GiveCamp NWA helps Northwest Arkansas nonprofit groups

NWA Democrat-Gazette/SPENCER TIREY James Vance (center) with J.B. Hunt Transport Services works Saturday with others from J.B. Hunt, UST Global, Walmart and Collective Bias on the Northwest Arkansas Womens Shelter website during GiveCamp being held at Collective Bias in Rogers. GiveCamp NWA an annual event helps nonprofit groups with technology and creative professionals to create free tech solutions. On Saturday they served 11 nonprofit groups.
NWA Democrat-Gazette/SPENCER TIREY James Vance (center) with J.B. Hunt Transport Services works Saturday with others from J.B. Hunt, UST Global, Walmart and Collective Bias on the Northwest Arkansas Womens Shelter website during GiveCamp being held at Collective Bias in Rogers. GiveCamp NWA an annual event helps nonprofit groups with technology and creative professionals to create free tech solutions. On Saturday they served 11 nonprofit groups.

ROGERS -- Betsy Brumley had an idea of what she wanted to get out of GiveCamp NWA. That all changed once she met the volunteer team she and her husband would work with over the weekend.

GiveCamp NWA is an annual event where technology and creative professionals help create free tech solutions for local nonprofit groups.

Today’s hours

GiveCamp NWA will continue from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today at Collective Bias, 1750 S. Osage Springs Drive in Rogers.

Source: Staff Report

Nonprofit groups Involved

The nonprofit groups involved in GiveCamp NWA this weekend are:

• Northwest Arkansas Fencing Foundation

• The Reform Alliance

• Pug Rescue of Northwest Arkansas, Inc.

• CSCMP Ozark

• I’ll Fly Away Foundation

• Artist’s Laboratory Theatre

• Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra

• CARE Community Center

• Northwest Arkansas Women’s Shelter

• Peacemaker Music Festival

• Arkansas Crisis Center

Source: GiveCamp NWA

More than 50 volunteers split into teams to help 11 nonprofit groups, including Brumley's I'll Fly Away Foundation. The event will conclude today.

On Saturday, the teams and nonprofit members found areas in the open, airy space at Collective Bias and got to work. Brumley's team met in a small conference where a new website was fashioned.

Brumley's team included her husband Kevin Bernier, Jeff Rice with Atlas Technology Group and Bob Shull and Beth-Ann Frankum with Propak.

"I came in thinking one thing, and came out thinking another," Brumley said. "We're starting from the ground up building a new website."

Her team also talked with her about the message of the nonprofit group. A blog also was discussed. Brumley's grandfather Albert E. Brumley wrote the iconic song I'll Fly Away. The volunteers agreed Brumley has a story to tell and that it could be handled via blog posts.

Brumley's husband maintained the old website, and will learn how to manage the new one with the help of the volunteers.

Input from the nonprofit groups is vital over the course of the weekend, lead organizer Chris Whittle said.

"They are a part of the team," said Whittle, a software engineer and board president of GiveCamp NWA. "They are here to learn and see what changes are made."

Eighteen nonprofit groups applied for GiveCamp NWA. That total was reduced to the 11 who participated over the weekend, Whittle said. The nonprofit groups must be in Arkansas and serve the Northwest Arkansas area.

Most of the nonprofit groups wanted help with websites. A few needed database assistance, and one sought help with a rebranding effort that will go live next year. Presentations of what the teams accomplished over the weekend will be presented today at Collective Bias.

Building a new website could cost between $2,000 and $5,000, Whittle said. The nonprofit groups get the work done for free, saving cash for other needs, he said. In 2017, GiveCamp NWA provided $100,000 in free help to nonprofit groups, according to a news release.

The biggest hurdle is the work has to be mostly completed over the weekend. Other developers, depending on their work load, might work six weeks or more to get a website ready for a client, Whittle said.

The Brumley team's day was spent working on getting the website home page and perhaps one interior page built. Betsy Brumley and Kevin Bernier watched a tutorial or Divi -- a visual page builder. They then would try replicate the two pages done by the volunteers.

Brumley was excited as a long day of work Saturday got started.

"It's life changing," she said of GiveCamp NWA. "I've met these three people less than 24 hours ago, and they are like family."

NW News on 10/21/2018

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