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SITE OF THE WEEK

Nonprofit agencies are discovering the Web. What if we could find badly needed volunteers for community service with the ease of buying stuff on eBay. Volunteer Solutions takes a new look at an old problem.

VISIT the Seacoast United Way web site

The difference between monkeys and men, my grammar school science teacher told us, is that monkeys can’t use tools. Oops. Turns out apes routinely use tools with great skill, but the jury’s having second thoughts about humans. We use computers – the greatest tool since the quill pen -- to play video games, send jokes by email and shop online. But when was the last time you used software to save the world?

What’s really stunning, if you think about it, is how little impact technology has had on our ability to care for one another – person to person, neighbor to neighbor. We haven’t stopped violence or war, ended hunger or sickness, prevented homelessness or abuse. It’s not that humans don’t use tools, we just don’t use them well. If we reached out and touched one-another with the tenacity of even an average telemarketer, we’d lick those problems in no time.

But there’s hope for humans yet. A new Internet application helps link people who want to volunteer their free time with local nonprofit agencies that need help. This kind of information processing is exactly what computers do well. The Volunteer Solutions program sponsored by the United Way of the Greater Seacoast (UWGS) acts as a clearinghouse for referrals between volunteer workers and service and educational organizations. It works online, much like an eBay of good deeds. Qualified nonprofit agencies plug in their volunteer needs. An historic house might need a bookkeeper or a tour guide. A daycare center might need teacher aids, playground supervisors or a marketing brochure. Volunteers can search the database via the Internet privately from home to find a matching task that suits their skills and interests. No commitment or sign-up is required if you want to peak.

"We’re in the business of creating positive impact in the community to make the Seacoast a better place to live," says Robin Albert who directs the group’s Volunteer Action Center in Portsmouth.

And this system works. To find it, go to the UWGS.org homepage and click on the ‘Volunteer" box halfway down on the left. It’s especially effective for people new to volunteerism or new to the Seacoast. Nonprofits who make good use of the web site application and the Volunteer Center -- like the Riverside Rest Home and Crossroads House -- get solid results. One woman, Albert says, found a "volunteer opportunity" at Crossroads, and then became the volunteer coordinator there.

Another reader posted this message after discovering the program online: "Your web site has been very helpful to me. In fact, I have my first volunteer opportunity from your site next week at the Public Television Auction."

This is clever software. It achieves exactly what the United Way was designed to do – increase the organized capacity of people to care for each other. Sometimes that means giving money. Sometimes it means giving time. But it also means connecting people in a more efficient way, mobilizing resources that might otherwise have gone untapped.

Albert is quick to point out that the Volunteer Center is a real place, not just a web site. The organization teaches companies to encourage and maximize volunteerism among employees. Right now a former high tech CEO is developing a better contact management software for local nonprofits. Albert is working with a woman from American Express who is about to embark on a three month paid volunteer project.

But back to the web site.

The software was developed by graduate students at MIT as part of a competitive business project about three years ago. United Way of America purchased the application system and leases it to United Way centers that want to use it. It’s not cheap. Right now UWGS must pay $4,000 per year to the national United Way to use the application, much the way New Hampshire Public Radio leases programming from National Public Radio. So far a single sponsor, Verizon, has financed the first two years of this incredible new Internet initiative.

You can see all the United Way agencies (each is independent) who use the software by going to the volunteer Solutions web site www.VolunteerSolutions.org. Not everyone who volunteers fills out a user profile, but still the statistics generated are intriguing. Most people using the web site, we learn, have volunteered before (64%) and most are women (66%). More volunteers are fully employed (41%) than those who are students, retired, unemployed or partially employed. Currently the site attracts younger volunteers, 51% are under age 44. New Hampshire residents are very generous with their time, but statistically extremely stingy with their money, compared to other states.

THE UP SHOT

Most online community-spirited database projects fail early. Either the software application doesn’t work well or there isn’t enough data in the database to make searching worthwhile. UWGS has already jumped both of those initial hurdles. That’s no small feat.

Currently there are 198 agencies in the database offering 339 volunteer opportunities, some short term, some ongoing. I searched on a number of categories where I might volunteer my time – in history, teaching, writing, computers, peace activism. In every case there were agencies looking for help. The potential volunteer gets to review the nonprofit agency. Then he or she has to send a message or make a call to say – I’m interested in helping.

Then the ball is in the nonprofit agent’s court. Someone has to contact the potential volunteer very quickly to answer questions and close the deal. You snooze, in this business, you lose – and your volunteer is off helping someone else, or back on the couch watching TV. Last year, according to UWGS stats automatically generated by the Volunteer Solutions software, 773 potential volunteers logged on, searched for an activity and sent an email request for more information.

But a database is a delicate thing. Independent nonprofit agencies must keep the data flowing. Old entries have to be removed. New opportunities must be added or the whole system starts to mildew. Then there is the inherent problem of success. A volunteer who is successfully matched to a nonprofit agency, like an employee who finds a job on Monster.com, is no longer using the system. So a constant flow of new volunteers must discover the web site and tap in.

"It’s totally a marketing thing now," Albert says. "First they have to know there is a volunteer center here."

I concur. The next hurdle is to tell the world that this amazing resource exists. The database must be ubiquitous. The "Click to Volunteer" button should appear on the homepage of key Seacoast web sites, on buses, in magazines and on TV, on lapel pins and restaurant menus and T-shirts. I think the clickable little icon needs a compelling new design and a fresh slogan that hits the mark. How about "Make a Difference!" or "Take Action Here!" or "Volunteer Central" – you get the idea. It has to be catchy, clear and fit in a space the size of a postage stamp. But behind the little button – there’s a machine that builds community.