IT4Causes is Hiring and Recruiting Volunteers for Lynchburg, VA!

IT4Lynchburg

There’s a new way to get IT done for nonprofits, and it’s coming to Lynchburg.  Help IT4Causes enable Region 2000 agencies to become more effective and efficient using a proven model for success.  Because most nonprofits can’t afford their own Chief Information Officers and full-time technology staff, we give them access to top-notch IT professionals through contracts that blend paid and pro bono experts, volunteers, and workforce development participants.  We’ve been using awesome people, great technology, and best practices to deliver world-class information technology solutions to nonprofits in Richmond for over two years, and now we’re looking to expand our impact into the Lynchburg-Roanoke region.  We need civic-minded IT professionals of all skill levels and disciplines to help us make good programs better & improve the lives of many in the region.  Here’s who we need to make it happen:

IT Director/Fractional CIO for Nonprofits (paid position)
(skip to volunteer positions)

We’re looking for an IT leader with broad experience in technology, who can think strategically, plan tactically, manage practically, as well as perform some system administration tasks.  We’ll provide you with at least one initial nonprofit client in Lynchburg to get you started, and help you identify and land additional work with other agencies in the region.

Our ideal candidate has the following attributes:

Skills:

  • Consultant-grade ability to listen, understand current technology capabilities, follow emerging industry trends, and envision new approaches
  • Core knowledge across many technical disciplines, including networks, communications, info security, systems administration, client-server, and cloud-based solutions
  • Knowledge and ability to support Windows servers, third-party applications, networks, security systems, virus protection, and hardware configurations
  • Ability to effectively communicate technical concepts to non-IT audiences
  • Unending desire to learn new technologies as well as troubleshoot and maintain existing ones
  • Excellent written and verbal communications as well as presentation skills
  • Outgoing personality that builds professional networks across organizations
  • Exceptional project and time management skills to work with multiple clients and projects simultaneously
  • Confidence to make informed decisions

Experience:

  • Proven leader of organizations, projects, and people, including volunteers
  • 10+ years leading/deploying 3rd party applications to solve for business needs and/or managing IT operations
  • Some experience recruiting and managing volunteers as well as staff
  • Demonstrated capability to sell strategic IT improvements to non-IT customers

Values:

  • Cares about having an Impact
  • Values collaboration over competition
  • Loves innovating and start-up thinking, especially to benefit the community
  • Appreciates the experience and knowledge of others
  • Believes in developing others through mentorship and guidance

Full compensation will be dependent upon ability to help close deals for additional work at new clients.  We offer help with health insurance premiums, and an unparalleled opportunity for IT professionals to have an impact in their communities.  If this sounds like you, and you’re looking for a unique way to be a force for good through technology, please contact IT4Causes CEO Tom Anderson at 804.241.2555  or Thomas.anderson@IT4Causes.org.  We look forward to hearing from you soon!


 

 

 

IT Pro Bono Experts and Skilled IT Volunteers

IT4Causes’ success depends on the service of community-minded IT professionals who are willing to commit their time and expertise in bite-sized chunks to help nonprofits better serve their missions.  If you’ve got IT knowledge and would like to volunteer, IT4Causes is here to guide you to the right opportunity.  Our staff are expert at taking the business requirements of nonprofits, identifying solutions, and breaking projects into small tasks for individual volunteers.  In general, we try to break work into pieces that the right volunteers can execute in 8 hours or less, over the course of 2 weeks.  Once that commitment is done, you can take on more or walk away knowing your time and talent contribution will be combined with the work of others as part of a sustainable solution for a great cause.  While we are actively seeking to build a base of IT pros in Central Virginia, most of our current assignments could be performed remotely. Our volunteer needs are constantly evolving with our client and project base, and right now we’re looking for volunteers with skills in these areas:

  • IT Consulting
  • Networks
  • Windows Small Business Server and Exchange Server
  • IT Security
  • End-user support
  • IT Project Management
  • Electronic Health Records
  • Access and/or SQL Database
  • Case Management Systems
  • CRM and fundraising solutions

If you’re ready to use your IT skills to help those who serve your community, please visit www.IT4Causes.org/volunteer and complete our volunteer application.

Better Housing Coalition

BHC

Founded in 1988, Better Housing Coalition is the Richmond region’s largest not-for-profit community development corporation. Their mission is to change lives and transform communities by combining long term solutions with high-quality, affordable housing and ongoing support services for residents.

Better Housing Coalition’s focus is to build more than just a building but to create buildings that individuals can call home. Driven by respect for residents, community, and the environment; the Better Housing Coalition use sustainable materials while preserving neighborhood character in order to allow seniors to age in place, families to prosper financially, and children to aspire to bright futures. They are dedicated to tending to distinct resident needs through becoming permanent residents of the community and developing long lasting relationships. Better Housing Coalition rebuilds communities from the inside out to ensure the practice of healthy vibrant communities inclusive to all. Better Housing Coalition believes that by doing so they are able to build a better future with lasting change one brick at a time.

IT4Cause is helping BHC’s employees get access to internal company data by building an Intranet using Microsoft’s SharePoint technology.  We’ve engaged a pro bono SharePoint expert from Impact Makers, who is bringing a great process to the effort, facilitating conversations with the client, and teaching our interns how to build individual department pages.  One intern has developed mocks of what the pages will look like, so customer expectation are set appropriately, and we’re providing training so that BHC staff can maintain this system on their own going forward.  So far, everyone loves the process and the output, and we expect to wrap up the effort in a couple weeks, leaving the agency with a great way to communicate with their own people.

For more information on BHC, please visit their website http://www.betterhousingcoalition.org
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IT4Causes Is Proud To Introduce Our New Intern

In order to invest in the Richmond community and continue our efforts of paying it forward, IT4Causes has opted to hire another VCU student to intern for us.

Introducing Amanda Barnes, she is a senior who is currently embarking upon completion of her last semester at VCU. She is majoring in Painting and Printmaking with a double minor in Art History and Gender Women’s Studies. Amanda expressed that she has always had a passion for the arts as well as community service. She aspires to combine these two joy of hers in hopes to help and empower her community .

Amanda will be apart of our management and social media sector. By utilizing her skills as a trained artist combined with her innovative ideas, she will to help promote IT4Causes events and ideals to continue to help bring new information technology solutions to other nonprofits in order to help them better achieve their missions.

Upon graduation Amanda looks forward to continuing to work with other nonprofits in order to advocate for changes needed as well as address different issues that the Richmond through her practice in art.

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Why it’s important to log your IT4Causes volunteer hours

Last year was a great year for us and we hope it was a good year for you.
Thanks to your generous gifts of time and talent, IT4Causes was able to serve 22 agencies across the Richmond area in 2016.

While skills and time are invaluable direct contributions to our agencies, did you know that your volunteer hours also support our agencies in other ways, too? Logging your volunteer hours allow IT4Causes to:
• Build business plans that show how we offer low cost solutions using skilled volunteers
• Provide the details we need when writing grants that also support our work
• Document the project recaps required by our sponsoring companies
• Provide accurate reporting to the IRS to support our 503c status

So…. please log those volunteer hours. Your time matters, and so does the data about your time!

Use this conveniently provided link to enter any hours you have volunteered for us. If you are retracing steps, exact dates don’t matter, but please be sure to reflect the number of hours you gave in each month as accurately as possible.

If activity covers more than one day in a month, please use last date you volunteered in that month. Please use a separate entry for each month.

Some employers like Capital One provide a donation to nonprofits based on the hours volunteers log into their systems.  If you work for one of these firms, please be sure to record your service hours in that system, too, and please consider designating the funds to IT4Causes (our tax ID 47-1992190 in case your employer needs it).

Finally, be sure to check out our current volunteer opportunities.

Thank you as always for your gift of time and talent.  We simply couldn’t serve the community like we do without your help!

Setting Sail for Lighthouse Labs

IT4Sailing

IT4Causes has applied to Lighthouse Labs Accelerator program. This is Richmond’s premiere incubator program for nurturing new, tech-based startups. If accepted into the program, IT4Causes will receive $20,000 to help us grow, co-working space among the other chosen start-ups to help each other flourish, invaluable mentoring sessions from some of RVA’s best business and start-up leaders, and participation in a launch day where we will present our ideas to potential investors, the media, and the community.

Through this innovative program we seek to hone the Information Technology services we provide, learn to advertise our work better, and to strengthen our strategies to benefits the RVA community. This will help us immensely in promoting our cause and helping Richmond become a better place, but we need your support! Go to the link below to follow our page on the F6s site, which will show the Lighthouse judges that you support us!

https://www.f6s.com/it4causes2015?fb_ref=app_share

A Smashing Success: Getting To Know IT4Causes Event! Plus more about our Pilot Customers

THANK YOU to everyone who came to the “Getting To Know IT4Causes” event on Monday night! We had a great turnout, awesome food, and lots of networking going on at the beautiful offices of !mpact Makers.

Get2Know_TomLaurence Get2Know_Banner

A couple of people who helped make the night so great:

Lynette Brinkerhoff from Children’s Mental Health Resource Center, one of our Pilot customers, explained the Center’s mission to link families with great behavioral health professionals,  and how IT4Causes is helping the Center save money and time by stabilizing their network and getting the high-capacity printer working again!

Get2Know_Lynette

Sarah Mullens from UnBoundRVA (our other Pilot customer) gave a great overview of her agency’s mission to help talented people from low-income backgrounds become successful entrepreneurs.  She also talked about how IT4Causes is working to help the organization collaborate on documents, which will be enabled with a move to Office 365 in the cloud.

Get2Know_Sarah

We’re now planning for our next big events:

We hope to see you soon!

A very busy week…

What an amazing series of events this week!

On Monday, our Board met in our Organizational Meeting to approve Bylaws and complete many other tasks related to setting up a non-profit, so THANKS to the Board.

On Wednesday, we did our Agency Assessment at pilot agency UnBoundRVA in the morning (THANKS Elizabeth!), and THEN got to see them receive the award for Nonprofit Partner at the RVA Companies To Watch event that same evening.  Few dry eyes left in the house after their video aired!  Congratulations again to UnBoundRVA Sarah Mullens and Richard Luck on this awesome achievement!  See our Twitter feed for images of that event!

On Thursday, CEO Tom Anderson and a few other IT4Causes leaders joined The Daily Planet for the Grand Opening of the new Southside Community Health Center! It was great to be part of the $1.6M project that created a new access point for primary and behavioral health for anyone, regardless of insurance or income. The facility also contains 20 beds of Medical Respite, a program for people being discharged from the hospital without a home to recuperate from a hospital stay while hopefully finding better housing.

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From left to right in this image are Elizabeth Roark (Daily Planet Board and IT4Causes TAG), Neal Graham (Virginia Community Healthcare Association CEO), Peter Prizzio (Daily Planet CEO), Tom Anderson (Daily Planet Board Chair and IT4Causes CEO), and George Welch (Daily Planet Board and IT4Causes Board Vice Chair).

And final preparations are under way for the Getting To Know IT4Causes event this coming Monday at Impact Makers. If you don’t have your ticket yet, you might want to jump on that now as we have over 100 tickets given out so far and we are heading towards a sellout!