As a provider of membership management software,
we are highly aware that associations, non-profits and other membership
organizations rely
on technology to fulfill their missions and support their constituents.
However, many of these groups have few technical resources to
draw upon.
At the same time, there are many people with technical expertise, but
little time
for volunteering.
Luckily, there are some wonderful initiatives, like GiveCamp (that I wrote about last week) and now Donate Your Brain – from TechSoup – filling this gap.
Donate Your Brain is a new micro-volunteering venture where individuals can volunteer their time and expertise in small micro-bursts of time that suit their schedules. It is designed to enable “nonprofits, NGOs,
libraries, government agencies and other social mission-based
organizations to ask tech-related questions and get quick answers and
suggestions for their Internet, software, and other tech needs.”
How does this work?
- Non-profits and other mission-based organizations can post questions:
- TechSoup staff will regularly go through the forum and tag appropriate questions with Donate Your Brain (DYB) and post these to Twitter, tagged with #TechSoupDYB
- TechSoup staff will also post selected messages from the TechSoup Community Forum that have been tagged as DYB to the TechSoup Global LinkedIn group.
- TechSoup staff will ensure answers to DYB questions get posted to the appropriate thread of the TechSoup Community Forum.
To find out more about Donate Your Brain – how to ask questions or how you can donate your brain – check out TechSoup’s DYB page.
Donating a little time may be worth a lot
Whether volunteers offer their expertise for a weekend
(through GiveCamp) or a few minutes (answering questions for DYB), their micro-volunteering efforts can provide non-profits with the technical expertise they need.
Thanks to Shari Ilsen for her post on the Engaging Volunteers blog that introduced me to this great initiative.
Photo source: Antonio Monerris photostream