idealist.org

The Changing Face of Volunteerism

From Flickr user Flamsmark
From Scott Stadum.

Would you consider crowdsourcing a data management project that requires less than a minute of someone's time to be a volunteering opportunity? Or reviewing a single paragraph of a resume for mistakes? How about showing up for the equivalent of a flash mob for advocacy, in response to an SMS message nudging 5,000 people to show up somewhere?

Traditionally, the nonprofit sector might not consider these to be volunteer opportunities or even offer them as options to supporters. But with changing technology and the new ways to leverage the power of the internet, the nonprofit sector would be missing out if we didn't take advantage of these new approaches. Here are some suggested tools to tap into:

Groundcrew: "Community organizers, volunteer coordinators, and event planners can do more: they get software that lets them find and coordinate teams of local people in real-time. They can see who’s available at any moment using text messaging and GPS, and they can give assignments, either mass assignments or systems of individual assignments, that help even large crowds of people work together constructively and enjoyably."

Mechanical Turk: Mechanical Turk is an application from Amazon.com that coordinates services that are too tedious for one individual, yet too complex for a computer. This service provides simple tasks for users to complete, from tagging photos to writing summaries of articles. Idealist has been leveraging the service and the power of crowds to update our database by offering opportunities in these bite-size chunks.

The Point: Whether you're trying to move people to action, raise money, or attract attention to a cause, this service doesn't work until a mass of people have reach a "tipping point." This happens when enough people "pledge to give money or do something, but no one does a thing until the conditions are met to make contributions worthwhile."

PledgeBank: This site works similarly to The Point, using statements such as "I will start recycling if 100 people in my town will do the same" or "I will organize my child's school play if three other parents will help."

The Extraordinairies: This service "delivers micro-volunteer opportunities to mobile phones that can be done on-demand and on-the-spot." As smart phones proliferate, people are becoming ever connected to the web. While we're becoming more connected, we may not always have something to do; so the Extraordinairies allows us to use those moments to complete small tasks that help nonprofits and other organizations.

Facebook Causes: Causes allows you to donate your birthday to a specific cause that's already in their system. You can set the amount you'd like to raise for as little or as much as you want in any size donation increments. Causes will then ask your network of friends to donate to that cause in lieu of gifts for your birthday. Now imagine if that cause was yours and you reached out to your members whose birthdays were approaching, asking them if they'd ask their networks to donate. Whether each birthday donation raises the desired amount or not, you'll find a steady stream of donations being raised for your nonprofit.

If we start thinking about volunteer opportunities in terms of what and when is convenient for our supporters instead of the other way around, we'll be able to engage many more people, affect more lives, and work more closely with our communities than we've ever been able to in the past.