Rung 1
Identity
Own domain and DNS, professional email on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, shared calendars and files.
For funders
The plan in one page
A multi-year capacity grant, structured as capital plus five years of tapering operating support, buys a small owned place in rural Pennsylvania, the two staff who run it in sequence, and the partnerships that keep both funded after the grant ends. Nothing is charged to the charities or to the people who serve them.
A validated problem, solved at a fraction of the cost
Most of the small charities that come to Free For Charity have run for one or two years on a single personal Gmail address. No domain, no professional email, no website, no donor records, no volunteer system, no registered agent, no policies a funder can read. They are doing real work and cannot pass the first page of a funder's due diligence. Paid help for that stack costs five figures a year, which is exactly what they do not have.
Free For Charity stands up the whole digital and business infrastructure at no cost to the charity, using vendor nonprofit programs, long-term volunteers and AI-assisted delivery. Once a charity is established, maintenance is light and it graduates to conventional support, which opens the slot for the next one.
The stack a charity leaves with
Rung 2
Presence
An accessible website with privacy, cookie, terms and donation policies, search, and the analytics chain end to end.
Rung 3
Money
Zero-fee donation processing, donor records, a Candid profile and transparency seal, and grant-ready documents.
Rung 4
People
Their own volunteer management system: intake, screening, scheduling, hours and recognition.
Rung 5
Governance
Registered agent service, a compliance calendar, board and policy templates, and records that survive a leadership change.
Rung 6
Capability
AI tools from vendor nonprofit programs, training on both productivity stacks, security defaults, and a named Free For Charity volunteer to call.
Delivered through programs Free For Charity already uses: Google for Nonprofits, Microsoft for Nonprofits, Cloudflare, GitHub Pages, Zeffy and Candid. The per-charity value method will be published once the board approves it.
How the grant is structured so it works
The ask is a multi-year capacity grant: capital for the place in year one, plus five years of operating support that tapers. Year one is one hire, the Volunteer Manager, and a first summer season. The Program Coordinator is hired in year two. The grant carries the early years while the two staff open the other sources; by year five the lead grant is under 40 percent of cost, and no single source is above 40 percent.
- 1
Front-loaded, then tapering. The early years are carried while the two hires open the other sources; the grant share then falls each year, to under 40 percent of cost in year five.
- 2
Capital inside year one. The acquisition and initial improvements close in the first quarter so the first summer runs on owned ground. Any later phase is a separate ask, never hidden in operating support.
- 3
Raises tied to results. Each staff increase is contingent on the next year of funding being secured and the prior year scorecard being met: pipelines signed, cohort filled, retention held.
- 4
Annual release against a published report. Charities served and graduated, volunteer retention at twelve months, the incident record, support by source, and the endowment balance.
- 5
Endowment seeded early. A year-two surplus, planned gifts and a named-position campaign start the fund that carries the two roles when the grant ends.
Why an owned place, not a city office
Technology volunteers can work from anywhere. What they cannot get in a city is a reason to stay for a season. A place to live, eat and work together turns a weekend volunteer into a resident who finishes what they start, and it gives the charities we serve a team that is still there in month four.
It is also the cheaper option over five years. An office and rented housing for a cohort leave nothing behind when the lease ends; a modest rural site, bought outright and improved in phases, costs less over the same five years and leaves an asset the program keeps. We describe the property only at the regional level online, near Clear Creek State Park, Cook Forest State Park and Sigel, Pennsylvania; the comparison figures are in the business plan we share with funders directly.
Year one concentrates its value in one summer
Quarter one
Award. Acquisition and initial improvements close. The Volunteer Manager is hired and living on site.
May to September
First season: four to six residents at campsites and RV pads, recruited through partners that already exist. No winterized housing is needed.
By September
Goal: the first ten charities set up with the full stack. First pipelines signed with veteran programs, PA CareerLink and Penn State.
Winter into year two
The Program Coordinator is hired, Learning Factory projects begin, the cohort grows toward 20, and the second season is planned.
Charities served rise every year on a fixed team
Active cohort, capped at 20Charities established, cumulative
Planning targets, not results. No number is published as a result until it is verified; the method is on the impact page.
Free For Charity seeks to support 100 charities at a time; the Monastery takes the 20 with the deepest needs. Setting a charity up is the hard part. Once its domain, email, site, donor and volunteer systems and policies are in place, maintenance is light and it graduates back to conventional volunteers, which opens the slot. The active cohort stays flat while the total served climbs, on the same two staff.
Why the Volunteer Manager is a senior technical lead
The volunteers who do this work are college-educated engineers and administrators with rare, in-demand skills who earn well in their day jobs and give Free For Charity their evenings and seasons. Keeping them requires someone they respect as a peer: a manager who runs the work as sprints with a real backlog and speaks both productivity stacks.
- A Certified Scrum Master (SAFe or PMI-ACP) held or completed in the first year; work planned in GitHub, where Free For Charity projects already live.
- Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 at hire, and both at full performance within the first year.
- Three or more years leading volunteers, residents, students or service members in person, with experience of at least one cohort: veterans, survivors of domestic violence, people in recovery.
- The salary band is published on the hiring page, with housing, meals and a shared site vehicle on top; each step up is tied to results and checked against the state wage tables for Jefferson County and its neighbors.
The partnerships that carry it after year five
Each of these is planned or in conversation unless the partners page says otherwise; that page carries the status of every one.
PeopleAmeriCorps VISTAPennSERVE host siteVA Compensated Work TherapyHiring Our HeroesDoD SkillBridgeTravis Manion FoundationPA CareerLinkWorkforce Solutions for North Central PAClaude Corps fellow
SchoolsPenn State Learning Factory, two capstone projects a yearSmeal Farrell Center matchPenn State DuBoisPennWest ClarionIUP
MoneyVeterans, recovery, housing-stability and rural Pennsylvania foundationsFree For Charity annual fund and ZeffyVendor nonprofit programsNamed-position endowment campaign
The rest of the plan
The full budget and business plan are shared with funders directly: Clarke Moyer at clarkemoyer@freeforcharity.org, or text 520-222-8104. The Technology Monastery is a proposed project of Free For Charity, a US 501(c)(3) public charity, EIN 46-2471893; these would be its only paid staff.
Printed from technologymonastery.org/funders/briefing/, which is the current version. Counts are planning targets. Documents for funders: technologymonastery.org/funders/documents/