Good intentions services

I'm thinking about what it would take to offer IT services to non-profit organizations or other good intentions groups/charities. I need to see if there is even a need for free IT services (I would imagine there is...) for these organizations. For example, the womens breast cancer outer-city support group (made up example) would like to have their own website/email/company to order supplies from... Stuff like that.

My question is, would anyone (experienced or non-experienced) be interested in offering their time to help maintain the IT side of things for free experience if the "data center" was located in your town?

What if we just setup a VPN and you helped maintained the services from home?

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Essendon

Good intentions mate, lemme know if I can be on any help. Live in Melbourne, so perhaps a VPN is the only option. Havent researched on this topic, but I have been interviewed for my city's best hospital, didnt make it though. I love IT, and working for a not-for-profit org/charity would be a great step. If not more, give them a Saturday/Sunday out of the weekend. If it helps the community in any way, I am in for it...

Mishra

For people that are reading, even if your answer is "no" do you mind posting a quick opinion? Thanks.

RTmarc

I know I wouldn't mind just so long as it is understood it would be services rendered according to my availability.

Mishra

RTmarc wrote:

I know I wouldn't mind just so long as it is understood it would be services rendered according to my availability.

Definitely. An idea is there would be jobs posted that people could grab and do on their own time... Like "Betty needs these accounts added to zimbra" or "the apache server needs a new virtual_host added". Then someone would claim the work and do it.

dynamik

Could you be more specific with what you would be doing and requiring of people as well as the intended scope of this endeavor?

Is this hypothetical? Are you just trying to see how many of us would do volunteer work or is this something you are actually considering doing?

sthomas

Mishra wrote:

I'm thinking about what it would take to offer IT services to non-profit organizations or other good intentions groups/charities. I need to see if there is even a need for free IT services (I would imagine there is...) for these organizations. For example, the womens breast cancer outer-city support group (made up example) would like to have their own website/email/company to order supplies from... Stuff like that.

My question is, would anyone (experienced or non-experienced) be interested in offering their time to help maintain the IT side of things for free experience if the "data center" was located in your town?

What if we just setup a VPN and you helped maintained the services from home?

I think that is a good idea. Just keep in mind that most medium sized non profit organizations will probably have in house IT Staff or hire consultants. I could see small non profit organizations benefiting from something like this. Alot of the work could be done remotely but some would be required onsite.

Mishra

dynamik wrote:

Could you be more specific with what you would be doing and requiring of people as well as the intended scope of this endeavor?

Is this hypothetical? Are you just trying to see how many of us would do volunteer work or is this something you are actually considering doing?

I don't have too much more information aside from what I posted as this is just a new idea right now. But I would need people to help out with the day-to-day activities that the organizations would require... Maybe an update of a website or a new email account or a new spam server.

I need to see if anyone has any interest in the idea and based on that information, decide whether to pursue it further.

sthomas: Yeah my audience would be the organizations that don't have any IT support at all. I could offer free services, build up a name, and probably be a shoe-in for free/low cost support for mid sized orgs after that.

dynamik

I guess I didn't see where the data center fit in.

You can use Rackspace or Mosso for web hosting and email and Volusion for e-commerce. They are reliable and affordable. Is there a reason you'd want to build things from the ground up? How are you going to finance this?

I use Mosso, and I love it. $100/month for as many websites as I want as long as I stay within the storage and bandwidth constraints. It looks like they give you 50gb storage and 500gb transfer if you sign up now. I'm at 80gb and 2tb transfer because I signed up early

hypnotoad

I think it is a good idea....

Your services/donations could probably be a tax write-off, if you donated services to the appropriate 501(c)(3) organizations.

Non-profits do make a lot of money. I have worked for a couple. They act poor, but they make money like anyone else. Use this to your advantage if you desire.

Non-profits are always well-connected to community people. Get in good with them

However, you might want to set a limit of who you provide service to. Do you offer service to religiously-affiliated groups, for example, or groups with an annual budget of more than $1 million?

BTW, if you run a non-profit, check out this site: www.techsoup.com. You can get a brand-new Cisco ASA firewall for like $136 if you qualify.
Here's some examples at techsoup (hardware for qualifying non-profits):
- Catalyst 2960 24 port gigabit switch for $104
- Cisco ASA 5505 and 5510 for $136 and $360, respectively

I'd volunteer. I'm in Iowa. Yes, THE Iowa.

cisco_trooper

Why not volunteer some time when you have it? Someone has to do it or these organizations will have a hard time staying in existence. You never know when you are going to be the one seeking one of them. Let's all be responsible and help out when we can.

My quarter's worth...

Mishra

dynamik: Thats why I put it in quotes.

I said data center just meaning wherever the operation is. I mentioned it because I'm not sure if people are really hip on the idea of IT work purely remotely.

As for right now I can start with the equipment I have and someone else I know has lots of equipment that I can use. I can easily get an IT footing, the hardest part is establishing the business from there. Building the infrastructure may teach me a few more things and makes it exciting and is cost efficient. I can invest some money into it but just starting out and throwing the bait out probably isn't going to cost me too much.

Thats cool that they have special discounts for non-profits. Yeah the tax write-offs are huge plus I think you can also sign up to purchase things for the business tax free.

cisco_trooper

Make sure you get the business set up correctly to avoid IRS troubles. You can find the info online if you are willing, but I would probably save the time and spend a couple hundred on a lawyer so you KNOW it is right, and save yourself a lot of time.

RTmarc

While you are talking to that lawyer, find out your liabilities too. Let's face it, we ALL have screwed up and deleted the wrong files or lost a backup or corrupted a database or 'fill in the blank' that has caused some serious issues for the companies we are employed. What happens and what are your obligations/responsibilities should you - or one of the techs volunteering time/resources - should this type of event happen and you are a volunteer.

Don't get me wrong. I definitely dig the idea and would be willing to do something along those lines but I always want to make sure that my tail is covered first.