We came across this article recently on Catchafire and thought it was a great idea: http://www.fastcompany.com/1780269/catchafire-the-eharmony-of-volunteering-for-busy-professionals. The basic idea for this website is to match potential volunteers with organizations looking for volunteers based on their interests, time requirements, and location. This is a brilliant idea in our opinion. We have volunteered with various organizations over the years and we can attest to how difficult it can be to get involved with non-profits.
To give you a few examples, if you want to volunteer at the children’s hospital, you might have to get a series of shots and commit to the same time every week for the next year. If you want to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity you might have a great deal of flexibility to show up last minute. If you want to volunteer at a nursing home, you may have to get on their schedule maybe a month in advance. My point is that different people have different schedules, so having a resource to connect volunteers with opportunities that fit their schedules and desired participation should be a slam dunk.
In our opinion, there are many people out there who want to volunteer but do not know exactly how to go about it. Catchafire will surely help both volunteers and non-profits, so it is bound to be successful.