If you're not planning to have monetary return from a project, it's almost always better to work on a personal side project than for someone else. Your enjoyme

If you're not planning to have monetary return from a project, it's almost always better to work on a personal side project than for someone else. Your enjoyment of the project will be higher, you have more control over scope and tech stack and you can choose to solve an interesting problem within your ability. In short, think it as marketing material development for yourself, which will be way more effective at getting future work than some free work you can get.