Indy GiveCamp 2011

This past weekend, I participated in Indy GiveCamp. I wanted to share some of my experiences over the weekend, and how everything turned out.

What is Indy GiveCamp?

GiveCamp is an event where web designers, developers and database administrators get together donate their time to provide software or web sites for charities. This allows charities to not have to worry about getting their website updated or trying to figure out how to pay someone to do it.

Indy GiveCamp contained around 40 volunteers. We were able to help 7 different charities.

• Child Advocates
• Heart in Education Teacher Outreach
• Lillian Davis Foundation
• My Sister’s Place
• Rich Recovery Services
• VSA Indiana
• Women in Insurance and Financial Services

My Team

My team consisted of 4 members. Our Team Lead was Joel (who happened to be one of the event organizers). Joshua was our designer. Matt and myself were developers. This is the first time any of us had met each other.  There was a little time spent getting to know each other before we started to dig into the site itself.

Once we started working together, the team really started to mesh very well. No one had an ego that would clash with others. We all talked together. If there was an issue, we all came together to find a solution. Everyone had input to how everything should be laid out, and implemented.

Charity

We were assigned to VSA Indiana. After speaking with Amy Bear, the charity representative, we found out that they were unhappy with their current website because it didn’t really present the organization in a very flattering manner. They also felt that their call to actions were not as bold as they could be; they wanted people to easily know how they could get involved and help. Also, the navigation and layout of the site really needed to be modernized.

Since the focus of VSA is helping people with disabilities express themselves through art, we knew that we had to design the website in such a way that it would not limit people with disabilities from viewing it. With that in mind, we made several design decisions that affected the site. We made sure that every single image on the site had an alt tag, so even if it couldn’t be seen, the viewer had an idea of what the picture conveyed. We configured the layout of the site in such a way that if a screen reader were used on the site, the same story would be told as it would be visually. We also had an emphasis on large fonts that were easy to read, and colors that stood out.

Environment

The facility was donated by MID Technologies. The facility was excellent. There was plenty of room for everyone, and they even had a room with wall to wall whiteboards to hash out designs if required. The doors to the facility were open all weekend, so that the teams could work non-stop.

All the teams worked in one large room, with each team having their own table on which to work. Every member of the team brought their own computer (mainly laptops), and we connected to a wireless network.

As members of the team got tired, some of them went home for a couple hours, while others simply grabbed a sleeping bag or blanket and headed off to one of the side rooms for a few winks. However almost every team had someone there at all times throughout the weekend.

Development

The overall feel of the development was akin to Agile Scrum development. With a small team, a team leader, developers, and a business person. The team contained within it everything that was needed to complete the project.

Jay Harris, one of the organizers, took on the role of scrum master for all of the teams. Every 3-4 hours, he would yell “STAND UP!” This was the cue for everyone in the building to move to the “Stand up area”, this included all members of every team and the charity representatives. At that time, the scrum master would go through the list of charities, one by one. He would ask someone from each charity three questions: What did you do since the last stand up? What will you do before the next one? Do you have any blocking impediments?

Even though there were 7 teams, and over 40 people at these standups, they would last less than 5 minutes. For any impediments, the Scrum master would ask if anyone knew how to solve them that person should talk to that team after the meeting.

The standups were a great way to see how each team was coming along, and if you had any issues, they were solved quickly by someone else with knowledge in that particular area.

Having the representative from our charity sitting with us was awesome, because any business questions we had were answered immediately. While updating content, we could get feedback on wording, questions on who the audience was, and even if the site was going in the right direction. She would comment on how she did or did not like a certain concept, as we were working on it. This let us change the things she did not like without spending much time going down that wrong path.

Some of the charities did not have a representative there for most of the weekend. I feel as if those teams had to do a lot of guessing, and they may or may not have created a site that satisfies the charity completely.

Result

After we spent the whole weekend working on the site, we ended up with something that I, and our whole team was proud of, and represented the charity well.

Original site:

New Site:

By Sunday at 2pm, we were able to have the new website live. Each team gave a brief demo of their new site and how it compared to the charity’s old site.

I believe that the charity as a whole is very happy with the site. In fact, Amy forwarded an email to us from one of their board members. This is his initial reaction to the site:

“So, is it OK for a grown man to cry happy tears! Amazing. The timing couldn’t be better for our Friends campaign. People love to support and stick with the winners – this site makes us look like winners. GREAT JOB!. I’m going back on the site now to see more ”

Cost Saving

From 8pm Friday when we started talking to our charities to 2pm Sunday when we turned the keys over, there was 42 hours. Our team of 4 ended up working 132 hours to get the site completed.

The organizers went around and gathered the hours that all the teams worked over the weekend. They estimated that everyone donated $131,000 worth of services to these 7 charities. Once I saw that number in black and white, it really amazed me. How much money we were able to save these charities so that they didn’t have to worry about finding the funds for a new website.

Also, Applied Innovations donated free web hosting for life for any charity that participated in Indy GiveCamp. So, not only were we able to save them money on site design, we were able to save VSA Indiana over $700 a year on web hosting.

Unexpected

As the teams were giving their demos, Amy turned into a ninja and before I knew it there was a bag next to me (which I didn’t even notice until she mentioned it). In that bag was a card and a piece of art from one of their students. That particular student happens to be on one of the photos on the homepage (by some strange coincidence also the picture in the screen shot of the new site above). This was unexpected, unnecessary, and incredibly thoughtful. This made the weekend more memorable. The artwork is hanging proudly in my home.

Indy GiveCamp 2012?

Overall, I thought the experience was fantastic.  It was great to meet so many people gathering together to donate the skills they have in order to help others. It amazed me how much we were able to get done in such a short amount of time.

I definitely plan on volunteering for Indy GiveCamp next year!

Other Posts about Indy GiveCamp 2011

http://aurigroup.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/indy-give-camp-2011-was-a-success-free-web-sites-for-charities-from-tech-gurus/

http://davefancher.com/2011/10/18/i-survived-my-first-givecamp/

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