Choosing your theme
Pick an institution and defend it.
Who is already doing the work that moves you most? Why does it speak to you? What is your personal experience with the issue? Keep this story and this connection at the front of your mind as you move through the next steps to turn the theme from an idea in to an event that directly supports the issue's grassroots community.
Do your research and find who is already doing this justice work to reach out to. The sweet spot is often orgs that are trying to grow their grassroots work and unlikely to have a dedicated technical team.
Email them, @ them on Twitter, find them at an event, talk to your friends and get an introduction to a few groups already working on something you care about.
This starts with thoughtful outreach to about 10+ organizations who are often very very busy, who may need an introduction to what is a hackathon anyway, and what tech volunteers specifically can do for their organization.
Key Organization Outreach tips:
invite orgs to “bring their wishlist” of projects that could use some tech volunteer lift.
highlight that these projects can include (and most often do) resolving admin load that plagues most nonprofits
suggest bite-sized projects like redoing a website, building a database from spreadsheets, or prototyping an experimental tool that can be hard to justify on their usual budget
These orgs will lead your hackathon teams on the day of the event, and it’s important to note to them that they don’t have to be a “tech person” or an expert to do this. They’re already doing this work every day, just with a different terms, and we’ll help build a shared vocabulary together in the tips in the rest of this guide.
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