Daylong event will explore how the organization can better serve its member and supporters; hackers will present ideas to board members and donors at early evening reception.

OutServe-SLDN, the association of actively serving LGBT military personnel, veterans, families, and their supporters, today announced that it will hold its first hackathon in Washington, DC, on Friday, May 10, 2013. The event is designed to be an opportunity to connect service members, veterans, computer programmers, and public relations professionals to collaborate on ways to grow the LGBT military equality movement and how OutServe-SLDN can better serve its members and supporters.

The ideas developed will be presented at a reception following the hackathon to members of the OutServe-SLDN Board of Directors, Military Advisory Council, and key donors for consideration. The Board of Directors will meet the following day to consider incorporating ideas into the organization’s strategic plan for the future.

“Nonprofits, like any other businesses, only survive and thrive on the quality of the ideas they are generating and the problems they are solving. This kind of innovative input and planning represents exactly the approach we should be taking to advance our mission and involve the best and brightest in our strategic vision setting. This kind of activity can speed up innovation by 5000 percent,” said OutServe-SLDN Board of Directors Co-Chair Josh Seefried, who co-founded OutServe via Facebook and was part of a team that recently won the national Startup Bus competition. For more on that competition, click here.

Seefried and board co-chair, April Heinze, will lead the board’s involvement in the hackathon, and the board of directors will meet on Saturday in Washington, DC to incorporate the ideas developed and presented into the organization’s strategic plan for the future.

“We know that the ways we’ve won the battles of the past will not be the ways we win and sustain equality moving forward. I’m excited about this opportunity to hear from a diverse group of individuals with varied backgrounds about new ideas for moving OutServe-SLDN forward, growing our membership and support-base, and strengthening the movement to achieve full LGBT military equality,” said Army veteran and OutServe Executive Director Allyson Robinson. “This represents a unique, innovative, and relevant approach to leading in the LGBT movement.”

The Hackathon will take place from Noon until 5:30 p.m. at the Washington DC office of Blue State Digital, located at 406 7th Street, NW. Reception location to be announced at a later date. For more information or to RSVP for the Hackathon and/or the reception afterwards, click here.

Sponsors include Blue State Digital, Wells Consulting, Social Driver, and Adam Shapiro Public Relations.
The hashtag for the event will be #OutServeHACK.

About OutServe-SLDN: OutServe-SLDN is the association of actively serving LGBT military personnel with more than fifty chapters and 6500 members around the world It works to support a professional network of LGBT military personnel and create an environment of respect in the military with regard to sexual orientation and gender identity. It is a non-partisan, non-profit, legal services and policy organization dedicated to bringing about full LGBT equality to America’s military and ending all forms of discrimination and harassment of military personnel on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. OS-SLDN provides free and direct legal assistance to service members and veterans affected by the repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law and the prior regulatory ban on open service, as well as those currently serving who may experience harassment or discrimination. For more information, visit www.outserve-sldn.org.