Chicago Non-profit Feline Rescue Needs IT Volunteer

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Help! (Approved by mods last week, took a while to get needs hashed out to try to make sense here.)

The shelter I work for has two locations in Uptown and Bucktown. Both have relatively small networks, the largest at the location where I work which is about 12 desktops, plus 3-5 laptops on wifi when busy. We need help with IT stuff that none of us really knows how to do. Would probably be a few hours a month and possibly a few random phone calls during business hours.

Our latest volunteer flaked and haven’t heard from him in weeks. He helped a lot and got us set up on a new server with more power/memory and was great, but now he appears inaccessible. He really was a huge help, but I’m worried that maybe we were a bigger pain to deal with than he expected. We had someone on staff who could help with the smaller stuff like printer connectivity, but he left for school and we’re kind of stuck right now.

Examples of things we need help with at this point:

[ul]
li - My Executive Director can’t sign on remotely from home and we have no idea how to fix it[/li]li - We have printers that were networked, but got moved when offices were rearranged and no one knows how to re-connect them[/li]li - Configuring a printer for a program called Cornerstone[/li]li - Setting up possibly that same printer for remote printing[/li]li - A potential project in the short term is related the remote printing, which would be establishing a VPN for Bucktown. I’ve been told it might not be worth the time and effort right now, and we should just wait until after we move in about a year. - So this one will probably require paid services I would think? [/li][li]Aside from that, it would be random questions, more like a 15 minute call to walk somebody through an IT issue once every couple of weeks.[/li][/ul]

Must love cats. And not mind dust. And not mind dealing with computers that aren’t maintained or firewalled and people who do dumb things with them. sigh

Repayment in good feelings and purrs. Can pet all the kitties!

Anyway, thought I’d ask. I know IT services are expensive, and worth every penny. So asking for volunteering on this level is asking a lot. But, can’t hurt to ask! If anyone can get the word out or if someone on the SDMB reads this and is in the City, please PM me and I can give more details, or email - I’ve temporarily enabled the email link in my profile if you prefer that. Some who live around here may already be able to figure out the shelter, but I’m trying to maintain some anonymity since I sometimes whine about work stuff.

Thanks for at least reading!

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A round-trip plane ticket and a couch to crash on and I’m there for you.
25+ years in IT and would love to donate my time just to visit Chicago agaIn.
In all seriousness, I wish you well. Good work going on there from what little I know.

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Next year, when we’re (hopefully) setting up the new building in late spring/early summer, I just might take you up on that! A lot can get done if a solid week can be had. I keep hearing it’s imminent, but still haven’t broken ground yet. keeps tapping fingers

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Shameless bump just to let you know I’ll ask around on your behalf. I’m not in that line of work directly, but I work adjacent to people who are and might know someone who knows someone.

Although, I’m curious: how does a cat rescue winding up having tech needs in the first place? What do y’all use the laptops/desktops for, mostly?

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I can think of some people. I’ll ask around.

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Hi y’all! Things got busy and this fell off my User CP so I’m updating it now. To answer your question, Purple, we’re not a small shelter. The tech stuff started some 15 years ago when a few computers and a server were donated and set up for us. The Executive Director started with putting all our personnel and accounting on it, as the previous ED (in the mid-90’s) had badly mismanaged funds and nearly bankrupted us. The computers and network were proving helpful with Development as well, as a database was started with donors and mailing lists.

Things expounded from there. We do everything on the computers - HR, payroll, shift scheduling, all accounting, database management of donors, mass mailings, web design, maintaining and posting all the social media accounts, photo and video editing, email internally in addition to the public/adopters/donors, document design for event invitations/flyers/information brochures/calendars/newsletters/seasonal donation pleas/everything else, tracking shelter population (required for Department of Agriculture), all records of the cats and their medical histories, adoptions, database of all adopters and mailings for them, plus all the follow up we do for them, phone call records, inventory management, and the Bucktown location uses Cornerstone for the low-cost Spay-Neuter Clinic medical records for the patients they see who are owned by private owners and are not shelter animals. And not to forget the social services like Community Outreach and the Pet Food Pantry Program, Animal Assisted Therapy mostly visiting nursing homes, and Classroom Education visiting elementary schools.

We have about 60 full and part-time employees. We also have a good sized network of volunteers who do all kinds of stuff from TNR in targeted neighborhoods, to patient transport for low-income clients at the S/N Clinic, to cleaning cages to attending our booth at events, giving out information and selling merchandise, to office help. Unfortunately, finding IT people to volunteer is proving not so easy as their time is more valuable and I think they’re pretty much all employed. Sometimes we’ll get a volunteer who can do cool stuff like carpentry when they’re between jobs, but that doesn’t come up much with computer people!

Though we’re a larger operation than some shelters (with several certainly larger than us in the City!), we still try to save our pennies where we can. Since we’ve been able to find a willing IT volunteer here and there, we keep trying to go that route before shelling out the cash.

Cabin_Fever, let me know in a PM if you really think you might want to hang in Chicago for however long you’re willing. I mentioned the idea to my ED and he totally bit on the idea to fly you here and put you up in a hotel if you’re willing to help with networking the new building. I have no idea how much work it is or whether it can be done inside a few days - I imagine it will be as wireless as possible? But I don’t know how all that works or what the budget is, whether we’re moving any of what we have or if there are funds for all new. He said we may be looking at 6-8 months from now if they break ground before the end of April. Of course that would make it winter again, and may not be at all what or when you would want to donate your time for! PM me and I can send you links to our website with info and videos on the new construction and anything else you want to know.

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I threw a note out on Facebook to see if anyone bites. I used to work for a large technology company that was based in the Chicago area, and have a bunch of tech friends up there. Maybe one of them will bite.

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Given the size of your organization, I think you need a professional to plan the IT in the new facility. Setting up the network infrastructure in a new facility needs to be done properly, not by a volunteer here and another volunteer there.

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I actually do know a cat lover in Chicago. He’s not an IT person, but he knows IT people. He has promised to ask around. Please PM your email or what ever contact info you want to give out. I can’t promise anything, but if he responds back that he’s found someone I’d like to give him the info right away.