Requirements

In order to assist non-profit organizations in making their community presence known, The Shades Network offers free web hosting accounts to qualified nonprofit relationship-orientated organizations serving the New York community.

Qualifications?

Nonprofit organizations that specifically maintain relationship-orientated services for the Greater New York community qualify for our nonprofit web-hosting program. Entities awaiting IRS approval may apply. However, preference is given to organizations with 501 (c) (3) status.
Those applying go through a board screening process to ensure that they are a bona fide nonprofit organization serving the community. Documentation, including proof of 501 (c)(3) status will be requested. If the organization does not yet have 501 (c)(3) status, other documentation may be considered. The organization applying must pass our board screening process before it will be considered for an account.
Recently, we have been receiving many requests from individuals who do not meet our non-profit or relationship orientated criteria. If you are an individual looking for web space or an organization whose primary purpose are not relationship orientated, we can assist you in find other means to meet your demands.

You must have a domain name registered

One of the most important things to understand about our nonprofit web-hosting program is that the free accounts we offer are domain name accounts. This means that your URL would be something like http://YOURCOMPANYNAME and not http://www.shadesnetwork/YOURCOMPANY. The latter (with your organization's name) is called a non-domain name. Due to the costs involved, we do not provide domain name registration services. Our free web-hosting services are for nonprofits that have or will soon acquire their own domain name. Most of the websites we host use mydomain.com. Registration at mydomain.com is $7 yearly.

Mandatory Monthly Meeting

The goal of the Shades Network is to pool the resources and areas of expertise found in newly developed non-profits, and affect that into constructive communal energy. The mandated monthly meeting collectively organizes events, fairs, discussion panels and programs that jointly harness these resources.

Each month we plan future activities, sponsorships and programs, which we hope to empower the community and promote a greater sense of self-pride. The old strategy of non-profits organizing and staging their own, private, separate events is a process that has long failed. Through our cooperative, diverse think tank, we can broker new, fresh ideas from alternate views.

The acknowledgement of interconnection amongst non-profits remains our core. We do not believe that collectives should be based on areas of expertise and/or professions, but instead, we understand that the true sense of community responds to all factions and disciplines. We understand that day-care centers, churches, shelters, counseling services etc. all maintain a bind of cohesion in the method of community relationship building. No one agency or non-profit bears more importance over the other. Almost everything is relationship orientated in one-way or another, you have to bring the correlation to light.

Please read our Frequently Asked Questions section for additional information about our program before applying for an account. We thank you for your interest.