[OH-announce] Last chance to support OpenHatch in 2012 (plus new T-shirt!)

[Asheesh Laroia]

Hi announce list members! We try to keep you folks briefed on the latest 
news with OpenHatch.

This time, Mike, Deb, Jessica, Karen, and I are doing something special: 
asking you to donate to the OpenHatch Foundation.

Karen has designed our new T-shirt, a special gift for donors who give 
$100 or more before the year's end 
https://openhatch.org/blog/2012/new-openhatch-shirts-plz-donate/

And I wanted to give you a summary of what we've accomplished so far in 
2012.

(If you already know you want to donate, you can jump straight to it: 
https://openhatch.org/donate/ )

* 2,358 people have entered at least one valid answer into our training 
missions, learning at their own pace how to get involved in free, open 
source software. That's more than 1,000 new people in the past 10 months.

* About 120 students attended our 4 workshops and 1 lecture at colleges, 
as part of Open Source Comes to Campus <http://campus.openhatch.org/>, 
learning the basics of open source contribution and trying it hands-on. We 
plan to double that next year, including a special focus on women in CS 
groups.

* 2,199 bitesize bugs are listed in our volunteer opportunity finder 
<https://openhatch.org/search/>.

* Over 80 people signed in with our newcomers corner at the Wikimania 
Hackathon and at the pandas sprint we co-organized.

* 41 unique people have made commits to our web app code this year.

* 4 awesome fellow board members hired our first full-time executive 
director in July. (That's me!)

* 1 year is how old the non-profit is (our formal birthday is December 5).

Our funding so far comes from donations from companies that support our 
events, paid opportunities like the Wikimania Hackathon, a very small 
number of individuals and companies that believe in our broader mission.

There's where you come in. If you, too, believe in our mission of helping 
free software projects grow in size and diversity, would you donate to 
help us continue that work?

Think of the cute baby penguin T-shirt! But also, think of the work we've 
done that you're a part of: organizing effective outreach events, working 
with communities to bring more contributors and diversity, and teaching 
people online.

You can donate here: https://openhatch.org/donate/

In 2013, we're focusing on gender diversity in our community. That means 
honing our Open Source Comes to Campus series and working with women in CS 
groups to create workshop and project nights to change the gender ratio 
with our practical, tested outreach. These in-person events bring bitesize 
bugs together with training missions and in-person mentorship.

To make that possible, we're in the process of raising money from 
corporate event sponsors. Here, we can use your help. If your company 
might be interested in sponsoring the workshop series, let us know. 
Moreover, if you personally can do so, we will very much appreciate it.

Our track record of understanding free software projects, providing 
hands-on teaching, and integrating with existing communities puts us in a 
position to really make a difference. So if you can, please help out by 
donating here:

https://openhatch.org/donate/

Thank you tremendously from all of us board members,

-- Asheesh Laroia, Mike Linksvayer, Jessica McKellar, Deborah Nicholson, 
and Karen Rustad.