Dates confirmed: 2010 event gearing up!

January 8, 2010, by Doug Butscher

Dozens of Kansas City area web developers, designers, and business analysts will engage with local non-profit organizations for a weekend of "giving back" to their communities


The third annual Coders 4 Charities weekend is scheduled for Friday, March 26 through Sunday, March 28, 2010 at Centriq Training in Kansas City, Missouri. The weekend pairs up teams of web developers, designers and analysts with representatives of local charities who receive "extreme makeovers" of web sites or full online applications for their use in just 48 hours.

In the spring of 2008, five area non-profit organizations received complete online solutions or "revamps" from nearly 30 developers and designers in the Kansas City area between Friday night and Sunday afternoon. In the spring of 2009, there were eight area non-profit organizations and nearly 40 developers and designers.

Volunteer programmers and designers will work intensely at all hours throughout the weekend, fueled by a steady stream of catered meals and energy drinks from local sponsors, taking occasional breaks to play "Rock Band" in a room set up especially for that purpose, taking time to convene in conference rooms with whiteboards to plan strategy with charity representatives.

Charities often do not have the funds to implement a new website, intranet or database solution, while software developers may not volunteer for charity work because the needs are not adequately publicized.

"This event is the perfect marriage of these two needs; software developers accepting the challenge to volunteer their weekend to help charities, who in turn better serve our community with useable, visible, web sites. Our teams are not 'locked in' to the building, so they can sleep if they want to," said Doug Butscher, coordinator of the event. "But many 'geeks' like to stay up late and seem to do their best work at all hours of the night -- into the 'wee hours' -- so we provide them the time and facilities to do exactly that. The computer labs are available to team members throughout the weekend, and each team schedules their own developers for different jobs during the 48-hour period."

At the conclusion of the event, the Coders 4 Charities team awards prizes to teams based on the quality and usefulness of the applications they developed. Everyone who participates receives t-shirts and other giveaways from area technical recruiters, software companies, and other business sponsors who provide an enthusiastic, comfortable, creative environment in which to work. Participating charities also receive gifts of the software necessary to continue to maintain and further develop the sites in-house, helping them avoid the expense of purchasing software for their project.

New to this year's event, a volunteer video crew from a Kansas City area video user group will shoot and edit a video documentary on-site during the weekend for presentation at the final awards ceremony. Additionally, Coders 4 Charities will present an online podcast from the event throughout the weekend.

"It will be like a fishbowl for us for 48 hours, but that's a great way to let the community know what good can come when you pair highly-knowledgeable 'geeks' with the organizations who desperately need their talents," Butscher said. "If you add up the total dollar value of services represented in the building over the weekend, it amounts to tens of thousands of dollars' worth of development and creativity -- given freely to the community we serve."

Coders 4 Charities is seeking charitable organizations to provide their wish lists for 2010.

Email info@coders4charities.org if you would like more information on being a part of this event.
To register online as a charity, please go to Charity Registration. To register as a programmer/developer, designer, usability expert, SEO specialist, or writer, please go to Developer Registration.

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