July 11, 2011
Introducing ServeLocally
Open Source Volunteer Matching for Django
This is probably out in far right field for a lot of folks, but hopefully it's interesting.
ServeLocally is the core of weServe. It's a Django project with the primary goal of matching volunteers to opportunities. There are lots of perks for registered users (messaging, verified service logs, goal tracking, improved results, and a few other things); but it's also totally accessible to non-registered users to find out more about what's happening in their community. It's also incredibly easy for an organization to create a profile and post their volunteer needs.
The website is fully responsive, meaning that it understands if you are on Desktop or Mobile, and changes the design accordingly.
Additionally, we built an SMS and Telephony service on top of the database. You can call weServe and get a list of what's happening. It's a new feature, but we are hoping those with limited access to the internet, or technical skills will be able to use it to connect to organizations. The SMS acts like a site search, and there is a good deal of custom work to get the telephony correct.
You can try it out by texting or calling (740) 281-2809
We started working on the concept for weServe Southeastern Ohio roughly 18 months ago. It really came to life in October of 2010, on top of Pinax and Django.
Thanks to Christopher Groskopf aka onyxfish, we learned about Challenge.gov, and specifically the AppsForCommunities challenge, with awards to open source projects.
The Tech Behind ServeLocally and weServeseo.org
- Django
- Pinax
- Django-Haystack
- Django-Twilio
- ReadTheDocs - powers http://docs.servelocally.org/
- Sphinx - How we build our Docs
- Github - Powers our public Source Code Repositories for ServeLocally, and ServeLocally.org
- ep.io - Hosts servelocally.org
- gondor.io - Hosts development versions of weserveseo.org
Several other projects that we use in development and production:
- idios
- django-form-utils
- django-model-utils
- django-taggit
- south
- timelib
- django_groups
- django-debug-toolbar
- django-staticfiles
- django-uni-form
- django-admin-tools
- django-messages
- django-pagination
- django-compressor
- django-emailconfirmation
Video Demo and Screenshots
Phone Call to WeServe
