Please join us for PDXTech4Good's July meetup, where we'll learn about community-building classifieds!

Does your community use groups on Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn? Are they frustrated by useful information getting lost in a stream of status updates and baby photos? Are they burnt out on email chains and listservs with irrelevant content? Are they looking for a place to share resources beyond just the professional? Switchboard is a platform that harnesses the power of communities by giving them a simple place to connect, transact, and build community value. There are only two types of posts: Ask and Offer.

You can check out an example Switchboard for the Portland Startup Community here: https://pdxstartups.switchboardhq.com/

And one for the Women's Bicycling community here http://wheelwomen.switchboardhq.com/

And one for Oberlin College:
https://oberlin.switchboardhq.com/

Switchboard is being used by colleges, universities, non-profits, community groups, summer camps, professional organizations, conferences. Learn how the simple format of Ask and Offer can strengthen your community, while interdigitating with existing social media tools.

Presenter

Mara Zepeda is co-founder and CEO of Switchboard. Based in Portland, Switchboard is a community building platform that empowers members to ask for what they need, offer what they have to give, connect directly, and strengthen their network. Mara has spent her career working with nonprofits and in higher education as a program director, consultant, community builder, board member, and volunteer.

Discover a whole ecosystem of open source software for accomplishing just about any task on your computer for free! Attending this workshop could save your nonprofit agency thousands of dollars.

Noah Kleiman of Secret Knowledge will take you on a whirlwind software safari focusing on applications useful to nonprofit staff. Including, but not limited to: Photo Editors (think "free Photoshop"), Desktop Publishing (think "free Indesign"), Vector Graphics (think "free Illustrator"), Word processing, and spreadsheet applications (free "Office"). Noah will invite attendee requests, perform impromptu demonstrations, and offer relentlessly practical advice.