Introducing Activating Developers and the new Digital Public Goods Open Source Community Manager Program

The GitHub Social Impact, Tech for Social Good team is excited to announce our new Activating Developers initiative with the long-term goal to empower 50,000 more GitHub users to contribute to social good projects on the platform! In the coming year, we will be launching new programs and projects to create more social good opportunities on GitHub. The first is our Open Source (OS) Community Manager Program to support seven digital public goods (DPGs), which are open source projects that align with the Sustainable Development Goals and have taken steps to do no harm.

Some of the participating open source projects are currently DPGs, and some are planning to become DPGs. Read about DPGs here.

We’re supporting these DPGs:

Uli Website | GitHub Browser extension and tech tools for relief and collective response against online gender-based violence on social media in India.	Open Terms Archive Website | GitHub Empower users and regulators by recording, publicly archiving, and making readable every change to the terms of digital services.	Chayn Website | GitHub Supports survivors of gender-based violence with free, multilingual, online resources, such as video courses, step-by-step guides, and webchat.	OpenFisca Website | GitHub Write Rules as Code: model legislation, build apps to help citizens and businesses understand it, assess regulations, and design reforms.

Uwazi Website | GitHub A flexible open source database application to organize information, with a focus on document management. Supporting dozens of human rights organizations globally.	if-me.org Website | GitHub A free, open source mental health communication platform for marginalized communities, including refugee and immigrant communities of color. The app is translated into 13+ languages.	Social Income Website | GitHub A radically simple solution in the fight against poverty. The global initiative turns 1% of everyone’s salary into an unconditional basic income for people living in poverty–sent directly to their mobile phones.

What are OS community managers?

The overall goal of an OS community manager will be to reduce barriers for external GitHub contributions to the DPG. The OS community manager may grow and support the DPG’s online communities; manage GitHub issues, discussions, and project boards; support project management; and help onboard new contributors. Check out the program page to read about specific applicant criteria for each DPG.

Why OS community managers?

Creating, growing, and maintaining external contributor communities is critical to the long-term sustainability of DPGs. However, DPG maintainers face considerable challenges because it is too time consuming to find, vet, and onboard potential contributors.

The DPG Open Source Community Manager Program is designed to bring the capacity needed to grow the DPGs’ communities of contributors, and their long-term sustainability and positive impact on critical challenges.

Read more and apply

Head over to our new program page to learn about how the program will run, the benefits of applying, the timeline, and eligibility requirements. Applications will be open until April 10, 2023 (close of business day, U.S. ET).

Written by

Mala Kumar

@malakumar85