A GiveCamp is a weekend-long event where software developers, designers, database administrators and project managers donate their time to create custom software for non-profit organizations. This custom software could be a new website for the nonprofit organization, a small data-collection application to keep track of members, or an application for the Red Cross that automatically emails a blood donor three months after they’ve donated blood to remind them that they are now eligible to donate again. The only limitation is that the project should be scoped to be able to be completed in a weekend. If you don’t know if your idea can be completed in a weekend, give us as much information as you can in the application.

You can get an application here.

Success for each charity depends on a couple of things, but all starts with involvement. It's critical that members of the charity be available before, during and after the event to ensure that your development team is successful. If your organization is selected, the following requirements are made:

• a representative from your charity must attend the kick-off meeting on Friday afternoon. This person should be knowledgeable about the proposal document and the work that our developers are being asked to do.
• at least one representative from your charity must be available either in person or by phone during the weekend so that any questions about the website can be answered and the team has the information they need to complete their assigned tasks
• Members of your organization that will be maintaining the site after the event is over are encouraged to attend one of the various training sessions that will be conducted during the weekend. These sessions will include training on the various technical solutions used to build the applications as well as sessions on various Social Media techniques to expand the impact of your organization online.
• lastly, at least one member of the Charity must attend the demo on Sunday afternoon to see the results and take possession of the updated website code. The person who attends the demo should be your organization's technical expert.

It goes without saying that the most successful charity projects result from a strong commitment to participate by members of the charity, so you're strongly encouraged to be on site each day.

If you already have your own hardware or a hosting provider, you will be provided with instructions on how to deploy your new application. If not, we are asking for sponsorship from local and national hosting providers to provide hosting for free or at a discounted rate.

We will select the number of charities to be helped based on the number of developer volunteers we receive. Our goal is to provide support to 13 charities in the local DFW area. If you are one of the charities that are selected, a GiveCamp business analyst will contact you to finalize your design requirements. The selected charities will be published to the GiveCamp website on Aug 6th. Selected charities will also be emailed to confirm their participation and an additional meeting with the assigned Business Analyst will be set up.

Event Timeline:

1. Application: The first step is to submit an application. These applications will be reviewed by our team and we will narrow the list of charites down to the semi-finalists. Applications are due before Wed Aug 1. You can get an application here.
2. Semi-Finalists: We will announce the Semi-Finalists on Mon Aug 6. Each one of these charities will be asked to fill out a detailed proposal, that must be completed by Wed Aug 22. After that a member of our team will conduct an interview to clarify any details about the charities and project. After all the interviews have been completed our team will review each project and select the 13 finalists that will be invited to participate in this years event. Finalists will be anounced on Wed Sept 5.
3. Finalists: We will assign a project manager to each charity on Wed Sep 5. The project manager will be responsible for communication between the GiveCamp volunteers and the charity. They will work with the charity throughout the rest of the process including GiveCamp weekend itself.
4. Orientation: On Wed Sept 19 at the Orientation Dinner each team will be staffed with volunteers.
5. GiveCamp Weekend: On Fri Oct 26 - Sun Oct 28 the charities and teams will work together to build & deploy the applications.
6. Wrap up: On Wed Nov 21 we will all get together for a fun Thank You and Lessions Learned meeting.

View Charities from other Events:

• Oct 2012
• Oct 2011