Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

How should we manage inventory? How can we analyze donor relationships? How can we streamline impact stories to enhance grant writing? These sorts of questions emerge regularly among short-staffed non-profit entities.

Non-profits often struggle to explore and integrate new technologies because limited funding and staffing force them to prioritize immediate needs over long-term innovation. As a result, many organizations miss opportunities to leverage digital tools that could help solve complex operational problems or inefficiencies.

Thankfully, the city of Knoxville is home to a wealth of business leaders, developers, and strategic thinkers who are well-equipped to solve its big problems. And, on Giving Tuesday, 75  programmers, designers, project managers, and storytellers spent 10 hours at the 121 Tech Hub in the Old City to help build applications and workflows for seven local area nonprofits. The idea came from Brandon Bruce, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the 121 Tech Hub.

“We really wanted a chance for our Tech Hub members, other hackers in the community, and UT students to come out and build for a day. We decided to plan it for Giving Tuesday and use our technology skills to build cool solutions that will impact the community,” Bruce said. “It’s important on Giving Tuesday to be as generous as we can with both our time, talent, and donations.”

121 Tech Hub partnered with the United Way of Greater Knoxville (UWGK) to help select the seven non-profits receiving pro-bono solutions. The chosen organizations were: Emerald Youth Foundation, For the Love of Reading, Junior Achievement of East Tennessee, Little Chefs Big Change, Muse Knoxville, Restoration House, and Rooted East.

Some of the organizations had large teams of developers and strategic community thinkers, while others worked more closely with just one or two individuals.

“Giving Tuesday has become a very competitive day for fundraising in the nonprofit sector,” said Ellie Kittrell, the Vice President of Advancement for UWGK. “We were very excited about this opportunity to help folks think differently about how they can give back, particularly at this time of year.”

And, the time, talent, and innovative solutions on display were a testament to what can happen when a community comes together to give back in an impactful way.

“If you do back-of-the-napkin math, this is like a five-figure donation on behalf of the 75 people who have stepped up to build applications all day, setting aside their day jobs and really dedicating time to build things for nonprofits,” Burce said.

For example, building out a custom application to support a specific business need would traditionally cost a non-profit thousands of dollars in ideation, design, development, integration, and training.

“I think the range of challenges presented by the nonprofits is really interesting. One is trying to build an inventory management system for books. Other nonprofits have invited teams to build connections between databases and donor tracking,” Bruce said. “Some of the challenges are pretty big, and the solutions are niche.”

Kittrell said that many nonprofits deal with lean staffing, small budgets, and a seemingly endless stream of tasks, meaning innovation is embedded into the fabric of nonprofits across the country. Nonprofit leaders are constantly looking for ways to be more efficient and effective wit fewer resources.

“Nonprofits aren’t always the first sector you think about when you think about the word innovation, but in fact, these leaders are at the heart of human-centered design and the design thinking process. They want to use these tech tools, and this opportunity to match them with tech experts who have experience in those spaces is really awesome,” Kittrell said.

For the entire 10-hour day, the Tech Hub was packed with folks coming in and out, contributing to those solutions. The whiteboards were covered in brainstorms, and the conference rooms were packed with people.

At the end of the evening, all seven teams presented their initial problems and technological solutions.

Some of those issues ranged from using technology and AI to better track and record inventory, integrating existing platforms for more robust bookkeeping, and creating a dashboard that communicates the nonprofit’s impact on people served.

In its first year, Bruce and the UWGK team said the event was a major success. So much so, that Bruce said plans are underway to replicate the event… and do it again!

“For folks that maybe missed the event this time, we’re going to continue to post nonprofit challenges through the Volunteer East Tennessee portal with United Way, and try to do these year-round,” he said. “So, mark your calendar for next year for the next Giving Tuesday and come out and join us!”

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