What is the status anyway?

Thank you for bearing with us as we develop this application. Perhaps you are intrigued about us but really don’t understand just what exactly we are building That’s great that you are following our blog and facebook/twitter updates. We try to contribute to the those with general interest in nonprofits and/or volunteerism and philanthropy in Kansas City, but we are actually trying to do a whole lot more. Please allow me to elaborate on how VolunteerMark will fit into the sphere of some of the topics I’ve been posting in our blog.

The Problem

• List of upcoming events It is hard to find comprehensive up-to-date list of volunteer opportunities that are easy to sort though and find specifically what you are interested in. Feel free to check out www.volunteermatch.org and Roger Hill Volunteer Center (Douglas County, KS) both of these services are free for volunteers. However, VolunteerMark believes we have a more fun, easier-to-use, and better way to do what these two websites are trying to do. Please keep reading to see why we believe this 🙂

• Keeping track of volunteer hours is a mess! Do you remember when you were in school and needed to provide proof that you had actually participated as a volunteer at an event? It is very tough to track down nonprofit staff to sign off on hours and the nonprofits also have a tough time tracking down volunteers to use their sign in sheets. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an easy to use streamlined solution that could collect this information effortlessly, accurately, and legitimately?

• Manage volunteer involvement If you are an avid volunteer, you will quickly discover how overwhelming it is to be involved in multiple organizations. How can you keep track of meetings, important dates, events, deadlines, projects, communication history, and contacts with all of those different priorities you signed up to help with? Organizations depend on volunteers, but lets face it we aren’t paid staff and we can forget or lose track of things in our busy lives. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was one organized and easy-to-use place that kept track of all of this information to help you work smarter and more efficiently?

Our Solution

• Easy to find volunteer opportunities. We are committed to creating the best index of upcoming volunteer opportunities and fundraising events. My complaint with volunteermatch.org’s and the Roger Hill Volunteer Center’s websites is that they are not simple, straight forward, quick, and easy way to find exactly what you are looking for. Yes, there is some good content on there but you have to do a lot of digging. And once you what you want to get involved in you have to take the initiative to follow up with the organization because all you are given is contact information. And depending on what organization you are working with- you may not get connected on your 1st or even 2nd inquiry to get plugged into the organization. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could easily see a categorized list of events that are specific to the cause that is dearest to you? Have you ever wished you had gotten involved in something but didn’t even know it was happening? Or have you ever gone to an event that was really inspirational, fun, and a great experience but disappointed few knew about it? I am passionate about working together to get everyone plugged into what’s happening here in Kansas City! We have a lot of really cool things happening each and every week.

• Legitimate service hours accreditation. We will create a straight-forward solution to confirm accurately accrued service hours. Since VolunteerMark will be a huge resource for everything altruistic in Kansas City- all of your service hours can be stored in one place. And it is our goal and vision to have VolunteerMark hours be a widely recognized and accepted medium for community service. Imagine being able to list the number of VolunteerMark hours you have completed on job resumes and school applications. Plus, we want to engage the entire community and make it easy and fun to get involved so we will be introducing gamification incentive programs to reward and recognize top volunteers.

• Your Personal Volunteer Dashboard. Web 2.0 has sparked the creation of some really cool social applications for managing everything from running, living a healthy lifestyle, and empowering entrepreneurs to daily coupons and personal finance. Wouldn’t it be great to have a really cool app for managing everything volunteer-related? Imagine keeping up with all of your involvement history, setting and achieving creative goals (think accountability for new year’s resolutions), and connect with local people in your community that support the same causes as you! There is huge potential here. And I want to hear your ideas on how to make this the best user experience possible.

This post represents only a portion of our vision. The most important thing is the user experience. We want to create an environment that helps empower individuals to get connected to and work together on social causes. The next post will include our vision, values, goals, and launching plan! Thank you for your support please help us spread the word.