Code for Change at YearlyKos

I'm in Chicago at YearlyKos, currently in a panel on building a grassroots funding culture for progressive infrastructure. In other words, small donations to fund all kinds of progressive work, not just political candidates and parties. That's an interesting idea for funding Code for Change... I'll have to think about that some more.

I'm excited about talking to people about Code for Change and the work we're doing here at YearlyKos. I've already had one person stop me to ask what Code for Change was all about when he overheard that we were working on CiviCRM. So there's definitely enthusiasm out there for open source software that helps build the progressive movement.

One thing that I haven't heard much about from the panelists is the idea of not just raising more money for progressives, but also encouraging progressives to be smarter about what they spend that money on. One of the goals of Code for Change is to show the progressive movement that open source software is a better "third way" for getting the software that we need to help us build progressive infrastructure. It's the flexibility of writing your own code combined with the ability to get up and running quickly by not re-inventing the wheel that you get when buying an off-the-shelf solution. Not only that, but you don't have to spend anywhere near as much money on it, nor is it totally on your shoulders to keep the code maintained and build new features.

I believe progressive organizations, bloggers, candidates, and individual activists should aggressively adopt open source software solutions, and they should find ways to not just be a consumer in that community (which there's nothing wrong with, per se) but to also contribute back to the community. It's been our experience in Code for Change that when we engage those communities and start working with them to add features that a particular organization needs (in this case, U.S. PIRG), those contributions are enthusiastically embraced and become official features of that software.

This is the software equivalent of a broad, small donor base that amounts in a huge funding source. It's just a smarter way to get software developed for our movement, and we need to get that word out. I'll be working on doing just that here at YearlyKos.