There are several hackathons that happen every year at SXSW. It's a great way jump into a project, meet people, and try and win some prizes, not to mention the notoriety. Events where you grind for days at a time trying to deliver a more polished, creative product than all the other teams that are created. When the dust settles, you're usually left with unusable code, and a bit more BO than you started with. The euphoria fades, and the impact is minimal. That's why we started Hack4Love.
Hack4Love was born as an idea from our Digital Creative Marketing Agency – Figmints. We've entered hackathons before as an agency – Startup Weekend, Angelhack, and even local events like ones sponsored by Hasbro. We've done fairly well at these hackathons – coming in second place for our Providence Startup Weekend. We've made great connections, and had a great time plowing away, but the work rarely lives beyond the judge's final call.
What if we spent those days entrenched in doing work for a group that needs it the most – meaningful non-profit organizations that are doing great work, and are strapped for cash to do much marketing on their own. So, we hacked the branding, website, and material for Hack4Love, and reached out to a few organizations that we thought needed the work.
Of course, as a brand new concept, there weren’t any organizations who were reaching out to us looking for help. That means, we had to go find an organization that we felt had a great connection to their community, and could use the marketing help. As our inaugural Hack4Love trip, we decided to connect with a city that is near and dear to us – Austin, TX.
One of our dear friends, and builder of our incredible conference table at Figmints, calls Austin home. Austin Evers from Austin, TX is very well connected in the charitable community in Austin, as the church that Evers leads has outreach events every month. He connected us to several non-profits that he thought would be a good fit, and one organization really stuck out to us – Care Communities.
Care Communities is a 501c3 organization in Austin, TX that provides non-medical support to those in the Austin community that are suffering with serious illnesses like cancer and AIDS. You’d be amazed at how impactful it could be to do something as simple as washing dishes, or even just playing a board game with people who seem forgotten in the community. Care Communities has one of the largest volunteer networks in Austin, and though they have a great story, not a lot of people know about what they are doing.
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter to find out what we’re putting together for Care Communities. Contact us to be a part of our next hackathon – or let us know if you want to set up a hack of your own.