You may be familiar with the NTC (Nonprofit Technology Conference) hosted by NTEN. It's taking place this year in San Francisco from April 26-28th. There is always a full menu of networking sessions, affinity group meetings, conference panels, activities, and of course, The Day of Service. The Day of Service is an opportunity for nonprofit techies to give back to the local community - in form of sharing knowledge one-on-one with a local organization or participate in a group project like installing a wireless network in a homeless shelter!
I participated in my first Day of Service in 2001 as a volunteer. I got to work with a colleague and provided on-site training for a local environmental group on how to use excel, word, and powerpoint! The following year, in Orlando, I coordinated the event as a consultant to NTEN along with Cheryl Hanback. And, I've been doing it every year ever since.
Last week at Netsquared Net Tuesday, Peter Campbell, IT Director at Earthjustice, created the above slideshow that offers an overview of the Day of Service.
This year's Day of Service will take place on April 26th and there are several options to volunteer. We host a strategy session where we pair up local nonprofits with nonprofit technology experts on a variety of topics - from online fundraising strategy to giving advice on databases. There's also a high demand for social media consults. The list of organizations and projects is here:
This year will send two groups of nonprofit techies to install a wireless network donated by Cisco at different locations in San Francisco.
This project doesn't require hard core technical expertise - and is a lot of fun. The locations:
- St. Anthony’s: Located in the heart of San Francisco’s Tenderloin District, you will install a network in one of St. Anthony’s, a multi-service social service nonprofit, at one of their low income housing projects.
- Treasure Island: You will help install a wireless network that will help provide free wireless internet to low income residents of Treasure Island, located in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Every year we also do a group community project. This year we will be installing two wireless networks in San Francisco thanks to Cisco
This year we have had far more requests from nonprofits for volunteers than ever! We need about 100 volunteers so that we don't have to turn down nonprofits. So far, we have approximately 40 signed up. So, if you are coming to the NTC and want a chance to give back to the local nonprofit community (and have some great fun and networking with colleagues), please come join us. You can sign up here.
You don't have to be registered for the conference to participate. So, what are you waiting for? You can sign up here and pass it along to your colleagues.
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