What happens when programmers, designers, and activists join forces? Change happens. Or, more specifically, Changeforge happens.
Changeforge launched in late February with an army of student volunteers from high schools and universities all over the world working on a pro bono basis to design, build, and maintain websites for nonprofits. The only cost to nonprofits is a one-time fee of $150 to cover domain registration and hosting. Changeforge will complete sites within two weeks for every 501(c)3 organization that applies. All sites will be open-source under the Berkeley Software Distribution license with coding posted on GitHub.
Nonprofits need only apply to be on their way to a simple, yet elegant new site that looks great in the students' portfolios. After that, Changeforge offers these four promises:
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Collection – Understanding who an organization is and what the organization does is important. We ask everyone interested to fill out a detailed form to help us understand their brand.
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Development & Design – We contact each nonprofit, and gather text, video, and images. Then our team hustles to build them an amazing website that represents what they stand for.
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Modifications – Next we show them their site and see what they think. If they need some changes made, we also take care of that.
- Maintenance – We’ll keep up with their organization and help them edit their site far into the future, always at no cost.
Changeforge is yet another wonderful example of people coming together in service of the greater good and benefiting everyone involved.
