Pro Bono Market Overview

The pro bono marketplace harnesses millions of skilled professionals (“suppliers”) through different distribution channels to deliver them effectively to a diverse set of clients. Use the diagram below to learn about the state of pro bono happening by each group within the market.

Supply

Suppliers:
Business Professionals

Distribution Channels

Marketplace

  • Assess professional's expertise
  • Assess client needs and readiness
  • Match/Access
  • Oversight/Management
  • Quality Assurance
  • Knowledge management evaluation
  • Celebration

Demand

Clients

State of Pro Bono: Information Technology Profession

Opportunity

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are over 1.3 million computer software engineers and computer programmers and over 961,000 computer network, systems, and database administrators in the United States.

Community Need

  • In today’s world, nonprofits' success depends on having an online presence and tech capabilities. Key areas of need for nonprofits in the field of information technology include organizational IT planning, database implementation, and website creation and development.
  • 32% of nonprofits report that increasing the role of the web in operations and marketing is one of their top priorities for the next two years, according to a 2009 Accenture survey.

Search Relevant pro bono Projects

Distribution Channels

  • Professional Services Firms – There are only a few examples of formal information technology pro bono service programs coming out of firms.
  • Corporations – IT departments are some of the most common participants in corporate pro bono service programs.
  • Professional Schools – Pro bono services are beginning to emerge in schools with technology programs but are not yet prevalent.
  • Trade Association – There is no known trade association leadership in IT pro bono service.
  • Intermediaries – There are both national and regional intermediaries for pro bono IT service.
  • Direct Service Providers – Most direct tech pro bono service is done on a one-off basis as personal favors.

Common Information Technology Project Models

Learn more about this categorization of pro bono service models by reading the whitepaper: Making Pro Bono Work: 8 Proven Models for Community and Business Impact.

  • Loaned Employee – An employee is granted a sanctioned and compensated leave of absence to pursue a pro bono project.
  • Functional Coaching and Mentoring – Employees match up with their nonprofit peers, form a relationship, and share functional expertise.
  • Marathon – A company pools human capital resources on a pro bono project within a short, predetermined timeframe (usually 24 hours) to deliver a mass volume of deliverables.
  • Standardized Team Projects – Individuals are placed on teams, each with specific roles and responsibilities. Each project is scoped and structured around a standard deliverable based on the needs of the nonprofit partners.
  • Open-Ended Outsourcing – A company makes its services available to a specific number of nonprofit organizations on an ongoing, as needed basis.
  • Sector-Wide Solutions – A company creates a deliverable pro bono that can be applicable to all nonprofits across the sector.
  • General Contracting – An entity coordinates and oversees internal and external resources, promoting cross- sector collaboration to address a specific social problem.
  • Signature Issue – The combination of formal pro bono work with additional corporate assets for the purpose of leveraging significant internal resources against a specific social issues.

Trends

  • Technology companies offering their products as either in-kind donations or on a discounted basis to nonprofits are increasingly also providing pro bono product implementation and optimization.
  • There is an increasing demand by nonprofits for pro bono social media strategies and functionality.
  • There has been a recent emergence and growing popularity of marathon-style pro bono service to meet technology needs.
  • There is a growing intersection between IT pro bono service and open-source technologies.

Leaders

  • Cisco –  Cisco employees provide pro bono technical support, coupled with IT product grants, to nonprofits and charities. Cisco volunteers review organizations’ IT infrastructures, design technology systems and lead their implementation, and give their time and expertise as volunteers and board members. 
  • Deloitte – Deloitte's work with College Summit  created a $1 million system that enables College Summit to get reliable school and student performance data into the hands of superintendents, guidance counselors and teachers.
  • Microsoft – Microsoft has made a three-year commitment to provide 185,000 hours of employee pro bono service valued at $27.7 million.
  • Nerdery Interactive Labs – For their annual, around-the-clock, 24-hour website blitz, Nerdery Interactive Labs partners 16 teams of ten self-proclaimed web nerds with 16 deserving nonprofits to create websites from scratch or improve existing websites.
  • NPower – NPower is a network of locally-based nonprofit organizations that provide comprehensive, high-quality and affordable technology assistance to other nonprofit groups nationally. Founded in 1999, NPower currently serves more than 4,000 organizations each year.
  • SAP Business Objects – With a technology donation program already up and running, Business Objects, now owned by SAP, built pro bono implementation support into their existing giving program.
  • TechSoup – In addition to negotiating software and hardware discounts for nonprofits, TechSoup provides technology expertise to help guide nonprofits through product decisions. Additionally, they encourage their partner product companies to provide pro bono services to help implement their products.

Case Studies

Resources

Salesforce Nonprofit Starter Pack –The Nonprofit Starter Pack is an implementation tool that extends the power of Salesforce CRM with a pre-built data structure that addresses the unique needs of nonprofits and their constituent relationships. The Nonprofit Starter pack is ideal for nonprofits with straightforward needs, providing a great deal of the customization needed to hit the ground running with Salesforce.

 

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