Values

• Collaboration: We do not build software for nonprofits. We build mutually beneficial relationships between people who can build software with nonprofits
• Location: We meet nonprofits where they're at. Many nonprofits are under social pressure to fund their programs, not their capacity, so we don't expect them to overcome that hurdle before being able to use our solutions. We don't need to sell our products, so we can adapt to help nonprofits in situations that aren't cost effective, even if it's on the fringes where power and hardware are unreliable
• Participant Focus: Throughout the development process, we strive for short time commitments, no financial costs, and meaningful experiences for all participants
• Quality: We do things right. Helping humanity is not a second-rate challenge, and we do not meet it with second-rate solutions
• User-centered Design: We intimately involve end users in the creation and testing of solutions. By creating sector-specific solutions rather than broad "nonprofit" software, we keep language familiar and interfaces simple for our largely non-technical user base
• Organic Interactions: We identify and encourage self-regulating, self-sustaining, and self-supporting methods over formal structures. We evaluate each piece of a puzzle to determine which participants are naturally inclined toward behaviors that support a community need, then provide easy methods and creative incentives to encourage them
• Accountability: We believe in uncompromising truth, integrity, and personal accountability
• Innovation: We actively research and pursue collaborative innovation strategies
• Easy Come, Easy Go: We make it easy for nonprofits to sign up, and easy to leave with all their data
• Questions: The only bad question is the one that isn't asked. We value and encourage questions from everyone.
• Open: We provide open quantifiable results, open source code, open (non-identifiable) nonprofit statistics, and open financial data, in a freely and easily accessible manner

Staff

Adam Laughlin

Adam is a mildly nutty chap who believes that "impossible" and "fun" are symantically equivalent terms. He is a graduate student in the Knowledge and Information Technologies program at the University of Denver in Colorado. In mid 2007, with his eyes opened to the enormous suffering in our world, he quit his job to pursue helping nonprofits full-time. In November, the raw idea for Floss4Good hit him, and he's been working on it nonstop ever since. He is passionate about alleviating suffering and eradicating global tragedies like poverty, AIDS, and illiteracy.

History

In Late 2007, Adam decided that starting an organization to build cutting-edge information management tools for nonprofits was a fundamentally flawed idea. There are too many costs involved to make it practical, and volunteer software developers don't have the time, resources, or motivation necessary for a sustained a high-quality effort. He decided that it made more sense to pair software engineers who have experience but lack time, with youth and students who have time but lack experience, to create a situation that would be mutually beneficial for both of them. As an emergent benefit, a supporting organization has the primary responsibility of building relationships, not software. By encouraging personally beneficial collaboration amongst many participants, it can remain extremely small while providing software only possible from a multi-thousand employee corporation.

Advisors

Allen Gunn: Aspiration - Better tools for a better world

Executive Director Allen Gunn has over twenty years of software development and capacity building expertise. He has shepherded large software projects through all stages of development: from inception, design, development, and testing to deployment, support and marketing in environments ranging from start-up to large corporation to nonprofit. Drawing on engineering, senior management, and volunteer experiences, gunner is a skilled communicator, trainer and facilitator in both the nonprofit and corporate sectors who is passionate about helping nonprofits and NGOs make better use of software technology. He has been closely involved with the US and international technology activist communities; the Silicon Valley engineering, venture, and funding world; environmental activists and organizations, and academic communities. He is a firm believer in melding hard work with serious fun.

Endorsements

"Floss4Good is a unique organization with the potential to make some lasting changes in the field of global poverty. We fully support their efforts, and are excited to see the positive impacts their work will make on the millennium development goals and the effectiveness of NGOs globally."

Amil Husain - Global Youth Coordinator United Nations Millennium Campaign

"Floss4Good is an inspiring vision with the potential to help many NGOs. We would love to see some of our youth involved in it."

Franziska Seel - Executive Director Global Youth Action Network (GYAN) & Associate Director TakingITGlobal (TIG)

The Floss4Good Name

Free/Libré Open Source Software (FLOSS)

FLOSS has historically been referred to as Free Software, as defined by the Free Software Foundation.1 Due to the ambiguities of the english language, however, many people do not understand the dual meaning of the word free. Free software means both "Free as in material gifts," and "Free as in speech." Hence, "FLOSS" referring to software originated in 2002 as part of the "Free/Libré and Open Source Software: Survey and Study" commissioned by the European Commission. I chose it because it's more memorable than oss4good.

The term open source is defined by the Open Source Initiative (OSI)2: Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.

For a project overview, please visit the summary.

Learn more about Floss4Good's status.

To post questions or comments, visit the Floss4Good mailing list/Google group.

1. 1. Free Software Foundation: www.fsf.org
2. 2. Open Source Initiative: www.opensource.org