One of the ways I want to give back, is by getting more involved in the MODx community and to start contributing some of the snippets and code that I’ve created for MODx over the last year. This is code that I’ve created for my own use that I think would benefit others in the community and that we can all help improve. I’ve started this process already with the ChunkIf snippet (below) – but there’s lots more where that came from.

I realise that I have a pretty nice life, working for myself, working at home on my own schedule and doing OK, financially. So the other thing that I had in mind was helping those less fortunate. I’d like Codeistry itself to do some good for other people, as well as me. To this end, I’m planning to start investing a portion of the proceeds from each job Codeistry does into small businesses in need around the world. Small amounts of money can go a long way in Africa or rural South America and provide seed capital for entrepreneurs to start their own businesses, lifting themselves and their families out of poverty; this is called microfinancing.

Best of all, there’s a really simple way to do this called kiva.org – a site which makes it easy to invest in small businesses in the developing world.

The plan is for each Codeistry job to invest in one entrepreneur in the developing world, via Kiva. I can then link to the progress reports on Kiva and see how they’re doing – and maybe get my clients involved too, forming a connection between all our businesses.

New ventures

I’ve also got a few ideas for new web based businesses and sites which I want to get off the ground this year. I’ll be talking more about these later, so watch this space!

Build up Codeistry

In order to do all of these things, I’ll need to keep myself clothed and fed – which is where Codeistry comes in. We had a pretty good start but there’s lots of potential in my niche, so I want to do even better this year.

I’ll be blogging about progress with all these throughout the year. Hope you had a good 2008 and have a prosperous 2009!