After hearing about the Taproot Foundation from Jennifer, who came to the November MySQL Meetup and told me about it, I decided to complete a profile as a volunteer. Shortly after, someone contacted me and we had a brief chat and scheduled me for their December 11th orientation at the Time-Life Building in NYC, which was this past Tuesday.
In a nutshell, the Taproot Foundation is nonprofit organization that awards service grants for other nonprofits’ projects, to be performed by volunteers, for free.
Attending the orientation and completing the volunteer agreement form was the last step before I could be selected by an account director to work on a service grant (project). Now, I’m just waiting to hear from someone who wants me on their team.
Why am I signing up to volunteer my time for free? Especially after my recent financial stumble just a few weeks ago? How can I possibly have time to volunteer when I should be trying to squeeze every billable hour out of my non-sleeping time?
I like to say, “The best gifts are the ones you cannot wrap.” I’ve always enjoyed giving of my time and talents where they are wanted. As a teenager, I worked as a volunteer at a local hospital, as well as at a homeless shelter. As an adult, I’ve been playing guitar for the Sunday school children at church, as well as singing in the church choir, and I plan to participate in the Sierra Bravo’s F1 Overnight Website Challenge in March 2008. Volunteering through the Taproot Foundation is the kind of thing that really suits me.
I’ll write more about my experiences volunteering for Taproot once I’m on a service grant. Until then, if you want to ask me questions, feel free to leave a comment below. Or, perhaps you want to sign up as a volunteer yourself!
Tags: Taproot Foundation, volunteering
Programmer, husband, father, singer, guitarist, tinkerer, reverse engineer, strange, and living in New Jersey. 
Speak Your Mind