Chris Worman is the vice president of alliances and program development at TechSoup. He has been working in civil society since 1998. Initially focused on communications and development for major US NGOs, Chris pioneered several online fundraising and community-building platforms before social media platforms made it so easy. After the systems were up and running, Chris got bored and joined Peace Corps — landing in Romania in 2006, where he started the first community foundation (www.szka.org) and helped lay the groundwork for the ensuing movement.
Over the next few years, Chris started a variety of civic-engagement-through-philanthropy processes and social enterprises before drifting back into the online space with TechSoup. Through TechSoup projects Chris has worked to design, millions of citizens across Eastern Europe and the Balkans have been exposed to a discussion about the role of the citizen in nominal democracies. Chris is based in San Francisco, where he coordinates TechSoup’s marketing, communications, and PR; tries to build global alliances for tech and social change; and continues teaching and writing about how to best accelerate web-based social leadership, from beautiful ideas to usable apps.