About

Mission

I created Free Time SF because I believe the answer to a lot of our city's problems lies in people taking ownership of their community. San Francisco faces complex challenges, but it is also home to a lot of very smart, motivated people. By connecting those interested in improving their community with leaders working to solve these problems, we can start making progress.

I believe the pool of interested volunteers is much larger than most people realize. People are always looking to make friends and work on projects that have a positive impact. Volunteering can fill this need for a lot of people.

Similarly, many organizations could benefit from more help. While larger nonprofits have the resources to take on new volunteers and provide a structured volunteer experience, anyone can be a leader in the community. All it takes is an idea, some motivation, and a little help.

By making it easier to get involved as a volunteer or an organizer, I hope to tap into a larger pool of people interested in improving San Francisco.

My Story

My name is John Doherty. I've lived in the Bay Area for about 6 years and in San Francisco for the last two. I've worked at tech companies for a few years, and while I appreciated making a good salary and enjoyed the perks, I couldn't help but feel something was missing.

I left my job and spent some time traveling and visiting friends and family. I also volunteered as a tutor for Breakthrough SF. I found tutoring to be incredibly rewarding, which was one of the motivations for creating Free Time SF.

Contributing

As you may have noticed, I'm not a web developer. If you have some skills, or want to try your hand at web development, I'd love the help. All the code is open source on GitHub.

Feel free to email with any questions or comments: john@freetimesf.org