What Open Source Is and How Your Nonprofit Can Benefit
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The document discusses the benefits of open source software for nonprofits, highlighting its role in democratizing technology and fostering innovation. It emphasizes the collaborative nature of open source, showcasing examples of its application in the nonprofit sector, such as projects by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Code for America. The document encourages nonprofits to engage with open source initiatives and leverages its potential to address social challenges effectively.
What Open Source Is and How Your Nonprofit Can Benefit
- 1. What Open Source Is and How Your Nonprofit Can Benefit October 30, 2018
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- 3. A Global Network Bridging Tech Solutions and Services for Good Where are you on the map? Countries Served TechSoup Partner Location NetSquared Local Group
- 4. Acclivity Adobe Alpha Software Atlas Business Solutions Atomic Training Amazon Web Services Autodesk Azavea BetterWorld Bitdefender Blackbaud Bloomerang Box Brocade Bytes of Learning Caspio CauseVox CDI Computer Dealers Cisco Citrix CitySoft CleverReach ClickTime Closerware Comodo Connect2Give Dell Dharma Merchant Services Digital Wish Dolby DonorPerfect DocuSign Efficient Elements FileMaker GoDaddy GrantStation Guide By Cell Headsets.com Horizon DataSys HR Solutions Partners Huddle Idealware InFocus Informz InterConnection Intuit JourneyEd Litmos Little Green Light Mailshell Microsoft Mobile Beacon NetSuite Nielsen NonProfitEasy O&O Software Okta Quickbooks Made Easy Reading Eggs ReadyTalk Red Earth Software Sage Software Shopify Simple Charity Registration Skillsoft Smart Business Savings Society for Nonprofit Organizations Sparrow Mobile Symantec Tableau TechBridge Tech Impact Teespring Telosa Tint Ultralingua Western Digital Zoner
- 5. Explore our Nonprofit Tech Marketplace For more information, please visit www.techsoup.org/get-product-donations "We are an all-volunteer organization with limited professional skills. Adobe's donated technology is helping us present our story to the public and to lenders in the format of a much larger organization. With Adobe, we are able to knock off a few of the "rough edges" so that our story is front and center instead of our technological limitations. Thank you, Adobe!” - Richard de Koster Constitution Island Association, Inc
- 6. Presenters John James VP of Interactive Strategies Case Foundation Sima Thakkar Online Learning Producer TechSoup Assisting with chat: Zerreen Kazi Marketing Associate TechSoup Sima Thakkar Online Learning Producer TechSoup Zerreen Kazi Marketing Associate TechSoup John James VP of Interactive Strategies Case Foundation
- 7. WHAT OPEN SOURCE IS AND HOW YOUR NONPROFIT CAN BENEFIT
- 8. ABOUT ME • John Jones, Vice President of Interactive Strategies • Techie by background, working to spread access to technology via Open Source
- 9. 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.
- 10. OUR SURVEY After this webinar is over, please take our five-minute survey to help us better understand the current state of nonprofit engagement with open source https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MPHPVZR
- 11. OPEN SOURCE: AT THE CENTER OF THE INTERNET
- 12. EARLY DAYS • Early software was mostly shared openly because it was research • Commercial software took off in the 70s, which started replacing the model • Early home computer software was delivered in books of code because disks and other media were too expensive or cumbersome • Academics and enthusiasts started creating and sharing code via the Internet and dial-up services 1960sthrough1980s
- 13. THE WEB • The World Wide Web is both a product of and a cause for success of open source • The Web’s open specification spawned many new browsers and servers • The new Web ecosystem spawned further sharing and collaboration via forums, code communities, etc • Mozilla, the successor to Netscape, was one of the first high-profile open source projects 1990s
- 14. 2000s GROWTH • With both the agile and innovative spirit of open source in addition to the freedom it brought, business saw it is both an efficiency and innovation center • Open source created new business models that provided transparency for users and a distinct value proposition for business • Open source software runs in conjunction with closed source software everywhere
- 16. PRIVATE SECTOR • Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, etc all collaborate on open source projects • Motivations: • Ecosystem creation • Monetization of support and hosting • Enhanced security through transparency • Recognition of the community’s innovative power • In addition, it is a strong attractor for recruitment and retention of top talent • Projects used by for-profits and nonprofits; not exclusively produced for any one group
- 17. GOVERNMENT • Wide recognition at the federal level of the inefficiencies caused by continually and redundantly licensing proprietary software • USDS and 18f created to spawn and make use of open source projects across government • Projects are reused within other government entities • Beginning to see state and local government embrace open source in the same way
- 18. INDIVIDUALS • Individual or small groups of developers contribute passion projects in spare time • Ones that grow to become popular often get absorbed by larger entities, subsist on small-dollar donations, or spin up into startups: • D3 creator brought into NYT • Drupal and WordPress grew into startups Aquia and Automattic • Sites like OpenCollective and Patreon raise funds for small projects
- 19. OPEN SOURCE AS A FORCE MULTIPLIER FOR CHANGEMAKERS
- 20. 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
- 21. 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
- 22. 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, non profits 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
- 23. NONPROFIT SECTOR’S LEADERSHIP ROLE IN OPEN SOURCE • Open source is a way for us (for and nonprofits alike) to engage with others working to tackle problems in the same space • Open source can create serendipitous relationships between producers of a technology and those who need it • Like the broader tech industry, there is much work to do in terms of inclusivity and civility in open source that we must drive
- 25. 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
- 26. CODE FOR AMERICA • Organizes “brigades” of volunteers across the country to solve civic problems using technology • Open by default • Working to encourage their brigades to share and iterate off of each others’ work • Citizens who give their time and talent in addition to the material contribution of their work product as philanthropy
- 27. 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
- 28. 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 and • Cuts traditional fees taken by similar fundraising platforms
- 29. OUR CONTRIBUTION
- 30. #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 • Platform built to accept 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
- 31. ANALYTICS DASHBOARD • Team dedicated to ongoing digital A/B testing, analytics review and recommendation generation received ongoing requests for more realtime 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 other data sources https://github.com/casefoundation/analytics-dashboard
- 32. 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
- 33. 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
- 34. SOME WAYS TO GET STARTED
- 35. USING OPEN SOURCE • When taking on a new project, consider how the problem: A. might already be solved by an open source solution B. is a problem many encounter and could be an open source project • Make sure your vendors are open source friendly • Work with a trusted team of partners and tech vendors to help solve these challenges
- 36. FINDING OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS • Identify open source projects that are “active” along the following criteria: • Recent updates within the past few months, not years • A high amount of ticket/issue activity • Many open issues does not necessarily mean the project is not good • Projects which have notable sponsorships are often extremely well-managed and maintained
- 37. CONTRIBUTING TO OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS • If you find an open source solution is a close fit but needs more work, consider if that change is worth sharing. (Some open source licenses actually stipulate this.) • Engage with the project’s team or community to understand if it fits their plans or is something they are exploring – perhaps the work could be a partnership opportunity
- 38. CREATING NEW OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS • Take a step back to see if the problem you are solving could help many • Engage with peers to see if it is something they are looking at
- 39. QUESTIONS
- 40. REACH OUT! Twitter: @johnjones4 GitHub: casefoundation & johnjones4 Email: [email protected]
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