Flash Volunteer: Seattle Success Story #4
What do you get when you combine community-minded people with just-in-time information about volunteer opportunities? You get Flash Volunteer, a nonprofit organization that allows Seattle-ites (and communities farther out!) to build profiles and connect with each other in their neighborhood, on their schedule, in their interest categories, and with their friends. It’s volunteerism right-sized for today’s busy lifestyles.
The idea for Flash Volunteer comes from Brad Wilke. A couple of years ago, Brad decided to take the University of Washington’s Certificate in Nonprofit Management. In nine short months, Flash Volunteer went from an idea buzzing in the back of Brad’s brain to a nonprofit organization that today is a 1,000+ volunteers strong.
The organization’s meteoric rise from nascent idea to thriving nonprofit begs the question of how they did it?! Many nonprofit organizations toil for years without gainining as much traction as Flash Volunteer. Although there are likely many, many reasons for its success, here are a few ideas based on our recent interview with Brad Wilke, the organization’s fearless and tireless leader.
- Keepin’ it simple: Seattle-ites are busy, but they still want to volunteer. Flash Volunteer makes that possible by keeping it simple. Check out your iPhone app or go to the website and you instantly see all current options available for volunteer opportunities happening this day or this week. Easy peasy.
- Local, local, local: Local is all the rage now and Flash Volunteer gives locavores one more way to stick close to home. If there’s ever a time when hyper-local volunteerism will flourish, it’s now and Flash Volunteer has the systems to support this trend.
- A daily dose of volunteerism: Historically, volunteerism has involved a time commitment of many months and many hours. That’s tough to fit in and so we tend not to do it. But Flash Volunteer changes all that. They make volunteering bite-size by serving up short, one-off opportunities. Got an extra hour one evening? Check out Flash Volunteer and you may find you could go help your neighbors plant the new parking circle in your ‘hood. Now that’s doable!
- Making technology work for the greater good: iPhone apps are all the rage these days and for Flash Volunteeer–an organization focused on just-in-time info–an iPhone app makes perfect sense! So Brad went and found some local developers willing to donate their time and talent to the cause and in January 2010 the Flash Volunteer iPhone Application was born. Their target audience is on the go and their way of engaging them meets them where they’re at, which is exactly what you want when it comes to marketing.
- Finding your tribe: As human beings, we have a natural inclination to find our “tribe”. Flash Volunteer facilitates this instinct. From the volunteers creating the iPhone app to the neighbors planting in the parking circle, Flash Volunteer makes it easy and rewarding to find your tribe. And once you’ve found your tribe, you want to spread the word…and that’s what makes something go viral. It’s hard to plan for viral marketing to happen, but when it does, it’s a beautiful thing.
- Being fearless: Brad is a people person and if he’s afraid of something, it’d be hard to tell. This is turning out to be a very good thing for volunteerism in Seattle. For example, when the idea for the iPhone app came along, Brad starting shopping it around. Many would’ve been intimidated by the idea of asking software developers to create an app for a nonprofit since there’s no money in it, of course, but Brad was undaunted. He convinced Seattle software development house Ubermind to turn the idea into reality and now Seattle’s iPhone users can locate opportunities in town to exercise their volunteer muscles. Ubermind engineers donated their time to make the app real. A similar cadre of engineers develop the application we see live on the web at www.flashvolunteer.org. Being fearless isn’t always fun or easy, but it seems to have been critical to Flash Volunteer’s success to date.
For more tidbits and tips from Brad on nonprofits, start-ups and creating community, here are a few samples from our recent interview:
Brad on starting solo, committing to an idea, and inspiring others to get involved:
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Brad’s comments on knowing the Flash Volunteer audience and understanding what they get from engaging in the project: ways to to involve volunteerism in their busy lives.
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