One of my colleagues and dear friends, Clare Ultimo, and I have hearts and we wear them on our sleeves sometimes. In so much as we go out of our way for nonprofits and extend our professional services (services that are normally well over $100/hour) for free. We donate of our time and our resources only to find that our efforts go unnoticed, our time under-appreciated and our professional services questioned. It hurts.
We are as honest as anyone gets with ourselves, our clients and each other, we are in the top of our class of what we do, so why don’t these nonprofits appreciate us?
What I am specifically referring to is I have been volunteering my services to a nonprofit. I have been helping a lifelong friend who is their webmaster redesign their site into a WordPress site. The President of the nonprofit must have asked a “friend” his opinion on the WordPress site.
WordPress is an open source application designed to make updating websites easier. There are rivals in web applications. It’s like the classic U of M versus Ohio State rivalry. People are either Open Source or they are not. This guy happened to not be, but he blathered on about how unsecure WordPress is and how it should only be used for hobby sites.
I took this personally. My services are not just for hobbies, they are for professional companies, organizations, authors, etc. Let’s take a look at some companies/organizations who use WordPress:
Ebay
Yahoo
Digg
Ford
Wall Street Journal
Sony
People Magazine
You can view more commercial companies with the original article here: 21 Popular Brands That Are Using WordPress
Are any of the companies listed above hobbies? No. They are full-fledged commercial entities who chose WordPress because it is the best solution.
Let this be a wake-up call to non-profit boards across the country. Know who to trust and appreciate what you have.