I didn't physically "walk in" anywhere. I was attempting to communicate with administrators.
I'm not going to go around begging to be charitable, nor immerse myself in organizational politics that I don't put up with when I'm getting paid for it. I can't even begin to express how ridiculous such an idea sounds to me. At this point I'm happy to stay home and relax.
It sounds very like being a serious contributor to open source actually. Its not for everybody, but its not ridiculous to think that there might be causes/groups that you wish to succeed, you think you can help them, and you have to convince them that you can. You don't let just anyone waltz in and patch the Linux kernel.
Actually, they do exactly that. The process to become a contributor to the Linux kernel is to send a patch to a public mailing list. The patch is evaluated on its own merits. There's no interview process, no convincing anyone that you can help. You just do it.
And what happens when that obscure part of code you contributed to the Linux kernel starts breaking the kernel build because you don't maintain it anymore (and nobody wants to)? Linus throws it under the bus (rightly so).
In the charity work that would translate to you offering your expertise to build something and when you don't have time or don't feel like the software/thing you contributed is cutting edge anymore.. then you quit. The nonprofit's "Linus" now has to decide what to do with your not-so-shiny system now that nobody knows how to maintain it and, to make it worse, a nonprofit is not a project like the Linux kernel with thousands of contributors, so it might be the system you contributed is now really critical and they can't throw it under the bus like Linus would do.
So that's one side of why nonprofits sometimes say no and you have to prove your way, not only to show your are capable (most volunteers really are) but that you are reliable and committed.
Of course each nonprofit will be in a different situation so even though they might perceive you as not reliable enough, they still think they might be able with you being gone one day so they say OK.
The politics side of business you don't like.. it doesn't exist because someone decide to call that thing a "company" or a "corporation".. it exists because the beings creating them are humans. It just so happens nonprofits are also run by humans.
While technically true, I personally feel that the various obscure formatting/selecting reviewers/don't piss off Linus rules [1] are pretty synonymous with 'you have to approach a non-profit in the right way and convince them to even look at your suggestion that you can help them'.
I'm not going to go around begging to be charitable, nor immerse myself in organizational politics that I don't put up with when I'm getting paid for it. I can't even begin to express how ridiculous such an idea sounds to me. At this point I'm happy to stay home and relax.