online volunteers essential to Wikimedia fundraising

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This is my new blog home. Welcome! The more than 600 entries at my blog home for the last five years will move in the coming weeks, I hope (Posterous is working on it). If not, let’s hope they stay at my old blog home indefinitely!

Wikimedia logoInstead of hiring a consultant to lead its annual fall fundraising campaign, as it has in the past, the Wikimedia Foundation is involving online volunteers to design this year’s annual fundraising efforts. About 900 online volunteers have participated in online planning sessions over the past five months, designing and submitting online banners, and testing banners and other fundraising messages. Campaign communications that got the best test results are being adopted. The campaign is already outpacing last year’s in terms of money raised.

Wikipedia is the highest profile activity of Wikimedia, with around 17 million entries in more than 270 languages, but its not the only project of this foundation. Have a look at all the Wikimedia projects to learn more about their various initiatives — all involving online volunteers.

What’s great about this campaign is that the volunteers aren’t being involved because of old-paradigm reasons like “We can’t afford a consultant so we’ll get volunteers to do this activity” or “Online volunteers are free! so we’re going to save money!” No, volunteers are being involved because Wikimedia has realized that volunteers — some of their most dedicated stakeholders — are the BEST people to lead this activity!

In an interview with the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Philippe Beaudette, a former volunteer who is now a Wikimedia Foundation staff member, said volunteers have been essential in making sure this year’s campaign messages are relevant in dozens of different countries where Wikipedia has avid readers. “I wouldn’t know how to ask for money in Zimbabwe, but now I know where to find the volunteers who can ask for money in Zimbabwe,” he says. “The cultural influence and diversity that have come together to support this fund raiser are overwhelming.”

It was assumed that a message from Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, would do better than a solicitation from another spokesperson. But, says Mr. Beaudette, “we tested another banner from a young woman in Jakarta, Indonesia, and her banner did almost as well. She had one memorable line, ‘If you have knowledge, you must share it,’” which proved to be compelling to donors.

Mr. Beaudette says the foundation set out clear rules for participation from the start – something that is essential in effective online volunteering/virtual volunteering. Planning and discussion sessions with online volunteers began weekly and are now daily.

This is at least the second time the Wikimedia Foundation has involved online volunteers in the decision-making processes at the organization: more than a year ago, online volunteers, drawn mostly from the ranks of online volunteer editors of Wikipedia, engaged in a year-long process to develop a strategic plan for the Wikimedia movement. Wikimedia wanted their help in understanding what its initiatives should be in five years, and how Wikimedia could get there from here. I was a volunteer in that process; I started by adding myself to the Wikimedia expert database. I was later asked to join a Wikimedia task force – specifically, the Community Health Task Force. I was able to contribute probably eight hours total, over two weeks. I summarized my own recommendations here, and many of these became a part of the final proposal regarding volunteer recognition at Wikimedia.

As I said in my blog last year spotlighting Wikimedia’s activities, I love it when an organization invites volunteers to contribute to strategic plans, and I love it when they provide an online way to do so. It’s always a good thing to do. No matter what happens, Wikimedia can at least say, “Wow, we have a LOT of community members/volunteers who REALLY care about our future!” Can YOUR nonprofit say that?

But note that this online volunteering effort still requires paid staff to support the volunteers and coordinate their efforts. By the logic of many people, because Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation initiatives involve thousands of online volunteers, the organization should have no budget — because volunteers are FREE, right? Wrong… Even at Wikimedia, online volunteers are not free, and here’s why.