These guys donate one website per month to nonprofits

In a house on South Street, three buddies have been building websites and donating them to local nonprofits — for kicks.

The 215 Guys, a three-man web design shop operated by John Rodgers, Jeremy Sanchez and Marc Levy, began donating websites this past summer.

“We started doing them for fun and realized we can have a lot of impact in the nonprofit world by sharing our talents,” Rodgers said. “We got the ball rolling and haven’t stopped since.”

When Rodgers moved back to Philadelphia from San Francisco earlier this summer, he was started practicing yoga with donation-based studio Yoga Factory in Center City and noticed they didn’t have a web presence. After striking up a friendship with founder Justine Bacon, he offered to build her business a site.

Now, the shop is donating one site build per month to local organizations. Four are live, with another three in the works. The only cost for the organization is the upkeep — The 215 Guys don’t pay for hosting.

Rodgers said they don’t advertise their services — it’s all word of mouth. And while they admit their donations have been to organizations with missions across the board (from Independence National Park to Operation Warm), they’re still refining their criteria. The designers said they’re partial to local organizations with missions focused on the elderly, children and women.

“Anything we can see people are passionate about and need a little help from us,” Rodgers said.