Being a part of the Seattle tech community – first at Microsoft, and then for the past decade at Zillow – has been a great experience. I’ve been able to grow, learn and take on expanding levels of responsibility for complex product innovations, all while living comfortably in a city where housing and amenities are becoming increasingly unaffordable. But as I continue to develop in my career and plant my roots deeper into this community that I adore, I feel a growing sense of responsibility to help create and foster that same opportunity for all of my fellow Seattleites.

This is the reason I spearheaded the Community Pillar program at Zillow, which connects landlords with people experiencing rental barriers. And it’s the reason I’ve joined the board of All Home and the Ending Homelessness impact council at United Way of King County. The more people I talk to in my community efforts – both around homelessness as well as many other social initiatives – the more I see big problems that can be efficiently solved by technology. The challenge? Too few technology resources in the non-profit sector to help solve those problems.

At the same time, colleagues and friends who see my involvement in this space frequently ask how they can get involved in helping their community too. These are usually people with strong skills and experience in things like development, design and marketing. It’s easy to list the myriad volunteering efforts that they could sign up for, but I believe there’s a bigger opportunity to leverage their skills and help local non-profits with their looming technology needs.

From that belief sprung the idea for Zillow’s Tech Volunteer Fair, #SeaTech4Change: A way to connect people in the tech community who want to help Seattle thrive with the nonprofits that share their vision and need their skills. The goal of the volunteer fair is to facilitate connections and promote collaboration. We will be hosting this event at Zillow HQ in downtown Seattle, 1301 2nd Ave, on May 19, 5-7 p.m.

We are asking Washington-based 501(c)(3) nonprofits to submit a proposal by April 1st that outlines clearly defined, limited-scope projects they need technical help with. We will select 20-30 nonprofits representing a wide variety of missions and business models to come to Zillow and discuss those projects with skill-based volunteers who might be interested in helping them.

We are also reaching out to the greater Seattle tech community to join us for food and drinks and an opportunity to find an organization to volunteer with. Skills that we’re looking for include:

•       Front-end Development
•       Back-end Development
•       Mobile Development
•       UX Design
•       Visual Design
•       Analytics
•       Marketing
•       Public Relations
•       Social Media
•       Content/Editing
•       SEO

Please RSVP here if you can join us.

I see so many passionate, smart and ambitious people around me in the Seattle tech world, and so many problems that we can help solve. I’m excited to join with these people I admire, and I know that we can make a huge positive impact on our community together!