From time to time we will profile members of the Give Lively team, revealing more about who we are, what we do and how we fit into a mix of dedicated and dynamic engineers, creatives, strategists and advocates helping nonprofits do more with digital fundraising tools.

Like the person who is the focus of this week’s profile, the full Give Lively team is passionate about using tech for social good and providing a better fundraising experience to nonprofits and donors.

Dave Urban

What do you do at Give Lively?

My current role at Give Lively is Lead Engineer; I joined the team a little over three years ago (2020). As part of the engineering team, I help create and maintain the code that runs the core Give Lively application, including fundraising pages, donation histories and admin tools for nonprofits. I also interact with payment providers to process donations.

What does a day in your life at Give Lively look like?

Most of a typical day for me is spent in the trenches of the application – writing code to improve and enhance the experience of Give Lively’s donors and nonprofits; collaborating with other engineers; and helping our Quality Assurance team test updates and new features before they’re added to the live application. 

Our team is fully remote, so this is all happening over text and video chat. To keep everyone in sync on what the rest of the team is doing, we have daily meetings and regular calls to discuss the bigger picture of the features we’re working on. We also have a bi-weekly hangout call where we play online games and just chat.

What do you like to do outside of Give Lively?

Outside of work, one thing I love to do is read; I was an English major and taught literature before becoming an engineer, and I still love books. I also love music; in my spare time I play guitar, piano and drums with varying (low) degrees of skill. My wife and I live in New York City, and on the weekends you might find us sampling the city’s inexhaustible supply of restaurants, museums, parks and coffee shops.

What excites you about Give Lively?

At Give Lively, I’m excited to be able to use my engineering skills to support causes I believe in, providing free fundraising tools for nonprofits that would otherwise have to pay for an online donation platform. 

That also applies to the work that goes on inside the organization; I’m glad to be working for a company and with a team that cares deeply about things like accessibility, sustainability and equity. My fellow Give Lively engineers are a joy to work with, talented and dedicated programmers who also happen to be lots of fun to hang out with!