Development Philanthropy
Every developer (or designer of course) comes to that point in their career where they realise they no longer have to make websites just to survive. They’re either making enough money to reduce their work schedule, or they’ve even decided to start something in the after hours. Either way, it seems we all eventually come to the point where we want to contribute to the community (in or outside this industry) and do something good. Because we’re all inherently good, aren’t we? 
Of course if you’re like me, you tend to bite off more than you can chew (oops), so I ended up with two side projects for charity – both with the same basic deadline – but both such fantastic ideas, I just couldn’t say no.
This Place Is Yours
This Place is Yours has nothing to do with our industry, but deals with something close to my heart – mental health. For those of you who never met me, you probably don’t know my secret – for the past 3 years I’ve dealt with severe anxiety disorder. Yep, I really am a crazy person. I found it’s actually pretty common in this industry to have this, and I know a few more promininent people who do – I think we’re all attracted to this industry because we can hide behind our computers. 
What This Place is Yours is going to be, is a community where people with social or mental health issues can come together, connect with others and write articles and entries about what they have to deal with. Even if you’re not suffering from a mental health issue, but are still concerned with what’s going on in the world today, This Place is Yours has something for you.
On this project, I’m only the developer, but hope I can make the time to be of more use in the future. You can follow the project’s leader, Seema Duggal, on Twitter.
View the project’s:
Hire.im
I’ve teamed up with the lovely Paul Maloney again to make Hired.im. We’ve created a job board that gives back – essentially 50% of the listing fees goes directly to CodeClub. CodeClub is essentially a fantastic charity aimed at getting kids interested in coding, and bringing classes to as many schools as possible.
We originally kicked around the possibility of doing multiple charities, or of even allowing the user to choose which charity their listing fee went to, but in the end decided that we really wanted to keep it in the industry – and what better way than to help you get a job, while training job seekers of the future? Eh? Eh?
Eventually we’re hoping to get CodeClub to make us an API so we can also integrate with their volunteer openings to help them find people who’d like to help as well. Plus who wouldn’t want to hire someone who’s helped out kiddies? It’s that circle of helping that I think will make Hired.im really successful.
In case you were wondering on pronunciation, Hired.im originally started out as a sort of pun on (I’m Hired), but someone on Twitter thought it was “Hired ‘em”, and I kinda like that too.
We’re hoping to launch within a month or so, and are currently trying to raise money to pay for our hosting and marketing fees, as well as to be able to take a week or so off of client work to be able to focus only on Hired.im. We’re also looking for sponsors for a little launch party or even some prizes to give away. Please let us know if you’re interested in helping!
You can learn more by viewing the project’s:
If you can’t contribute to either of these campaigns, that’s really ok. We would just love it if you picked one and help spread the word.
What About You?
I’d also love to hear about the projects you’ve been working on or supporting for a community.
About the author
Amber Weinberg specializes in clean and semantic HTML5, CSS3, responsive and WordPress development. She has over 15 years of coding experience and is super cool to work with.
Amber is available for freelance work, so why not hire her for your next project?