History of Karma Geek

From KarmaGeek

It all started at Mashup Camp 3

Here are the notes from the first session.

Shimmy Mehta of Angelwish.org initiated a discussion on taking developer skills and leveraging them to help local nonprofit organizations. Taking an example from Angelwish.org, which makes it easy for people to grant wishes to children living with HIV/AIDS anywhere in the world (wish granting in the US and UK is facilitated through an Amazon.com mashup ZDNet interview

Shimmy raised the idea that each of us as developers have the ability to really increase the efficiency of our local nonprofits with basic IT support or with a mashup based on the particular needs of the nonprofit. An example could be to help a "meals on wheels" program insert delivery information and meal information into google maps to provide the delivery volunteers with a clear map of where to go. This simple, low maintenance creation might save them a great deal of time.

Kevin Lawver has registered karmageek.org (wiki) to start a community where non-profits can find help from developers and other content area experts.

Needed: volunteers to KarmaGeek get off the ground and start operating today.

Possible Strategic Plans:

Strategic Plan 1:

• Develop a simple toolkit of free or donated software that could be of use to nonprofits and can be configured by even a basic developer. More advanced technology can follow.
• Locate developers, technologists, volunteers who can donate 2 hours of their time demonstrating how to install/configure the tools to high school and college students and to develop training materials for the nonprofits.
• Set up the Karmageek infrastructure with financial support from the companies whose technology is offered. Grants will be made to schools where we participate.
• Maximize the developer's two hours by having them instruct the students in person or on video. Perhaps several team members come to a school at once.
• The students will invite nonprofits that they are involved with in the community to come into the classroom so that the students can work on the projects in the safety of the school.
• Expand offerings once the model takes hold.

Impacts:

• Developers are sharing their knowledge with the maximum benefit in a manner that appreciates their limited time.
• Students get access to and instruction from experts in the field as well as the opportunity to demonstrate their skills for possible internships/jobs. Schools should benefit from a donation towards their technology needs.
• A significantly larger number of nonprofits will benefit from enhanced technology that they would otherwise not been able to use.

In the future, the possibilities might be broad enough for us to consider doing the following larger scale projects: Option 2:

• Charity fills out grant application with their project specifics. Choose categories: 2 hours, 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years
• KarmaGeek's volunteers develop/write RFP's on behalf of grantees
• Vendors/Service Providers with people on the beach, PR needs, need to develop new areas of expertise within their organization, etc. BID for RFP's
• KarmaGeek chooses the best vendor/service provider and solidifies contract between service provider and charity
• Karmageek monitors project progress and rates/critiques upon completion. Somehow manages reputation process in a way that remains grateful to pro-bono service providers and doesn't hurt their businesses.

The Business Development needs for this initiative are as follows:

Do some more research to avoid duplication of effort/determine if we can integrate this program into an existing organization to avoid the hassle of registering as a separate 501c3 organization.

• Start by getting a bunch of web shops and teams of geeks, as well as individual developers and project managers, signed up and committed.
• Create a community interaction page/forum where different members of this community can suggest to others that they join together to bid for an RFP, etc. Great way for programmers to meet and connect with other folks!
• KarmaGeek maintains geeks' commitment to join, gives marquis PR to members: banners for the larger webshops, links to sites for the individual contributors... the point is that the suppliers are getting some positive publicity and linkage in return for their helping out
• Once this infrastructure is in place, approach the non-profit community through networking and listservs to start to receive project applications

Folks who helped talk about this:

   * Shimmy Mehta
   * Peter Farland
   * Nate Ritter
   * Kevin Lawver
   * Elizabeth Herren, John's Wife!
   * Luke Gedeon
   * Fesp21
   * Jeremy Lueck
   * Isabel Hilborn