Code with a Cause 2019: A weekend of civic technologists and nonprofits working together.
The weekend of February 22nd-24th, 2019, GlobalHack partnered with 10 local nonprofits and recruited 60+ participants and volunteers to participate in our annual Code with a Cause hackathon.
The goal of Code with a Cause is to bring tech and nonprofit talent together for community good. Ten local nonprofits, each with a pre-defined software need, team up with a group of technologists to design a solution to enhance their services. The goal for participants is not to win, but to provide the best possible outcome for all the nonprofits involved. At the end of the event, the nonprofit partners leave with a project in motion, and our St. Louis service network grows stronger.
The projects developed by our volunteer teams were incredible! In case you missed our live streams on Facebook (Kick-off & Final Presentations), we put together a quick round-up of what each team produced during the hackathon.
ACLU Missouri (American Civil Liberties Union)
Project: ACLU Missouri needed a tool to update complainants on the status of submitted issues via a confidential, digital system.
Solution: The ACLU Missouri team created a status database to track all open complaints and send automatic updates to the complainants. As complaints come in, ACLU staff will upload them to the new database. Then, as staff update the case file, the complainants will receive automated emails about what’s happening.
ALIVE (Alternatives to Living in Violent Environments)
Project: ALIVE was seeking a text or chat solution that would connect staff with domestic violence victims through a real-time, two-way digital messaging platform.
Solution: The ALIVE team found an off-the-shelf chat solution called LiveChat and integrated it into ALIVE’s WordPress website. ALIVE also has the option to use it as a standalone platform going forward.
Project: earthday365 was looking for an improved mobile experience for its Green Dining Alliance (GDA) club website. The new website needed to include a GDA mobile app with GPS mapping services; easily searchable restaurant locations based on discounts, food style/type and dietary restrictions; and robust restaurant descriptions, all while allowing staff to update the information as the program expands.
Solution: The earthday365 team was able to design a mobile app with GPS mapping and location services that syncs with the list of restaurants from the GDA website. They were also able to implement and include all of the key features earthday365 needed. Lastly, they designed the app with a list view for all the restaurants, allowing users to see additional details about the restaurants in a drop-down menu.
Project: GenerateHealth needed a tool that would coordinate with multiple service providers who distribute pack-n-play cribs and provide education to caregivers. The tool needed to track pack-n-play and crib inventory, display eligibility criteria for families who qualify for the portable crib program, and enable connections across partners so cribs are provided as quickly as possible to families.
Solution: The GenerateHealth team created a tool that allows providers to revise criteria for families in need and keep track of crib and pack-n-play inventory. GenerateHealth staff can also add providers, which will allow the system to grow with the organization.
Project: Girls in the Know wanted to revamp their current website, both to more easily update their WordPress Content Management System and to make their website more user-friendly.
Solution: The Girls in the Know team launched a brand new Wordpress site with an updated drop-down menu. Girls in the Know’s biggest focus was to be able to have staff maintain the site, which they’re now able to do because of the Advanced Custom Fields Plugin their team implemented for them. Lastly, the team was able to improve the website’s responsiveness to fit many different screen types.
Project: Home Sweet Home was seeking a mobile-friendly website application that would schedule donation pick-ups more efficiently, be more user-friendly and adapt as the company grows.
Solution: The Home Sweet Home team created a website that sends donation forms directly to the organization’s donor management software. This allows Home Sweet Home’s staff to generate donor reports quickly. Plus, a team-developed Google Maps API allows staff to optimize delivery routes. Data is pulled from the submitted forms to create an optimum route from Home Sweet Home’s warehouse to all of the donation pick-up sites for that day. A URL is then generated to give to the drivers for easy use.
Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper
Project: Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper was looking for ways to turn data into useful visualizations to convey the importance of clean water. The first component is the creation of an online water data portal for the state of Missouri, while the second part of the project consisted of creating a data viewer that directly pulled the data available through the EPA Water Quality Portal.
Solution: The Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper team was able to create a tool that allows the organization to visualize data on maps and turfs in RPS Insight. However, due to the massive amounts of data collected on various platforms throughout the years, the team had a difficult time aggregating the data to fully support the initial project.
Project: St. Louis BWorks came into Code with a Cause with two “micro-problems” they needed addressed. The first issue: create a better platform for donor communication. The second: track donated bicycles and computers efficiently.
Solution: The St. Louis BWorks team created a new inventory system to centralize data and better tell the story of the donation throughout the inventory workflow. They created an API to track and manage items, along with a database that generates a barcode to attach to all donated bicycles and computers, allowing staff to find track real-time inventory. Because of this new system, BWorks realized during the hackathon they might need a new volunteer onboarding process, too. In true Code with a Cause fashion, their team located an open-source wiki with a very robust volunteer management system.
Project: St. Louis College Prep needed a new system that digitized scholar, staff and master scheduling. The system would also need to deliver transcripts to their students.
Solution: The St. Louis College Prep team created a website using an online platform that would allow the school to upload data and manage it themselves. After the data is uploaded, staff will be able to see and manage all of the students' records, providing a quick, simple way to generate a transcript for any student.
Project: Wings of Hope was seeking a way to connect with its global community of partners, donors, and constituents, both to community project updates and inspire continued giving. Ideally, the mobile giving app could highlight specific projects, like a medical mission in Colombia, and accept donations in various currencies. They also needed the app to integrate with their existing database for record keeping and donor cultivation.
Solution: The Wings of Hope team created an app using the Apache Cordova platform, an open-source mobile development framework. Because the app needed to be internationally available, the team developed it for translation into any language. The team also incorporated a free API from the European Central Bank, which allows users to select different currencies and calculates the most recent exchange rates. Lastly, the app gives a more human connection to the donation by allowing users to see how different donation levels can impact countries around the world.
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