Ask HN: Best ways to volunteer?
What are some of the best ways to volunteer as someone working in tech? Many of us have valuable skills that we can put to use such as software engineering, data analysis, product management, project management, etc.
What are some of the best ways to use those skills to help out those in need?
Ideas that come to mind: * Contributing to civic tech projects * Contributing to open source projects * Helping out non-profits * Donating money made by using the aforementioned skills
Which methods of volunteering or giving back do you think are most effective?
95 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 225 ms ] threadHe didn't exactly enjoy it; he merely saw his skills as bringing an obligation to service along with them, and acted accordingly.
Never forgot that...
> This organization @OSPASafeEscape helps victims of domestic abuse & they are looking for volunteers like @hexplates to help this important mission.
https://twitter.com/k8em0/status/1205519304046739456
[0]: https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf [1]: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/charity/against-malaria-foun...
Some of the students were first-generation children of immigrants or came from neighborhoods with chronic poverty who never owned a computer and are now earning scholarships and pursuing CS degrees, so I felt we were making an direct impact.
https://www.catchafire.org
Librarians love it when tech people come in to help. They don't have technical skills and most techies don't seem to think about volunteering at the library.
My goal: To help local libraries provide a free coding bootcamp to anybody who wants to learn.
Libraries are a beautiful place. They don't discriminate against anyone regardless of social status, race, gender, etc.
This is a great idea! Thanks for doing this. Have you had your first session yet? How did it go?
Do you use the library computers for your coding bootcamp?
I plan to start small (intentionally so) to build a core group of students and then slowly grow from there. Over the past year The more senior students will pass knowledge down to the more junior ones.
Currently its still too early to determine if there are issues or if things are going well, but we have about 5 students that show up.
> Do you use the library computers for your coding bootcamp?
If students don't have their own computers, we have ssh access for them to code on our computer using a borrowed laptop from the library. VSCode supports remote coding so that's cool. You also have tools like coder.com and repl.it that allows students to code without owning a computer.
Thanks for the great idea
https://repl.it/site/classrooms
All it takes is to create a meetup account and schedule something! People will come.
The hardest part is to stick to a consistent schedule so people know when / how to find you for help. This usually means saying no to regular social events that your friends may invite you to.
TBH, donating is pretty good too, as it lets people who are a bit more specialized in doing the work get on with it, rather than training up someone who 'wants to help'. Depends a lot on the organization though, I think.
They basically have a "job" board for different categories of tasks that can be done remotely online including design, web site building, other tasks, etc.
It's not the easiest†, as many orgs might be overseas so working asynchronously is almost a given. Budgets for them are often next-to-none, but their service demands are usually relatively low.
I highly recommend giving them a look. There are a lot of great, small, un[der]funded organizations trying to help people in despair, impoverished children get a leg up, children in troubled homes meet new potential—all kinds—and they need the help because they can rarely afford to pay for it, but the ability to manage something like a website and blog that gives them increased exposure and ease of contact is a huge boon.
They also need online English teachers, researchers, project managers, writers, the list goes on.
https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en
Tech options: https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en/opportunities?f[0]=fie...
† edit: To clarify, many of the technical needs are relatively simple—though there seem to be some more challenging options appearing as well. The harder part may be effective communication and understanding—though the people I've worked with have always been great and understanding and just want to deliver the most because they're doing what they do precisely because they care. They're not getting rich.
[0]: https://www.firstinspires.org/ways-to-help/volunteer
No, thank you. FOSS developers are usually skilled and self-motivated engineers, so corporate-style control is unnecessary or harmful.
Money, quality code, bug fixes, documentation, publicity (there are so many great but little-known FOSS projects), or a simple display of appreciation for the authors' work are all welcome.
If you have such a background and enjoy working with kids you can be quite helpful by (1.) helping students keep from falling so far behind in school that they're unable to pass their classes (2.) providing an example of what it looks like for an adult to be passionate about math and science topics (I think many of these students don't have many such examples).
I'm not sure it's the highest-impact thing I could be doing (i.e. maybe I could have a greater positive impact by donating the hourly value of my time to some charity) but if you're interested in boots-on-the-ground volunteer work that involves in-person work I'd highly recommend it.
People on HN like to say "Software is eating the world" but when I look at my city, none of the biggest problems I see are going to be solved by more software.
Your software skills only have "a market rate of a couple hundred bucks an hour" because companies like Amazon and Facebook and Google are paying that. You're in a bubble. Small companies and non-profits aren't paying that. Mega-corporations can pay that only because they have massive scale. If one software developer can produce value for a million users, that person is worth a ton of money to the company. The non-profit in your backyard does not share that attribute. Your FAANG salary is not in any way relevant to them.
Finally, every programmer knows there's no such thing as resolving all maintenance "in a few hours". Software maintenance is a never-ending task. Take something that wasn't computerized, and computerize it, and now you've simplified one task for that volunteer org, while creating a new recurring cost for them. (You've taken a visible cost that anyone can help with, and turned it into an invisible cost that requires an expensive specialist.) I've seen countless cases where an org said "We got this new software (for cheap/free) that will help us!", and then 2 months later they're trying to get support, and the person who set it up is long gone.
Please, just give money, and let the organization decide how to use it. They aren't stupid. They know how to hire software people, when that is their most pressing need. Usually it isn't.
A day of you doling out soup to people or picking up trash won't be worth any more than what someone who does it for a living is paid. And it will probably be substantially less because you're not practiced at it.
A day of you building houses (assuming you have no training) could very well be negative if someone has to come along and fix your work later.
A day of a non-profit employee's work should be worth at least what their salary suggests. (They're chronically underpaid because of the conventional wisdom that high wages are a red flag. This is patently insane and unfair.)
A day of you working closely to your profession is probably worth something similarly close to your salary.
Now, if no one is picking up trash and you want it picked up, then by all means go pick it up.
But otherwise, if in other contexts it'd be a waste of your time, it's still a waste of your time when donating, so consider donating money.
That raises the question: why do so many non-profits have all these worthless volunteer activities?
First, they do tend to focus on young people whose labor isn't worth much to begin with, so they're not losing as much.
And many volunteer efforts simply need a lot of warm bodies. There's no way to canvass for votes, for instance, without having a horde of people knocking on doors.
And I suspect many volunteer activities are also a great way to raise publicity and connect with donors.
A day every 2-4 weeks of working closely to your profession might be, but less frequently than that and most high-skill professions will spend most of their time having to re-orient to what the needs are or get the details of where the org is today vs. where it was three months ago. I've done volunteer work where I spent over half the time figuring out what they needed. What they really needed was money to hire someone that they could get to do that same thing on a consistent basis so that overhead didn't take up more than half of the donation.
Is it?
[We] seem incapable of stating the obvious truth: that we who are well off should be willing to share more of what we have with poor people not for the poor people's sake but for our own; i.e., we should share what we have in order to become less narrow and frightened and lonely and self-centered people David Foster Wallace
then it’s the exact opposite of a waste.
The idea was that you might be doing it yourself because, in that case, your surroundings being clean and beautiful is something you desire.
> ... we should share what we have in order to become less narrow and frightened and lonely and self-centered people
Wallace's view of humanity is self-serving and awful. He's a noble savior, the poor people are helpless without their saviors, and everyone else is frightened, lonely, self-centered, etc.
A better approach is one founded in gratitude, wherein charity is merely one form of expression of gratitude.
Out of context i guess i could see that reading being something you could conclude. It’s not well supported overall, though.
> ... gratitude
Sure; but the notion that “do it because it’s the right thing to do, and it’s a good way to say thank you” is not at all at odds with “... and by way of ‘you’re welcome’, you’ll be less of a lonely prick!”
It’s kind of an open philosophical question whether or not a purely altruistic act is even possible (where i do X to you, X is good, and I don’t get anything in return that is also good) — why mince words about it? (cf kierkegaard, among many others). There’s no particular shame in acknowledging that charity rewards both parties.
Volunteer labor can often be a resource suck whereas money is money.
Research effective altruism and see GiveWell’s most effective charities list (updated a week ago).
Recommended listening: Sam Harris interviews the founder of effective altruism. https://samharris.org/podcasts/being-good-and-doing-good/
Recommended reading: Doing Good Better by Will Macaskill.
so for example, when i wanted to learn how to do home improvements, i volunteered at habitat for humanity to help build houses for other people. for my 5 townhome build, i helped with everything from the framing to the cabinetry (also gratifying was meeting and working with the eventual homeowners).
when my cat passed away and i wanted to rescue another cat, i volunteered at a kitten nursery. i mostly cleaned kennels and fed kittens, but i also got to socialize them and (eventually) pick the one i wanted to adopt.
I guess if you're only focused on the "we need a website update" sort of problems, that's less true.