News

Sponsor GiveCamp

Tue, 08 May 2012 22:45:51 GMT

GiveCamp attracts the best and brightest talent, who donate a weekend away from the friends and family to make a positive impact on our community. A GiveCamp sponsorship gets your brand in front of these influential individuals. But more importantly, the funds you donate will be magnified by the value added by the hard work of the volunteer efforts of this group of highly trained information technology professionals during GiveCamp weekend, and further magnified by the value added these applications will provide to the non-profits that work tirelessly every day of every year making a difference in our community.

Sponsorship Opportunities:

Platinum Sponsor: $1,500 Exclusive

Premier placement of company name & logo on all printed materials and on all pages of the event website with link back to company website.
Opportunity to make a 5 minute “Welcome to GiveCamp” announcement during the keynote presentation.
Recognition during keynote and closing presentations
Company logo placed in pre-keynote and closing presentations
Opportunity to place company collateral or promotional items in registration bag

Meal Sponsorship: $1,000 each (6 Available)

Company name & logo on printed materials and on all pages of the event website with link back to company website.
Recognition during meal announcement and during keynote and closing presentations
Company logo placed in pre-keynote and closing presentations
Opportunity to place company collateral or promotional items in registration bag

Caffeine Sponsor: $1,000 Exclusive

Company name & logo on printed materials and on sponsorship page of event website with link back to company website.
Recognition during keynote and closing presentations as the "Exclusive Provider of Caffeine"
Company logo placed in pre-keynote and closing presentations
Opportunity to place company collateral or promotional items in registration bag

Break Sponsor: $500 each (3 Available)

Company name & logo on printed materials on sponsorship page of event website with link back to company website.
Recognition during keynote and closing presentations
Company logo placed in pre-keynote and closing presentations

Charity Sponsor: Software/Services/Training donated directly to the charities

Company name & logo on printed materials and on sponsorship page of event website with link back to company website.
Recognition during keynote and closing presentations
Company logo placed in pre-keynote and closing presentations

Door Prize Sponsor:

Company name & logo on sponsorship page of event website with link back to company website.
Company provided Door Prizes raffled off to volunteers during the event. Items must be valued at more than $20

Swag Sponsor:

Company name & logo on sponshorship page of event website with link back to company website
Company provided swag items to be placed in volunteer bags. Swag item would need to have some value to the attendee (i.e. pen, notepad, stress reliver, USB Flash drive, etc.) We would need 125 shipped to us prior to October 1.

All donations and swag must be received by October 1 2012. If you have any questions please email us at shawn@dallasgivecamp.org or call us at 240-397-8488 (If I cannot answer please leave message and I will call you back ASAP). Dallas GiveCamp is not a 501c3 charity.

2012 Charities

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:39:02 GMT

A GiveCamp is a weekend-long event where software developers, designers, and database administrators 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 many details as you can in the form below.

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:

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.
Semi-Finalists: We will anounce 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 claify 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 Sep 5.
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.
Orientation: On Wed Sep 19 at the Orientation Dinner each team will be staffed with voulenteers.
GiveCamp Weekend: On Fri Oct 26 - Sun Oct 28 the charities and teams will work together to build & deploy the applications.
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
Jan 2011

2011 Charities

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:39:28 GMT

After much deliberation by the core team we have made final selections for the charities that we will be building applications for this year. We would like to thank all the charities that have submitted applications and hope that they will apply again next year.

So without further ado, here is the charity line up for Dallas GiveCamp 2011:

UPDATED: As the sites go live, we will turn on the URL's so you can see the great work our volunteers have done!

Bitwise
- Mission: Increase the number of African Americans who pursue a career in software development as well as encourage those who are already in the field to persist.
- Project: Website
- URL: http://www.wearebitwise.org
- Tech: Orchard CMS
Dallas Challenge, Inc
- Mission: to help youth stay in school, off drugs and alcohol, and out of the criminal justice system.
- Project: Website
- URL: http://www.dallaschallenge.org
- Tech: WordPress CMS
FIRST Dallas
- Mission: Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.
- Project: Website
- URL: http://dallasfrc.org
- Tech: Orchard CMS
Japan-America Society of Dallas/Fort Worth
- Mission: The mission of the Japan-America Society of Dallas-Fort Worth is to contribute to mutual understanding between the United States and Japan by (1) educating the Dallas/Fort Worth community about Japan and the U.S.-Japan relationship; (2) providing opportunities for friendship and meaningful interaction between Japanese and Americans; and (3) facilitating dialogue between Japanese and American businesses and professionals.
- Project: Website
- URL: http://www.northtexasgrassrootssummit.org
- Tech: Orchard CMS
Jubilee Park
- Mission: The mission of Jubilee is to be a catalyst for community renewal and enrichment to the surrounding South Dallas/Fair Park neighborhood, with special emphasis on comprehensive, community revitalization and the education of children and adults.
- Project: Website Upgrades
- URL: http://www.jubileecenter.org
- Tech: Sitefinity CMS
Minnies Food Pantry
- Mission: Feed Just One
- Project: Website
- URL: http://www.minniesfoodpantry.org
- Tech: Sitefinity
Sea Turtle Conservancy
- Mission: It is the mission of Sea Turtle Conservancy to ensure the survival of sea turtles within the Caribbean, Atlantic and Pacific through research, education, training, advocacy and protection of the natural habitats upon which they depend.
- Project: Geo-Location Data Management & Website
- URL: http://www.conserveturtles.org
- Tech: Sitefinity CMS & ASP.NET
Southwest Suburban Dallas Chapter Jack and Jill of America
- Mission: To us as mothers, it [Jack and Jill] has become a means of furthering an inherent and natural desire to bestow upon our children all the opportunities possible for a normal and graceful approach to a beautiful adulthood. Marion Stubbs Thomas
- Project: Website
- URL: http://swsdjackandjill.org/
- Tech: WordPress
The Eleanor League
- Mission: The Eleanor League is a society committed to empowering women through professional and personal development, education, community involvement, philanthropy, and a network of combined resources.
- Project: Website
- URL: http://www.eleanorleague.org
- Team Name: Slalom 1
- Tech: WordPress
The Writer's Garret
- Mission: Our mission is to foster the education and development of readers, writers, and audiences by putting them in touch with quality literature, each other, and the communities in which they live and write.
- Project: Website
- URL: http://www.writersgarret.org
- Tech: Orchard CMS
Victims Outreach
- Mission: Victims Outreach supports victims of crime and violence to survive, heal, and thrive. Our goal at Victims Outreach is to provide free and immediate crisis support, as well as ongoing advocacy and counseling for survivors and those close to them.
- Project: Website
- URL: http://www.victims-outreach.org
- Tech: Wordpress
Wesley-Rankin Community Center
- Mission: The mission of Wesley-Rankin Community Center is to transform lives in West Dallas through education, support services, and nurturing of the multi-generational community.
- Project: Website
- URL: http://www.wesleyrankin.org/
- Tech: WordPress
YouthWorker Movement
- Mission: YWM is a support organization for Wesleyan youth workers – we are about the heart and soul of youthworkers.
- Project: Mobile Website
- URL: http://vitalyouthministry.com
- Tech: HTML 5 Mobile App

View Charities from other Events:

Oct 2012
Oct 2011
Jan 2011

Thank you from The Eleanor League

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:39:00 GMT

Dear Shawn & Dallas GiveCamp Volunteers, Sponsors, and Everyone who made it happen

For the past two years, The Eleanor League has struggled to raise awareness and gain funding for our organization. It was tough, made tougher by the fact that no one knew about us since we didn't have a website. With our peers in the professional world, they saw us as almost non-existent since we didn't have a web presence: what kind of legitimate organization has no web presence? When we heard about GiveCamp, we jumped at the opportunity to apply and hoped we would get accepted. I was so thrilled when Shawn called and said we had been selected as one of the charities. Our goal to reach women, to empower them to live their dreams, to enable them through funding and opportunities, and to mentor them into vibrant and vital pieces of the community will now be able to be accomplished, in no small part due to the opportunity we have been given through Dallas GiveCamp. When we met our team, we discovered more than a group of developers who enjoyed spending their weekends writing code for fun: we discovered people with a heart for their community, volunteering their talents for organizations who needed them. Our Project Managers, Aaron and Jesslyn from Slalom (http://www.slalom.com/) were tireless in their efforts. Our team from Slalom (Tracey, Ashwin, Trent, Carolus, and Vishal) were amazing and attentive, trying to make our every wish come true for the website. Carolus spent several hours setting up an online store for us, something we hadn't even thought of! Aaron had a sick child at home and still worked remotely on the design and development. Jesslyn had family from out of town in this weekend, and she still made time to spend most of Saturday up at GiveCamp with us. They had fun, but they made the experience SO much fun for us, too! They even ate our homemade treats without complaint (even though the icing melted off the cupcakes)! Part of what non-profit organizations do is empower people to do something that they couldn't do for themselves. Eleanor League strives to empower people through education and mentoring to become more collectively than they could have done by themselves. But the developers and designers at GiveCamp do the same and more. Not only are they doing something for us that we couldn't do for ourselves, they are doing something for the populations that we serve - they are helping us fulfill our mission. We are forever grateful for this opportunity, and for our AWESOME website.

Thanks again for choosing us, Joni & Shawn
The Eleanor League
http://www.eleanorleague.com

What "Giving Back" Means To One Of Our Sponsors

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 01:31:55 GMT

Dallas Givecamp is proud to have supportive sponsors who help make the weekend possible with their generous donations of time, money, technical support, and product availability. One of our sponsors was wanted the developers and volunteers to know how much she and her company appreciate what they are doing and wrote the letter below.

“Eleven years ago, when I was a sophomore in high school I started a charity group called “Give Back” in my small New England hometown. The purpose of the group was purely to give back to our community in any creative way we could think of. It started out as 7 of us friends. Our charities included long nights of shaping and baking apple pies in a preschool cafeteria for Thanksgiving day, putting on puppet shows at the local children’s hospital and donating magazines or books to shelters.

As teenagers we were very generous with our already packed schedules, but I was never so proud of my peers when the third year we called for volunteers, we had to create an application process because of the hundreds of high school kids who came out to join Give Back. To my knowledge, this group is still active today in my town youth center. For me this was just the beginning of my career making small contributions to society.

There are millions of charities in our ever needy world and it could be a full time job to contribute to all of the causes. In fact, it is a full time job – try mine! As the Community Program Manager for Telerik, each and every community event or give camp we sponsor pulls at my heart strings, just like those kids in the hospital. There is something bigger at play when a group of well-intentioned people get together to educate each other and help others who may not have the necessary resources available to them to make a difference.

I am so very honored to be part of the developer community. As you can see, by being more than just a program or event manager, I am able to contribute indirectly to the betterment of these charities and that is exactly why we keep going. It’s not always sunshine and happiness making it happen; it can be late nights and disgruntled developers rebooting and arguing about the best developer practices. I am lucky enough to stay out of that part and get paid to work for a company that will dish out the cash to help the Give Camps. The real deserving people are those who spend their personal and free time (what’s that?) helping others with their coding talents.

So before you thank the sponsors for food or drink, be sure to pat yourself on the back for playing such a pivotal role in it all.

We, at Telerik, are rooting for your continued involvement!”

Emily Parker :::

Community Program Manager

Best Wishes To Dallas GiveCamp from EPS Software and CODE Magazine

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 11:16:52 GMT

Dear GiveCamp Volunteer,

EPS Software and CODE Magazine continues to enthusiastically support volunteer organizations and community involvement. GiveCamp is a wonderful organization focused on bringing charitable organizations and the IT community together as an outlet for amazing people to do amazing things.

Part of the reason EPS Software and CODE Magazine so fervently sponsors this program is that GiveCamp gives charity organizations a chance to increase their effectiveness though software development. Additionally, as an added benefit, this event facilitates you learn from your peers while benefiting the community. In an effort to help you expand your skillset, and in appreciation for your dedication, we would like to offer you a free 1 year subscription to CODE Magazine. Simply email creynolds@codemag.com and reference this letter to register for your free subscription.

On behalf of the entire development community, EPS Software and CODE Magazine thanks you for the support, expertise, and time you have all graciously volunteered to being an integral part of the GiveCamp team.

Good luck and have fun!

Markus Egger, President, and the entire CODE Team

Charity Applications In

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 13:55:02 GMT

We have had an overwhelming response to our "call for charities" for this years GiveCamp. We would like to thank all the charites for submitting their applictions. Below you will find a list of the applicaitons that we have recived. Unfourtunatly we only have space to help 10 charities this year. To that end our team will be reviewing the applications and working to find the 10 charities that we can help the most!

Beacon Hill Preparatory Institute: http://beaconhillprep.org
BiTWiSE (http://www.wearebitwise.org)
C. C. Young: http://ccyoung.org/
Captain Hope's Kids http://www.captainhope.org/
Dallas Challenge, Inc. http://www.dallaschallenge.org/
Debes Creer En Ti (DCET) http://www.dcet.org/
FIRST http://dallas.txfirst.org/
Holding A Gift, Inc http://www.holdingagift.org
Holy Cross Lutheran Church http://hclc.net
Japan-America Society of Dallas/Fort Worth https://www.jasdfw.org
Jubilee Park and Community Center http://www.jubileecenter.org/
Legal Hospice of Texas http://www.legalhospice.org
Meals On Wheels, Inc. of Tarrant County http://www.mealsonwheels.org
Minnies Food Pantry http://www.minniesfoodpantry.org
Orchestra of New Spain http://www.orchestraofnewspain.org
Southwest Suburban Dallas Jack and Jill http://swsdjackandjill.org/
The Eleanor League
The Writer's Garret http://www.writersgarret.org
Victims Outreach www.victims-outreach.org
Wesley-Rankin Community Center http://www.wesleyrankin.org
YouthWorker Movement (an arm of Center of Youth Ministry Excellence) http://www.ywmovement.com
Sea Turtle Conservancy (http://www.conserveturtles.org)

Charity Resources To Manage New Websites

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:51:48 GMT

Telerik released this video on Sitefinity to help charities after last year's GiveCamp:

http://tv.telerik.com/watch/sitefinity/using-sitefinity-to-modify-your-website

Venue Selected

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 02:20:34 GMT

I am happy to announce that we have selected a venue for the Oct 2011 Dallas GiveCamp, CTREC Hilton (http://www.ctrechilton.com). They hosted the Houston GiveCamp last year, and upon opening the Dallas office were knocking on our door wanting to host the event here in Dallas. They have a facility conveniently centrally located off of 635 & Luna Rd.

I would like to thanks the folks at Improving Enterprises (http://www.improvingenterprises.com/), Meeting Professionals International (http://www.mpiweb.org) and New Horizons (http://www.newhorizons.com) for offering up there facilities as well.

Inviting 100+ developers into your office, for a weekend is a huge commitment, please join me in thanking CTREC Hilton and all the others that have welcomed us into their homes with open arms.

Orchard Site Live

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 02:19:17 GMT

After backing up the site from January, I have converted over to Orchard, the new FOSS CMS from Microsoft.

Venue Needed!

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 02:19:17 GMT

We are currently planning Dallas GiveCamp 2011 redux, for the weekend of October 21-23 and are currently looking for a home. If you know of a place that would be willing to open there doors to 100 highly caffeinated developers for a weekend for a great cause please email us, dallasgivecamp@live.com. Participating in this event will earn your company great exposure to and karma points with the community.

Here is an overview of our venue requirements:

# of Attendees: our plan is to have 7 teams this year. Typically a team will have 5-8 developers and 3 charity representatives during the weekend. Additionally there will be about a dozen volunteers. In total there will be about 100 people in the venue on and off over the course of the weekend.
Space needed: Each team will need a work area. This work area will need a set of cubicles, a conference room, or even a big table where the team can gather and work together.
Facility Hours: In a best case scenario we would like to have access to the facility during all hours over the weekend. A few dedicated individuals will work really late, and some folks will start really early. Also we would need to ensure that the A/C is kept on that weekend.
Security: While we have never had an issue in the past with anything getting broken or stolen, it is best that the area be free of anything that could.We will have a member of our core team on site, during all hours.
Internet: One of our biggest issues every year. We are very, very heavy internet consumers. Wireless is great but it would be icing on the cake to have a hard wire drop for each team.
Schedule: The event will be Friday Oct 21 till Sunday Oct 23. Volunteers will arrive Friday morning to help with setup. Attendees will arrive at 2 PM Friday afternoon and we should be all cleaned up by 10 PM Sunday evening. (we are flexible on these dates depending on what else you have going on)
Orientation: about 1 month before the event we hold an orientation meeting where we assign teams to charities. Logistics would work like a typical UG meeting and would be from 6 -9 PM on a week night like a typical UG meeting.
Post Mortem: about 1 month after the event we hold an post mortem meeting where we figure out what we did wrong and attempt to learn from it. Logistics would work like a typical UG meeting and would be from 6 -9 PM on a week night like a typical UG meeting.