Is there a reason why your code isn't open source? I like your mission, but it's very unclear to me why your codebase isn't open and I'd 100% be much more likely to try to help out if it were.

If I had to guess: there's likely nothing that special about their Django site for connecting animals to foster parents, and the extra time and potential security risks of of making it open source compared to the benefit it'd provide the open source community doesn't make sense.

Volunteer-run tech and IT for non-profits aren't exactly well known for the highest of standards of engineering. The likelihood of someone accidentally leaking AWS creds or other PII seems reasonably possible without well established engineering practices.

Alternatively, it may involve proprietary code for a software vendor they work with that they don't have the rights to redistribute.

That would just be security through obscurity.

I'd be really interested in contributing but I'd hate to be contributing and then find out that this non-profit is actually some rich persons tax avoidance scheme or can be pivoted in a way to make money for someone.

Having the source code licensed as GPL or something would make this a smaller concern for me.

> security through obscurity

Security is security, how you get there is entirely up to your organization. Also I'm not sure how having code access to their site proves that it isn't some rich person's tax avoidance scheme. In a way, all charities allow rich people to avoid paying taxes to some degree.

why is “somebody wants to make money” a bad thing?

It's a bad thing when the job is advertised: "Volunteer/Unpaid".

The poster I replied to indicated that the “making money” part could come later.

It is easy enough to have a volunteering agreement that catches this with clauses. Open sourcing the code won’t help with that scenario anyway.

But if it were open source, volunteers could fork and self-host the application and create their own competing non-profit/organization.

It’s a content-driven website with user submissions. They don’t even claim copyright or ownership on the content, which is the actual thing that makes up the unique value.

Open source what, exactly? You point makes literally zero sense

Would you be willing to volunteer your time to open source their codebase rather than waiting for someone to volunteer their time to open source their codebase so you would be more likely to help out?

I'm not trying to be snarky, but there could be a fit for a person acting in good faith to help them accomplish this. I think open sourcing one's code is seen as easy by some, but it's actually a skill (I tend to get overwhelmed by the idea of open sourcing my projects and never end up doing it FWIW) and people experienced in doing so have something to offer.

This sounds so nice, I dropped an application off. How can I find more volunteer CS opportunities like this?

Idealist.org has been a job board for non profits for decades, and you can find volunteer positions there at times.

Once upon a time I even worked at idealist itself when they had grander dreams

Would definitely love to see this as an open source project that could receive contributions from the public too. Many people find these initiatives and love to participate with reviews, discussions, and code contributions. Hopefully this is being considered