15 tech charities that need your help

There's nothing very tech about the cause Action for Children but the event itself is run and supported by the IT industry.

Every year, hundreds of IT professionals sleep rough for a night to raise funds, and to better understand what it's like to be a troubled kid out on the street.

Sleepers, as they've been dubbed, raise 2,000 each to take part in the event, which happens each year in chilly October.

While you could wait until then to donate or even take part help is needed all year round. Click here to go to Byte Night's donation page.

Innovation

Open Source Lab

Open Source Lab is just one of many such projects you could toss some cash at pick any project you support, be it Mozilla, Joomla or something smaller, and if it's open source, they could probably use the cash.

OSL is based out of Oregon State University in the US, and offers hosting services to let Linux, Apache and Drupal projects collaborate. Obviously, all that hosting doesn't come cheap, so drop them a donation here.

Wikipedia

We're all used to information being freely accessible for free and that's largely thanks to sites such as Wikipedia. But such a service doesn't come cheap, even with all the hours donated by volunteers, and the online encylopedia is looking for $6 million in donations.

Donations go to the Wikimedia Foundation, which also supports a host of other wikis, including Wikinews, Wikispecies and Wikibooks.

Click here to donate.

Pop!Tech Accelerator

A spin-off of the Pop!Tech conferences, this non-profit group looks to "incubate" social technology to help take on global challenges such as promoting healthcare using mobile devices.

Christmas donations can be made to one such programme, Project Masiluleke, which uses mobile phones and other portable devices to deliver information and care for HIV/AIDs and tuberclurosis patients in South Africa. Donations will help expand the programme to other countries.

Donations can also be made to the overall Accelerator programme, which also funds grants and scholarships.

NetSquared

A spin-off of TechSoup, this group looks to help charities of any sort make better use of the web to support their causes.

"Non-profits and NGOs thrive on relationships which means the social web holds tremendous potential to transform their effectiveness and impact," the group says on its website. "We want to help you build the strategic capacity, knowledge and skills you need to put these powerful new online tools to work achieving positive changes."

Aside from just boosting fundraising, NetSquared believes non-profits can better use the internet to find new supports, influence public policy, garner more press coverage and re-engage their current supporter base.

One of the ways they help spread information is through their monthly Net Tuesdays there's one held in London too.

Donations to NetSquared can be made here.

Did we miss any of your favourite tech charities? Drop us a line at itpro@dennis.co.uk to let us know, or leave a comment below.