One of our three pillars

Tech for good, built to last.

Digital products, infrastructure and Shopify work for charities and communities. Built with the people who use them, and built to last.

Start a conversationSee the work
What this is
David Shawe, founder of Invisible Building, under a star-map umbrella in front of a street mural in Belfast
David ShaweFounder, Invisible Building

Invisible Building is an independent Shopify and digital studio in Northern Ireland. Since 2015, part of our work has been for charities, community groups and purpose-led organisations. We call it Tech for Good. It is one of our three pillars, alongside web design and e-commerce, and this page is the record of it.

Tech for good, for us, is not a category of app. It is a way of working: small, specific tools built with the people who will use them; digital plumbing that lets a volunteer committee actually function; and commercial Shopify work done properly for organisations whose revenue goes straight back into their mission.

  • 2015Our first residency, with AWARE, in the launch cohort of Techies in Residence
  • 2×Techies in Residence programmes, first with the Building Change Trust and then with Community Foundation NI
  • 7Languages FixIT speaks, so a repair can be reported without a word of English
  • 12k+Members in the Moira community group we set up. That is over twice the village’s population

The work

An ice hockey team, two residencies, a charity we helped found, an Irish-language app, and a rugby mental-health brand’s store. The same approach every time.

How it started

Ten years, one approach.

In 2015 the Building Change Trust launched Techies in Residence, a programme managed by CultureTECH in Derry that embedded small tech companies inside voluntary and community organisations for ten weeks to build something together. Invisible Building was in the first cohort, paired with AWARE.

Five years later, when the programme had moved to the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland with Comic Relief funding, we went back in with Barnardo’s NI and built FixIT. In between, and since, the same approach has gone into a community association in our own village and into Shopify work for organisations that sell to fund their cause.

  1. Techies in Residence bootcamp at CultureTECH, Derry. Paired with AWARE, then Aware Defeat Depression.

  2. Take 5 Steps for Your Mental Wellbeing web app presented at the NOW Group’s Hive, Belfast.

  3. FixIT pitched with Barnardo’s NI at the Techies in Residence seed-fund showcase; covered by Sync NI.

  4. FixIT goes live at fixit.rentals.

  5. Moira Community Association founded. David Shawe co-founder and first Treasurer.

  6. First Moira Santa parade. It snows. The video passes 10,000 views.

  7. Tech for Good formally becomes one of Invisible Building’s three pillars.

  8. Moira Community Association registered as a charity, NIC109475.

  9. LooseHeadz Shopify store rebuilt in under a month.

  10. Cupán Focail built at the Craicathon, Dogpatch Labs, Dublin, for Seachtain na Gaeilge.

  11. Invisible Building becomes title and shirt sponsor of the Belfast Renegades ice hockey team, and their technology partner, in support of men’s mental health through sport.

What we mean by tech for good

Six rules, learned the hard way across ten years of building for good causes.

  1. Build with, not for

    Every tool we have shipped for a charity was built alongside the staff who support people and, wherever possible, the people themselves. Months embedded, not a brief over a desk.

  2. Small and specific

    Nobody at Barnardo’s asked for a platform. They asked for the boiler to get fixed without a phone call. The best charity technology solves one problem so well that it disappears.

  3. Boring technology

    Web apps over native apps. Plain, well-supported stacks. Hosting that costs pounds a month. Things a volunteer can run in five years’ time without a developer on retainer.

  4. Plan for the day after launch

    Residencies, grants and launches are the easy part. Hosting, the next language, the volunteer who inherits the login: that is where charity tech dies. We scope for it from the start.

  5. Plumbing counts

    A Facebook group run properly, a bank account with the right signatories, forms that replace email threads, a constitution that survives its founders. Exactly where most community groups fall over.

  6. Commercial work done well counts too

    LooseHeadz’s Shopify store funds mental-health support in rugby clubs. Making it faster, cheaper and easier to run is money and time that goes to the mission.

Three ways in

Whether you need a straight answer, a working tool, or a store that funds the mission.

Programmes and partners
  • Building Change Trust
  • CultureTECH
  • Community Foundation NI
  • Comic Relief
  • Innovate NI
  • AWARE NI
  • Barnardo’s Northern Ireland
  • LooseHeadz Foundation
  • Craicathon
  • Belfast Renegades
  • Moira Community Association
  • Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council
Questions

Asked often.

Do you work for free?

Sometimes, for our own community, and we keep a proportion of our time for tech for good work priced accordingly. Most of it is funded, whether through programmes like Techies in Residence, through grants we help our partners apply for, or as commercial work for organisations whose revenue funds a cause. If you are a small volunteer-run group with no budget, tell us anyway; an hour of advice is often all it takes.

What is Techies in Residence?

A Northern Ireland programme that pairs tech companies with voluntary and community organisations for an embedded residency, then funds the best projects to go further. It was launched by the Building Change Trust in 2015 and has been run by the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland with Comic Relief funding since 2019. Invisible Building has taken part twice.

Do you only work in Northern Ireland?

Most of our tech for good work has been here, but LooseHeadz are in Cheshire, Cupán Focail was built in Dublin for the whole island, and FixIT was designed to roll out across the UK and Ireland. Video calls make the geography easy.

Can you help us apply for funding?

Yes. Realistic technology budgets and delivery plans are a big part of our charity consultancy, and we have been on both sides of the application, as a tech partner and as a charity treasurer.

Written along the way, as it happened. Nothing tidied up afterwards.

All posts tagged Tech for Good

Running a charity or community group with a digital problem?

Start with a free conversation. We will tell you honestly whether it needs building, buying or leaving alone, and what it would take either way.

Start a conversation