Comment by jackstraw42
15 days ago
> I have no idea how people who start non profits actually do and how they get enough money to work in correct circles and so on and how that would work, I will still get a degree of course and I am thinking of starting a fundme page
My wife works in non-profit consulting and has mostly worked with people who have great ideas but need help learning how to get funding and structure their non-profit for success. I asked her if there is a website to share with you that has good info, and she said your local library should have people who can help you with anything related to getting a non-profit rolling (try the next library over if not). I had no idea they have these resources either, but public libraries are amazing places and here's further proof.
Here's a page from a library where we used to live: https://poudrelibraries.org/business/
Scroll down to the section for "Nonprofit Success" and maybe you can find some ideas that will help you. I think you're on the right track about open source education and evangelizing (the tech world used to call its influencers stuff like "open source evangelist" or ".NET evangelist"... not sure if it's still that culty or not).
Best of luck with everything, and if you have any questions or want to chat I just followed you on Github. You can email me at my-github-username at protonmail dot com anytime, if you have non-profit questions I can ask my wife for her thoughts, she's been doing this for years and seems to have it pretty well mastered from what I can tell. She's built a business by herself from scratch and does so well she's the bigger earner of the family. So anyway, she just helps non-profits and makes a living from it, so you can definitely do something with open source! Work on making your writing and communication more effective and I think you will find the people to help you reach your dreams along the way.
Don't lose hope if you can help it, things like the news and politics are discouraging right now but I find that times like this light a fire in me to make sure I'm doing the right things and help keep us from getting in deeper problems. I get complacent more during less chaotic times, so I try to make the best of it and it usually works out. Take care, friend!
edit: I just realized that from the local times you mention, you are likely not in the United States. I'm not sure if libraries in Europe and elsewhere have this information or not. Maybe it can give you an idea of what kind of information to look for in your local resources.
Hey, I genuinely appreciate it and I am going to send you a mail right away.
I didn't know libraries were such a massive way and I don't think we really have libraries here, atleast not in my city that I can think of a non profit library, I might need to search though. and the funny thing is that some people would just have a bunch of sitting rooms and call them library here.
I have definitely thought about this more and the only nuance that comes up is that i haven't even gotten a degree right now and its something that I plan to do. Its just that I want to have an option to have a cs job too if things don't work out, and I personally don't know but as I said I am pretty frugal and I don't know how others feels but I don't know if anybody would even donate or my project would have even value if I am being honest. I am really a pessimist sometimes..
Its just that I would love to do these things but I would also want to just earn barely enough that my parents wouldn't think that I am doing something foolish in my life either and I can be respected enough in the society as well, these feelings really grapple me if I can be honest...
Honestly, I will keep in touch with ya and my first plan of action is trying to write my first draft of a manifesto of sorts on what I want to bring to the table in a similar fashion to how I had written the comment but maybe better...
I have also thought more and I am thinking something like fiscal sponsorship might be the right way atleast right now to not get involved into legal matters right away and maybe try to build a larger presence online because I didn't use twitter thinking it was going to be toxic but I am gonna be more active sharing manifesto etc. in youtube.
I have read more about other projects like fsf & https://sfconservancy.org/ and sfconservancy has caught my eye but the open source intiative seems something nice too and I want to do as much stuff that I can do to promote open source and other ideas as I sort of consider right to repair really tangetial to open source but just for hardware of sorts y'know..
I am currently working on a manifesto but the theme would definitely be growth with love, all the way down to the roots or something similar. I have some knowledge that I want to share in the world that might help people to pick better options which can enlighten them to donate back to the open source projects which so desperately need fundings. My purpose is to educate people about alternatives as I know that most people in my community don't know linux, they don't know signal yet they can use these softwares. My dad used my kde linux just for browser and he couldn't really tell the difference of sorts.
It is so nice to know that your wife does work in non profits and can make a living in it as that is exactly what I want to know more in how to live my life in such a way and I will definitely need her help! I just don't know if there is even a demand for something that I was proposing, I know people might say this online but maybe not so much offline. But I will try my best to work through things while being realist :)
Thanks a lot and I will definitely always keep in touch with ya through the mail. I know that I can still not explain myself clearly through these texts on what sort of emotion I feel as they are really complex and nuanced. Still, I would love to just discuss them with you. Definitely going to send a mail to ya and once again, thanks.
Hey, I can tell you are on the right track here. Don't get too discouraged! That's the main thing I would tell myself back in high school to make sure I don't lose sight of some important stuff like that, trust me not everyone feels something like that kind of resonance you do with open source and educating regular people about it. It will be confusing at times and seem like maybe you were way off from the very beginning, but do your best to just take that as a sign that more work or clarification is needed, and of course you have the energy for this stuff right? I'd bet money on it, based on how you are writing your comments and how I used to write about the same things like after installing Linux, realizing everything we do we could be done the right way instead of the greed-based or other coercive systems in place that absolve a lot of responsibility by pushing much of the responsibility on the user without even attempting to educate them about what they're consenting to. Most of the time it's doing some simple task like uploading a photo to share but if an uninformed grandma tries to do that with her vulnerable Android phone... it's scary the life-changing situations that simple desire can happen to a person if they accidentally click the wrong link these days. Most of us here on Hacker News have long been aware of all the tracking and data collection and likely take steps to avoid it, but I cannot stress enough how we are a tiny tiny group of exceptions doing things right because it's meaningful to us. Regular folks are still doing the normal meaningful things to them in their lives, but the opposite sort of people who you and I are trying to be see this as an opportunity to trap them at every possible opportunity. The work you want to do is VERY important.
EDIT: just had another thought. You mentioned the FSF and the Free Software Conservancy, you should email them if you haven't already and ask them for some ideas about what you can do or how you can help their organizations. They may have something specific ideas for your area too, there are people like us everywhere. Get in touch with those folks for sure!
I am sure that I can't explain a lot of feelings I am feeling and neither am I comfortable to share this on a forum for all people to see and judge which is why I was scared in the first place to write that comment as now me backing up can be seen as something weird :/ when all I want to do is stay in touch with you and other people and create a community centered around open heart discussion of foss and how to spread the word now and to have a plan of action that I/others can implement when I once get into college or maybe something different, I am not sure.
I hope you can keep in touch with me on signal if the mail isn't working, its on my about me in HackerNews.
Yes, thanks a lot for your encouragement.
I've decided right now that the best step forward is definitely to focus on my studies right away as the exams are getting closer and to me, just skipping college might seem so big of a gamble but it was definitely fun thinking about being an advocate and it is definitely in my plan and I will have 4 years to study about foss and maybe fiscal sponsorships etc would be nicer and I don't want to remove my blow of college and just being focused between two very different things right now can cause a lot of dissonance like right now and my main priority is college and once I get into a decent college, I will focus on foss (activism) a lot, that is a compromise to me that seems the best of all.
I definitely still feel like a lot of other discussions definitely pessimize me too thinking of my generation as a lost cause sometimes and how it frankly boils down to the issue of lack of interest. Nobody seems as interested in these things even if they are important, they can be as easy as one click for things like signal yet nobody is even interested for things like that for most places. It is definitely sad but like, my idea right now is to still try my best just because losing hope makes me sad. We can still try things, no matter the odds.
That being said though my exams are definitely stressing me out and I had tried to give a whole day to writing a manifesto and it is funny how the mind becomes blank of sorts.
And I need to work on myself a lot if I am being honest too which I am going to do, it still excites me but my honest plan thinking about this has to go to college and then maybe really spread the word from there and also a good thanks for telling me to mail them...
I am just still confused, sometimes sad of the state of open source and I don't know what to say... I don't know if I was just being optimist back then and in reality, what would really happen, I have messaged you on email and I also have signal and I would prefer it if you could message me on signal if you could, since I do want to talk about this situation, I am just a little confused on how I can even bring change when I thought about it... when nobody cares. It would seem that my words would be noise to them unless I can understand them better and the state so I definitely need to have a fallback of college degree so that I don't feel regret in life as well... Hope ya understand as my plans are just postponed untill I get into a college, I have written the manifesto though..
Its just I am a little confused in life and I don't know what to say which is why I don't like to keep promises, I don't know but my other discussions of open source has made me atleast feel like there is very little that I can do and I discussed it with people my age and there is definitely this thing that you can't expect others to be encouraging to you in a discussion if they simply don't care and make snarky comments and you definitely need to read the room of the temperature I suppose. https://anonplusplus.codeberg.page/
I am just confused mate on how I can spread the message effectively of open source when it seems that the algorithms will work against me and the system will work against me and when it seems that everything you do nothing matters, you are gonna have all opinions on every front and in that people are going to drown and simply be ignorant,
The problem to me seems to be overwhelming, open source seems overwhelming for beginners not knowing where to start, not knowing what are some things that they should do.
What I am thinking right now is to create an actionable guide on whatever software I know about and to share that and host them myself and see the pain points...
I don't know man I am a bit tired I had created a project of sorts and I had shared it in a place which to me was really open and the response there was to have the discussions to ban me for sharing something with zeal when nobody cares... and for me to read the room, I don't really know why but that gave me a real reality check of the situation and I am still going to work on maybe spreading the word of open source but it definitely requires a sense of community and its very nuanced to say the least...
I am thinking of creating a community on something like matrix and guides about softwares in my past time and to make videos for any fixes or any showcases just trying my best and also I just feel a little overwhelmed if I can be honest.
So in all, I have just postponed my thoughts in the future when I get into a CS college hopefully and I would love to be in contact with you and discuss more things before taking any bigger steps as well and just discuss things in general too so please message me on signal if my message didn't reach on proton mail as I had sent it.
Everything's just confusing to me right now if I can be completely honest and I am definitely in the sad part of the sin curve of my emotion roller sin wave. I don't really know I have a lot of flaws and I think that I might have made a too big promise here if I can be honest when it was just meant to be proposed of as a thought that I am thinking when I want to focus right now on college and for the 4 years in college to focus extremely on foss so its mostly just a postpone till that and my college is just coming up in 3 months and I doubt that I can do much itself in 3 months but I might still be a decent bit active as a relief from studies and I am just not sure as I said, I hope ya understand