At Software for Good, love means more than coding pretty apps or having good intentions. Following visionary Black feminist scholar bell hooks, our team is trying to reimagine the work of building software by thinking of love as the active choice to nurture humanity’s highest good. We want to build software in exactly that way.

This Valentine’s Day, the SfG team wants to share some ideas from a recent conversation we had about building software with love. Our hope is to start a dialogue with other do-gooders and technologists about what that might mean in practice. As Chelsey put it during our conversation, you never really know if love is being received — “you just put good energy out into the world, and hope it comes back.” That’s what we’re doing now.

Four ways to build software with love

Prioritize human beings. 

From day to day, most of us in tech “don’t relate love and software really at all,” as Jared pointed out. But the thing about building software, as Colleen said, is that “it’s never just about the software” — it’s about the human relationships that the software makes possible. For Lori, building software with love means “thinking and acting beyond myself, having an awareness of other people.”

By expanding beyond ourselves in this way, Yasmeen said, we’re “looking at all the people who are involved — the people building it, the people affected by it — and what the impacts of it are.” When we focus on how our work touches the lives of human beings, Alex said, the process of software development itself can be “a loving relationship.”

Design with, not for.

Too often, technologists — particularly those of us who want to do good — think of ourselves as helping people. But that’s not what love means to us at all. “Supporting others’ spiritual growth isn’t charity,” Thena explained. “It’s not ‘giving people what they need,’ but lifting up the people we’re working with.” When we’re lifting our collaborators up in that way, Ryan said, it sometimes even feels like being “in love” with them, sharing moments of excitement and discovery.

Like anyone who’s in love, we want to learn as much as we can about our partners. At Software for Good, we practice human-centered design strategy to do just that — so we’re never building for the people and communities our projects serve, but rather co-creating with them. That’s why we designed Housing Hub together with the renters, landlords and property managers who actually need and use it.

Like any kind of loving relationship, though, co-creation can be difficult. “When the people who have a stake in what we’re building feel valued and heard,” said Wendy, “they feel able to tell you things you don’t want to hear.” Being open to troublesome feedback isn’t enough, though. “If you’re not hearing negatives, that doesn’t mean things are working,” Devin pointed out. “You have to reach out and ask.” And who we ask matters, too. “The point of contact we have may not be the actual people who are impacted the most,” said Antonio.

Welcome discomfort.

“Love can be messy,” Casey reflected. “It has challenges, highs and lows.” Co-creating software, like every form of loving relationship, isn’t always comfortable. In fact, Sarah added, “the discomfort is important.” Cassi went farther: “It will be uncomfortable,” she said. “That’s how we’ll know we’re building software in love.”

The same goes for our clients: choosing to support their growth is sometimes as uncomfortable as parenting. “​​I love my two children more than I can describe, and one way I love them is by pushing them — recognizing their genius and pushing them to live and operate fully in that,” said Sharon. “When we’re building software in love, we can do that for our clients as well.” That means “being able to recognize everyone’s full humanity,” Edith explained, “and having the psychological safety to have difficult conversations, raise questions, challenge ideas.”

Discomfort happens when we’re in loving relationship with each other, too. Laney talked about “what it means to ‘do love,’ to love-as-a-verb, in a professional setting. How can we show each other compassion and loving-kindness and grace as we build the software? That’s a practice,” and we’re working on it every day.

Maximize human liberation.

Love, as we understand it, isn’t just about how we feel — it’s about the growth we enable for ourselves and other human beings. And to grow, people need to be free. “If we’re building software with love,” as Kevin put it, “it’s freeing people to do things other than focus on the software.” That’s exactly what Sharon means by software with soul — it’s tech that “helps people dream, build, create and care for each other, as only human beings can do.” The soul comes from human freedom.

Liberation is also at the heart of the Declaration of Digital Autonomy, which Eric helped create. Digital autonomy, as the Declaration says, requires  technology to help the people who are affected by it, allows informed consent, empowers individual and collective action, and protects human rights by design. “If we’re doing all these things,” Eric said, “that’s core to developing software in love.”

Here at Software for Good, we’re still figuring out how to build software with love. In fact, as Annie pointed out, figuring it out is an act of love in itself. “It’s hard to know that the love we put into things is received in the way we hope; but we put the effort in anyway.” Happy Valentine’s day!

The post How to Build Software with Love (A Conversation) appeared first on Software for Good.

In Talking Tech for Good, we talk to people who use technology for positive change every day. Jonathan Stegall, who works as a user experience engineer with Software for Good’s client MinnPost, shares his thoughts on using tech ethically and for social good.

Jonathan Stegall, UX Engineer at MinnPost

How do you use and/or build technology in your work?

I’m a web team of one at a digital-only news nonprofit, so my role is always oriented around the intersections of and tensions between technology, organizational needs and goals, and user needs and goals. Sometimes my job is almost all code (for example when I ran a migration from Drupal to WordPress) and other times it’s more user experience design or visual design.

Recently we’ve been fortunate to work with Software for Good on a user-centered design project, and have been building upon that work as we move into a broader site redesign. I’ve also, with the help of our Audience Development person, created a user research team that we hope will conduct and share user research with the rest of the organization in an ongoing way.

I also do some work with bringing user experience processes and skills to local organizers and activists who primarily work outside technology. In that work, it’s mostly not about what kind of technology those folks are using, but how they can incorporate the good parts of a process that has been honed by its use in technology.

How does your work pursue or support social good?

I’m not a journalist — at my job I’m the tech person, and in my other work I have a foot in the design world and a foot in the organizing world — but I value journalism as its own social good. Sometimes my job feels very close to the good impact journalism can have, such as when I’m able to advocate for marginalized communities at my job because of the other things I do, or when I’m able to incorporate those voices into how we make design or tech or other decisions. At other times my role feels more generic, but even then I try to be aware that doing that work in the context where I do it does help make other things possible.

In my other work, when I do UX things with activists and organizers, I get to choose the work by how well I think it pursues or supports social good. I get to help organizers and activists take a skill set and apply it to the work they do, and help them apply it thoughtfully, hopefully with an awareness from the inside of the issues design can bring with it when it lacks an analysis of power, for example.

How do you define “tech for good”? What makes tech “good”?

In a broad sense, I think tech for good is about using tech skills in the service of a good mission, something that makes the world better. I try to apply the same ethics to tech that I would to anything else, and especially to apply power analysis and what I know of things like intersectionality to understand how tech can impact people for good or bad, and make the better choices.

I don’t think tech itself is neutral, but I also don’t think it is inherently good or bad. Most often, I think it magnifies the good and bad things about humanity, and we can focus it in either direction in a variety of ways.

What interests you about the potential to use technology for change? What people or organizations do you see doing this successfully?

I’m excited by this in a couple of ways.

One is the chance to take the good parts of tech and bring them out into industries like journalism (and I worked in academia before this, and I often felt the same there), and other work like activism and organizing and theology and spirituality, and use them in the service of that work and also share the skills with those people, as I’ve mentioned above. I think there’s a great deal of value in teaching people who don’t work in tech to understand its processes, both so it is more transparent, but also so they can apply it to their own work when it is relevant.

The other way I’m excited is by taking those other fields and bringing what they have to say into technology. When sociologists or journalists or theologians or activists give us language or practices or frameworks to engage the world, I like to bring them into tech work. I’m a white dude, so I mostly learn this from people who aren’t like me, and I do think I’ve got a responsibility to open the doors to those people if they want to come into tech. But I also think I’ve got a responsibility to critique tech — its business models and its ways of impacting and looking at the world — through what those people have to say so it can be shaped by them.

I have followed Software for Good since before I moved to Minnesota, and you seem like a great example of doing tech in positive ways. One of the ways I’ve appreciated working with you is that I don’t have to explain why it’s important to me that we treat our users ethically, but I can assume you will take that into consideration in the things you advocate for us to do. I also think of the Design Justice folks who gather at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, and many of them run their own organizations. Some of them are worker-owned cooperatives, or agencies that work with organizers, or they in other ways try to engage the work organizers and movements are doing.

What ethical concerns do you have in your work? What ethical principles do you want to see adopted more widely when it comes to tech and/or the work of social good?

I do have a lot of ethical concerns about tech, both as it impacts the world on its own (a great example being the impact Facebook or Amazon has on the world through information or through supply chains), and also as it magnifies existing systems and issues (in the ways intersectionality teaches us that the most marginalized people are oppressed in overlapping ways, tech is not separate from that).

As for ethical principles, I’ve recently been inspired by the Design Justice Network’s principles. I’d really love to see them more widely adopted by designers and other tech folk. Here they are:

1. We use design to sustain, heal, and empower our communities, as well as to seek liberation from exploitative and oppressive systems.

2. We center the voices of those who are directly impacted by the outcomes of the design process.

3. We prioritize design’s impact on the community over the intentions of the designer.

4. We view change as emergent from an accountable, accessible, and collaborative process, rather than as a point at the end of a process.

5. We see the role of the designer as a facilitator rather than an expert.

6. We believe that everyone is an expert based on their own lived experience, and that we all have unique and brilliant contributions to bring to a design process.

7. We share design knowledge and tools with our communities.

8. We work towards sustainable, community-led and -controlled outcomes.

9. We work towards non-exploitative solutions that reconnect us to the earth and to each other.

10. Before seeking new design solutions, we look for what is already working at the community level. We honor and uplift traditional, indigenous, and local knowledge and practices.

Can you describe a time when you witnessed the positive social impact of technology, either through something you built or through tech that made your work easier?

At my job, we use a lot of tools by INN (Institute for Nonprofit News) — either the organization itself or by other member organizations — and I think that’s a great thing. Some of the organizations are quite tech capable and others are not, and there’s a decent amount of room for us to share with each other and that helps our work.

I also regularly see people who don’t work anywhere near tech start to understand why something like the user experience design process is valuable outside just designing websites and how they can use it.

What do you wish more people knew about tech, work for social change, or both?

I actually like to help non-tech folk learn how to be skeptical of tech folk. I think most of our culture values tech in an outsized way, and is often not aware of the dangers and pitfalls, so I like to speak to those things from the inside when I can.

There are so very many things I wish people knew about social change work. Maybe especially that justice movements today are often dealing with the same things they did in the past, but people don’t know about the past and so they whitewash it (in more ways than one).

What would be your dream technology aimed at solving a problem in society?

I’m not sure about that. I think generally technology, at least as I generally think of it on the web, doesn’t solve societal problems, but I do think it can magnify the ways people contribute to either solving them or making them worse.

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In Talking Tech for Good, we talk to people who use technology for positive change every day.

Lars Mackenzie
Digital Technology Specialist at the University of Minnesota & Freelance Web Developer

Where do you work, and what is your job? 

I currently work at the University of Minnesota supporting the website for a community-oriented faculty research project. My other major job up until recently has been working on finishing my PhD, which I just did in February. My research examined the impacts of data-driven decision-making and software design on trans and gender non-conforming people. I also do freelance web development work.

How do you use and/or build technology in your work?

I think about and use technology a lot in all of the work that I do. In my freelance work, I build websites and applications for clients. In my role at the U, I’m focused on maintaining a website that showcases digital storytelling projects created by Twin Cities middle school students. I get to work with other educational technologists to strategize how to manage digital media assets, create and categorize metadata, and prioritize student privacy while showing off their awesome work.

As a researcher, I use lots of tools for data analysis and data collection, especially for one piece of my project where I scraped and analyzed social media posts.

How does your work pursue or support social good?

I love getting to work on the middle school digital storytelling project’s website for this exact reason. This program teaches young people how to create digital stories about their experiences and pushes them to think about social justice, race, gender, class, disability, citizenship, and other really important issues. It gives them an outlet to process their experiences, share their voices, and build technical skills in putting together multimedia projects. I’ve worked on this project in a variety of roles over the past five years and it’s been a great experience.

In my academic work, I’ve conducted research that investigates the impacts of big data and consumer data economies on marginalized people. I was really interested in examining the effects of all of this data collection on trans and gender non-conforming people whose identities change over time. Because data is perceived as highly valuable, especially for instance, in a person’s credit report, outdated information sticks to a person. I found that in healthcare and the financial sectors in particular, when trans people have outdated or mismatching identity data, they experience significant barriers to obtaining loans, jobs, housing, and healthcare coverage, including discrimination, delays, and denials. The effects of mismatching or inaccurate information are compounded on trans people of color, immigrants, and disabled people. All of the information that’s generated about an individual circulates through third-party data brokers, mailing lists, etc. and it’s very hard to track down the original source to correct it. This is a software design problem in one sense, but it’s also about cultural attitudes — both about transphobia and about the belief in the inherent value of data — that need to be changed.

Moving forward, I intend to apply my research insights to the industry, helping to reshape how technologists, policy makers, and organizations think about data collection and sharing.

How do you define “tech for good”? What makes tech “good”?

Tech for good is technology that helps marginalized or underserved people. Good tech centers around users’ needs and puts social justice at the center. Good tech also has good policies about data management and user privacy, as well as about the future implications of what they’re building. Good tech also invites in non-technical stakeholders to weigh in on some of these big picture ethical concerns — we need more of this type of collaboration, not just doing what is possible but doing what is right.

What interests you about the potential to use technology for change? What people or organizations do you see doing this successfully?

Technology has a lot of potential to improve people’s lives, whether that’s connecting them to the right resources or communities they didn’t even know existed or making tedious processes faster so they can focus on other issues. One organization, which I used to be on the Board of Directors of, RAD Remedy, is doing cool work in this regard. They built a referral database for trusted, competent physicians for trans and gender non-conforming people powered by user reviews.

What ethical concerns do you have in your work? What ethical principles do you want to see adopted more widely when it comes to tech and/or the work of social good?

In my work I’m concerned about protecting people’s (students’, users’, research subjects’) privacy first and foremost. I also think that challenging the idea of innovation at any cost is an ethical concern. Technologists and people of all kinds should be asking themselves who is benefitting from optimization and whose concerns are being optimized away? We have amazing tools and the brain power to solve huge problems with technology, but the focus towards change needs to be there.

Can you describe a time when you witnessed the positive social impact of technology, either through something you built or through tech that made your work easier?

The best thing about technology for me is about human connection. We live in an amazing time where you can meet or learn about whole communities of people that you may not have access to in your town or state. I’m in my early 30s now, and I think that I still have this excitement from being a teen going on MySpace and finding queer people for the first time. It made me realize there was so much more out there, and so much to learn. It’s really important and I can’t imagine what it’s like for teens now to be inundated by social media and the ability to connect constantly. It’s good and bad for sure.

What do you wish more people knew about tech, work for social change, or both?

Everything is iterative.

What would be your dream technology aimed at solving a problem in society?

An app like AmazonSmile (which donates 0.5% of an Amazon purchase to a charity of your choice), but it collects all of Amazon’s unpaid taxes?

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In Talking Tech for Good, we talk to people who use technology for positive change every day.

Antoinette Smith
Full Stack Engineer, Glitch & Co-Founder, Techquity

Where do you work, and what is your job? 

I work at Glitch as a full stack engineer. I am also the co-founder of Techquity.

How do you use and/or build technology in your work?

At Glitch, I work with a team on building out the platform that allows anyone to build web-based tools or websites. For Techquity, I leverage quite a number of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications: MailChimp for managing our mailing list, Eventbrite for posting events and handling registration, Squarespace for quickly building out our new website, and Google Drive for sharing documents with my team.

How does your work pursue or support social good?

I am really fortunate that both my day job and my organization allow me to focus on something I’m really passionate about: Making technology and the benefits of being in tech accessible to those who are currently underrepresented in tech.

Part of Glitch’s goal is to bring back the type of exploration and tinkering that occurred when the social web consisted of blogs and earlier social media platforms like MySpace, Black Planet, etc. Early introductions to tech shouldn’t require being exposed to the latest hardware.

Techquity is a local organization focused on creating an inclusive tech economy by focusing on supporting African Americans in tech, from first introductions to technology to navigating and excelling in their careers. We have a high-level calendar of events for this year, with a plan for one event per month, where each event touches on our areas of focus: K-12; entry/mid-level and executive career support; and entrepreneurship.

How do you define “tech for good”? What makes tech “good”?

Tech for good is technology that takes all people into account. Good tech considers vectors for abuse and acts to mitigate them. Good tech minimizes harm and makes users of that tech aware of the risks.

What interests you about the potential to use technology for change? What people or organizations do you see doing this successfully?

The CEO of Glitch, Anil Dash, has a podcast and one of the recent episodes really showcased some of the best of tech for good: Episode 9 included interviews with the founders of The Human Utility and Appolition. It really reminded me of how people really can make positive impacts on systems that feel so static and inscrutable: The Human Utility helps people pay their water bills in Detroit and Baltimore; Appolition allows subscribers to donate to community bail funds.

Can you describe a time when you witnessed the positive social impact of technology, either through something you built or through tech that made your work easier?

In October I was able to match people of color that couldn’t afford to attend a local tech conference with people that wanted to fund their entry to that conference using only Twitter.

What do you wish more people knew about tech, work for social change, or both?

Tech is for everyone! You don’t have to be a genius to get into the tech industry. And you don’t have to be in the tech industry to use tech in your work or life.

What would be your dream technology aimed at solving a problem in society?

My dream technology would be able to provide just-in-time contextual information for news stories. This would ideally help with information overload (i.e., trying to determine what news is important for you right now) and with knowing how to use that information in your day-to-day life.

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In Talking Tech for Good, we talk to people who use technology for positive change every day.

Ivy Kaminsky
Founder and CEO, Find Your Power

How do you use and/or build technology in your work?

Our whole reason for being is because we believe that information access plus digital literacy is one great way towards gender equity. We are currently doing needs-based assessments with local African immigrant women to learn what type of resources they need, how they currently access resources, and what barriers they face to accessing those resources; i.e. skills, hardware, and/or internet service. We will take what we learn and build a resource library/tech tool.

How does your work pursue or support social good?

Our work directly supports the UN Sustainable Development Goal #5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Specifically by enhancing the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the employment and training of women.

How do you define “tech for good”? What makes tech “good”?

Using technology to improve the outcomes of people’s lives, especially those that typically lack access.

What interests you about the potential to use technology for change? What people or organizations do you see doing this successfully?

I believe the potential to use technology for change is only as limited as where people can get internet access, which won’t be limited for long with advances in technology.

What ethical concerns do you have in your work? What ethical principles do you want to see adopted more widely when it comes to tech and/or the work of social good?

In the tech world, as well as the work of social good, we want to see the principles of equity and unconditional accessibility reflected in both. Internet privacy and net neutrality are valuable in ensuring protection and equity, and the accessibility to allow individuals to expand themselves through technology.

Can you describe a time when you witnessed the positive social impact of technology, either through something you built or through tech that made your work easier?

One of our favorite and cost-effective tools that we use is something called Qgiv, which is a fundraising platform that starts with a free online version, and allows us to accept donations, and sell event tickets or merchandise without fees.

What do you wish more people knew about tech, work for social change, or both?

Much of the developing world lacks the access to technology and the internet that we often take for granted, and this lack of access disproportionately affects women and girls.

What would be your dream technology aimed at solving a problem in society?

We’re building it, so stay tuned.

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In the Talking Tech for Good series, we talk to people who use technology for positive change every day.

Luciano Patiño
Information Technology and Data Manager, Propel Nonprofits

How do you use and/or build technology in your work?

I’m responsible for designing and building Propel Nonprofits‘ database and other IT infrastructure, along with some external partners.

How does your work pursue or support social good?

There are many opportunities to support social good as an IT professional. For example, as the person responsible for most of our data, I often help design forms or surveys. How questions are phrased (i.e., using open text boxes for race and gender) can bring people in or make them feel excluded. At Propel, we’re also thinking about how to reach people who don’t have access to smartphones or high speed internet, and letting that influence how we design our website.

How do you define “tech for good”? What makes tech “good”?

I try to use technology in ways that advance equity and justice. My expertise is mostly on the data side, and so I’m always curious about how we can collect and publish data that highlights disparities or shows us how we can better serve black communities, LGBT folks, women, and people with disabilities. Beyond that, I think that IT professionals are uniquely positioned to influence people all over an organization. We use technology more and more throughout our business models, and so we (the geeks) are invited into meetings and projects with all stakeholders, and that affects everything we do.

What interests you about the potential to use technology for positive change? What people or organizations do you see doing this successfully?

Nonprofits have not really leveraged analytics the way for-profit businesses have. There are some great new products, like Einstein for Salesforce, and groups, such as the “Analyze This!” meetup, that can help teach us how to leverage these tools. I’m really excited to learn more and do more with analytics.

What ethical concerns do you have in your work? What ethical principles do you want to see adopted more widely when it comes to tech and/or the work of social good?

I believe the world is becoming automated too quickly. We’re reaping the benefits of robotics, the Internet of Things, self-driving cars, etc, without taking the time to think through how our laws and values have to change accordingly. What does it mean when a self-driving car kills someone? When does the human touch matter in making a product? I hope Steinways are never built by machines, for example. These are some of the things I think about.

Can you describe a time when you witnessed the positive social impact of technology, either through something you built or through tech that made your work easier?

All the time I witness how simplifying processes frees people up. At Propel, we have lots of details, lots of minutiae, that we have to track for legal or reporting purposes. The easier I can make that maintenance, the more time my co-workers have to sip coffee with our clients, or come up with creative financial solutions for an organization in crisis. In the end, social justice work is about relationships. The more I can disconnect people from the tedium of data entry, the more time they have to build deep, meaningful relationships.

What do you wish more people knew about tech, work for social change, or both?

I wish people would see technology, finance, and operations as central to social change. Where we office out of matters. How we bill people matters. The length of a survey or an application matters. We have lots of power to draw people closer or make reaching us hard.

What would be your dream technology aimed at solving a problem in society?

I used to work for the local real estate association, at the multiple listing service. I wish we had a search engine, where foundations could search for programs, and nonprofits could search for funding. As the price for entry, some (OR ALL!!) of the funding would have to be unrestricted, and nonprofits would have to provide some data about communities served and outcomes. It would greatly reduce the administrative burden from nonprofits, and would help foundations expand beyond the group of organizations they already know. Sounds like a win-win to me!

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