Treating Open Source as Pro Bono Work
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The document discusses the Case Foundation's commitment to open source as a form of philanthropy that drives innovation and democratizes technology in the nonprofit sector. It outlines various open source projects initiated by the foundation and emphasizes the importance of skills-based volunteering in promoting impactful open source contributions. The document serves as a call to action for nonprofits and technologists to collaborate and leverage open source as a means to address social challenges effectively.
Treating Open Source as Pro Bono Work
- 1. TREATING OPEN SOURCE AS PRO BONO
- 2. ABOUT ME • John Jones, Vice President of Interactive Strategies • Developer by background, working to drive expanded open source engagement in the nonprofit world
- 3. ABOUT THE CASE FOUNDATION • Created in 1997 by digital pioneers Jean and Steve Case, the Case Foundation invests in people and ideas that can change the world. • We focus on inspiring and raising up all to Be Fearless • We work to catalyze movements and collaboration to bring forward ideas that have transformative potential and can lead us to uncover new, more impactful ways of addressing chronic social challenges. • Today we are driving at two major movements—impact investing and inclusive entrepreneurship.
- 4. WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT? • Why open source can be considered a form of pro bono work • How that fits into our larger view of open source driving tech-for-good • How its happening in the sector now • How to get involved in impactful open source work
- 5. OPEN SOURCE AS A PHILANTHROPIC ACT
- 6. GIFTS OF CODE • Open source is a form of philanthropy • One gift of code can have unlimited beneficiaries • Both organizations and individuals can embrace this type of philanthropy as an alternative or supplement to financial support • Grants funding development of technology should stipulate creation of open source software to extend the reach of that financial contribution
- 7. ACCELERATION OF INNOVATION • The collaborative and transparent nature of open source is a force- multiplier for changemaking efforts • By sharing and embracing open source software, nonprofits can kickstart collaboration, increase efficiency and share successes and encourage others to iterate off failures • We have seen it deployed in multiple environments and see great potential for open source to make a real impact in the non-profit world
- 8. DEMOCRATIZATION OF TECH • Open source software lowers the barrier to entry for technology and therefore furthers the democratization of technology • It is an onramp for those without all of the technical knowhow necessary to create innovative products and services • It is often at competitive parity with closed-source software thus lowering the financial barrier to entry
- 9. CASE FOUNDATION’S COMMITMENT TO OPEN SOURCE • We believe in the power of open source to advance the great work of the nonprofit sector • Spreading the word to our peer foundations and nonprofits • “Walking the walk” by open sourcing most of the technology we build in service of our various programs • Launching four open source projects in 2018 – three are out, one on the way
- 10. OUR CONTRIBUTION
- 11. #FACESOFFOUNDERS • Our first foray into releasing open source projects • Campaign launched in late 2016 to gather stories of diverse entrepreneurs and showcase them using a profile-picture generator • We built a custom platform to take in this user content and provide a reviewing platform for a distributed panel of judges • Users of the platform, impressed by the functionality, inquired about reusing it for future work https://github.com/casefoundation/Faces-of-Founders-Platform
- 12. ANALYTICS DASHBOARD • Team dedicated to ongoing digital A/B testing, analytics review and general data analysis received ongoing requests for more real- time information • We designed and built a dashboard to query Google Analytics and other data sources to combine the information not possible with other dashboard platforms • Open sourced and extensible to support any number of additional data sources https://github.com/casefoundation/analytics-dashboard
- 13. WEEKLY ROUNDUP • Our Marketing and Communications team would spend hours collecting and formatting news clips every week for a staff email • With this platform, they simply paste-in a URL, and it scrapes the title title, publication, date, and description for them • Users may break clips into sections and reorder as necessary • Sends beautiful, branded email to staff with clipped news stories https://github.com/casefoundation/weekly-roundup
- 14. REVIEW-O-MATIC • Built in 2017 to power the review process in our Finding Fearless campaign • Organizes stories submitted via a form and assigns them for review to a panel of judges • Easily adaptable for any submit/review/decide process such as conference proposal submissions, crowdsourcing, etc https://github.com/casefoundation/review-o-matic
- 15. NONPROFITS AND OTHERS EMBRACING OPEN SOURCE FOR GOOD
- 16. BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION • Created Mojaloop, an open source project that enables interoperability between banks and newer forms of financial mechanisms sprouting up in the developing world • Using open source to build an ecosystem • Open ecosystem supports financial inclusion while still maintaining a competitive market for innovation
- 17. CODE FOR AMERICA • Organizes “brigades” of volunteers across the country to solve community and civic problems using technology • Brigades build and share solutions using open source – and we’re starting to see solutions shared between cities • Citizens who give their time and talent in addition to the material contribution of their work product as philanthropy
- 18. TIDEPOOL • Diabetes devices didn’t communicate and relied on proprietary software for analysis of the data • Worked with manufacturers to open those data standards • Created software for working with all of these devices for consumers • Funded via research institutions using their software
- 19. GIVESOURCE • Open source fundraising platform designed to power Giving Days • Created in partnership between B-Corp Firespring, Lincoln Community Foundation and the Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science • Built with a focus on portability and scalability for any size campaign • Cuts traditional fees taken by similar fundraising platforms
- 20. BUT WHY AND HOW CAN WE USE OPEN SOURCE TO GIVE BACK?
- 21. WHY SHOULD YOU GIVE BACK? • Year over year, we see a growth in the percentage of pro bono and CSR programs that leverage “skills- based” volunteering – up to 50% in 2017* • Open source is the perfect venue for the tech industry to give back • This is an opportunity to make volunteering count for something, not as just a goodwill gesture • It’s also easily measurable *http://cecp.co/home/resources/giving-in-numbers/
- 22. WHAT HELP DO NONPROFITS NEED? • Many nonprofits contract with commercial platforms that are slow to adapt and feature poor • Open source makes cutting-edge technology accessible, but there is still a barrier to entry • At the end of the day, a GitHub project page is a little intimidating to a non-technical user • Changemakers and technologists think about problems in different ways …
- 23. CHANGEMAKERS PEOPLE OUTCOMES TECHNOLOGISTS PRODUCT OUTCOMES
- 24. HOW TO THINK ABOUT GIVING BACK WITH OPEN SOURCE • Remember that your approach, expertise, and personal experiences are different • Use an organization’s mission to drive a tech strategy in terms of scope and scale • Be a mini-consultant and an educator for organizations you work with • Set them up to succeed in the long-run with stable technologies and good documentation
- 25. WHERE TO FIND THESE OPPORTUNITIES HIGH LEVEL • Think locally – how can you give back to your community or your neighbor • Consider you and your teams’ core technical competencies and individual passions • Find opportunities to open source your own work in an impactful way • Look at what industry peers may be doing– can you apply what they have done?
- 26. WHERE TO FIND THESE OPPORTUNITIES PRACTICAL LEVEL • Personal and local networks • Catchafire.org • VolunteerMatch.org • TaprootPlus.org • OpenHatch.org
- 27. WRAP UP
- 28. • Open source is philanthropy and it accelerates the work of nonprofits, but they need help accessing • Skills-based volunteering now accounts for 50% of all volunteer work – where are the developers? • Giving back via open source is a way to actually perform meaningful volunteering • Think locally and as a mini-consultant and educator when giving back
- 29. QUESTIONS? REACH OUT! Twitter: @johnjones4 GitHub: casefoundation & johnjones4 Email: johnj@casefoundation.org