In my spare time I am starting a website for local resources...?

Question

Does anyone know where I might go and get funding for this?

Answer 1

One other idea would be to try working with the United Way in your area. United Way is the group that sponsors the community resources website and phone referral line in my area. Try looking for the 2-1-1 Helpline in your area. You could assist with maintaining the website; and if there isn't already one for your area, the United Way might be willing to support your efforts.

Answer 2

You *aren't* going to get funding for this, in terms of grants or donations.

You could propose the idea to your local government that they hire you, or that they involve you as an unpaid volunteer, to build such a web site on behalf of the government, to serve your community.

You could do this on your own and sell advertising on the site, or hope that using Google AdSense generates enough income to cover your costs.

But for either of these options to work, you need to:

-- be a really outstanding web designer and marketing person, with a proven track record of designing web sites and getting high traffic to them

-- show that there is no such web site already serving your community, and show that there is a need for such (through research and surveys)

Otherwise, you can research to see if your community has an Information and Referral (I & R) service -- you local United Way or even the phone book will be able to tell you -- and if so, you can volunteer to help and improve its web site that links to local resources.

You can also look for other web design/management volunteering opportunities with other nonprofit organizations. If you are in the USA, see any of these web sites for such opportunities:

VolunteerMatch, http://www.volunteermatch.org

Idealist, http://www.idealist.org

Change.org, http://www.change.org

CraigsList, http://www.craigslist.com

Network for Good, http://www.networkforgood.org

http://www.1-800-volunteer.org/

ServeNet, http://servenet.org/

Also, contact your local volunteer center; you can find this via the Points of Light Foundation web site, http://www.pointsoflight.org/centers/

Answer 3

United Way does this in all areas of the country, why not volunteer with them to get an idea of what they do and perhaps you would find an area where a needs are unmet and go from there.  There is no sense in duplicating a service.