Should I Do Pro Bono Work?

This is Bono.
Pro bono means
something else.

All kidding aside to U2 fans everywhere, as a person who works in any sort of creative job - web site development is the one I know the best - one great thing you can do for yourself and your portfolio is pro bono development. Yes, that's right. Give away services. You may be thinking to yourself, "Wait a minute, this blog is about making money doing what I do - now you're telling me to purposely not make money doing it?"

Yes, I am.  I've done it a few times, for various different reasons that made sense for me at the time.  My examples, in chronological order:

I worked on a website for an animal rescue organization based on http://www.petfinder.org. It wasn't elegant. It wasn't well designed. And it was one of my first. But it taught me some of the most critical fundamentals of using HTML and CSS, so it was worth my time.

I worked on a website for a local musician working on breaking into a bigger career. I didn't charge anything for my time because, well, the musician was just wanting a starting point anyway.  I figured that the experience I gained in building and administering a simple site was worth the few hours I put into it.  Also, hopefully someday maybe that musician (not Bono) will make it big and remember me from "back in the day".

The most recent website I worked on is WordPress based for my daughter's preschool.  Once again, the value I got out of this experience didn't come from the need to get paid. First, and foremost, the emotional fulfillment I got out of helping put something together that was so useful for so many parents and teachers really mattered to me.  And, second of all it gave me something else valuable - WordPress/Digital Ocean administration experience.

When you do something for free, you get to make the rules and tell the "client" the best option they have based on the needs they have to fulfill. It gives you a chance to expand your experience into something you may not have already known. Or it can give you a chance to practice using skills you need to sharpen further. And, by golly, it's just good for the community at large!

Go, create, find someone you can help! I promise by helping them, you will help yourself too.