In a Nutshell

Better Than One meetups are laid back gatherings meant to connect and inspire technology workers in the nonprofit field.

The only structure of these meetups are the topics you bring to share - the only agenda, to give you a chance to have your work seen and to connect with others in the same field. A brief welcome will begin the time, and a closing thank-you will be announced. Beyond that the time is yours to connect and learn.

Ground Rules

Crucially though, this is not meant to be an opportunity for an expert to tell you what to do. The goal of the meetup is to have a chance to simply have another set of eyes on your work, not for them to tell you what you should do. The ground rules for these meetups are:

  1. Come prepared - already have something that you can describe to another person in the time allotted, don’t begin then realize you actually have to explain 7 other systems before your topic will make any sense
  2. Respect everyone - assume that everyone has a reason for doing what they have done in their work and be patient as they explain
  3. Ask more questions, make less suggestions - when it is your turn to listen, your best contribution is your ignorance, not your expertise. Ask questions, find out motivations, try to understand how the other organization works before you offer feedback on solutions
  4. Admit what you don’t know - It is okay to be wrong, or to need to Google something. The goal is not to be right, it is to learn something new.
  5. Take feedback well - your partner has volunteered time to hear your out, so listen when they have suggestions, even if you don’t end up putting them into action

Get Involved

In order to participate, you can sign up for the next meeting. You will be asked to choose a general topic (Programming, Data Management, Systems Administration) and optionally a few details about your work (like programming language or data system). You will then be paired with someone from another organization based on similarity of concern. If you have a specific partner in mind you can include that, but we will be intentional about trying to rotate partners over the course of meetings to encourage diversity and connections.

A powerful outcome of these meetups is strengthening the network of technical workers in nonprofits. As you partner up you will make connections you can call on any time as you go about the work of your organization.