Charitable techies can now donate their skills to nonprofits in need

The platform #charity enables IT professionals to donate their time and tech skills to nonprofits, saving those organizations much needed funds.

Technology is a mixed blessing for many of nonprofits. While apps such as SnapDonate and Charitweet make it easier than ever for people to make donations, tech development and upkeep can cost NGOs a lot of money which is desperately needed elsewhere.

With this in mind, a new platform called #charity is encouraging IT professionals to donate their time and specialist tech skills to nonprofits in need, helping those organizations to reduce costs and put the money back into their missions.

Charities of all sizes can list their IT needs, one project at a time, on #charity for free. Volunteers can sign up to the network and #charity will smartmatch them with the project that best suits their skills and interests — using an algorithm which scan’s participants LinkedIn profiles. #charity assign project managers to ensure the right people are in place and they also backup all the volunteers’ work on their platform in case they are not able to complete the task. Support is provided throughout for both parties — ensuring everyone’s experience is as smooth and efficient as possible.

#charity is set to launch in March. It currently has 350 participants on board and is accepting registration for early access. There are pilot programs underway involving Action Against Hunger, Moneythink and Syria Deeply. Are there other specialist skills which could be crowdsourced from charitable workers to save NGOs money?