Local group offers free website development
Does your non-profit group need a website?
Our local WordPress Meetup group wants to hear from non-profit organizations in the South Okanagan – and we are willing to build a website for free if we can find the right group.
Our club’s expertise will be free of charge, and members are inviting interested groups to contact us at projectwebconnect.ca.
The South Okanagan WordPress Club meets monthly in Oliver. We have a range of skill levels and experience. We help each other to develop those skills, to network and collaborate to resolve website-related problems. We love WordPress because it is easy to learn, is created entirely by volunteers all over the world, and can grow with you as your skill-set grows.
We would like to give something back to the community and are offering to produce a WordPress website for any single charity or non-profit group, large or small, located in the South Okanagan.
The result would be a professional, fully-functioning website. Club members will work together with the non-profit, brainstorm ideas, build the website and provide training so the non-profit organization can continue on their own after the project is finished. Because the group is small and resources are limited, only one non-profit can be accommodated.
What we require from the chosen partner organization:
- Demonstration of need. Why do you need a website and why is this a good match for our group?
- An initial vision. While setting goals, and brainstorming with our group will be part of the process, you need to have given some thought as to what you want your site to accomplish and how you want it to look.
- Commitment. This will be a long-term commitment, for a minimum of once a month for several months.
- You will need to identify 1-2 point persons who will make decisions on behalf of your group throughout the entire process. One of these people will also be trained to manage the site on-going. There will be training, but some technical capacity is desirable.
- Financial contribution – Costs will be low, but there may be costs – a minimum of $200/year.
Why WordPress and what is it?
WordPress started in 2003. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day. It is now used on 26% of the world’s websites.
Everything on WordPress.org, from the documentation to the code itself, was created by and for the community. WordPress is an Open Source project, which means there are hundreds of people all over the world working on it. The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers.
It also means you are free to use it for anything from your recipe site to a Fortune 500 web site without paying anyone a license fee.
This is instrumental for what we call “democratizing the web” – ultimately, anyone can use the same software to build their site as the Chicago Sun Times and the New York Times Blog!
Groups who are interested in applying for the project can visit projectwebconnect.ca for more information and to fill out an application form.
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