Where Are the iParticipants?

About a week ago, I shared some of my high level thoughts about the state of online volunteer matching platforms. I expressed that online platforms for “good” need to be great. Because if they’re not, and we don’t make the experience as easy as possible for prospective volunteers, we lose a very important slice of folks we’re trying to attract. Call them what you will -- the unaffiliated, the unconverted, the I-want-to-give-back-but-don’t–know-where-to-start-“ers” these are people who are compelled by something they hear, or read, or stumble upon, and more often than not they turn to Google to find an opportunity to take action on that very issue. From Google, they are led to a myriad of volunteer matching platforms be it VolunteerMatch, Idealist, Craigslist or others. But, how many of them are signing up to volunteer, let alone reporting for duty?

My post came just a few days before the Entertainment Industry Foundation kicked off their multi-year, iParticipate campaign. From my perspective, EIF’s goal was simple – to turn the generation of couch potatoes they’d so proudly reared, into a generation of doers and volunteers. And, they did so in an impressive and unprecedented way. More than 90 shows across all networks either wrote volunteer messages into the scripts, or incorporated a call to action at the end of their shows directing viewers to the iParticipate website.

While it’s still too early to tell whether the campaign was a success or not, we do know one thing -- the platforms weren’t quite ready, and according to some initial reports from VolunteerMatch, many of the individuals who may have been compelled to pause the Tivo and login to iParticipate, were led to outdated or incomplete posts and hard to navigate prompts. Throughout last week’s campaign, Greg Baldwin, CEO of VolunteerMatch shared a series of very transparent reflections on the campaign and the ability of VolunteerMatch to do what it was set up to do – match seekers, with opportunities. In an open letter to the nonprofits who use the VolunteerMatch platform, Baldwin revealed some of the early results indicating that, "Over the course of the week, this historic TV campaign produced an average of only 775 new visits a day or 2.6% of our weekly total of 208,400 visits. This amounts to perhaps 100 new volunteers."

But, then again, it’s not just the platforms that are at fault. The expected surge of volunteers, never appeared to come. We have to take a step back and determine if this kind of celebrity driven campaign is authentic enough to get people off of their couches. We’re all familiar with the strategically placed bag of Dorito’s or the overtly loud “ahhh” after a sip of Diet Coke, but this was a different kind of product placement. It was a way to embed the idea of “giving back” into our psyche. But as many of the comments on the VolunteerMatch post said, you shouldn’t expect immediate results. Campaigns of this nature take a while to seep in – or to go back to the Dorito’s analogy, just because you see them on the screen – doesn’t mean you run down to the 7-11 to buy a bag, but chances are the next time you’re in the store you may reach for a bag of cooler ranch. We can assume the same holds true with volunteer opportunities and will have to wait and see what translates and converts to on the ground experiences.

As Allison Fine pointed out in a post on the same subject earlier today:

"This is an opportunity for volunteer matching websites and organizations, and the nonprofit organizations that use volunteers, to engage with EIF to develop a longer-term strategy of how to continue to raise the importance and opportunities of volunteerism. Social change takes a long time and an enormous amount of diligence, patience and resilience to pursue. These are not characteristics often associated with the entertainment industry, which is why it’s incumbent on the nonprofit community to find ways for the industry to use its best strength, their ability to be a megaphone to share issues with large audiences of people at one time, and couple it with the best strengths of efforts like VolunteerMatch which is to inexpensively reach people — and stay with them over time."

I agree with Allison and believe the new EIF campaign has the potential to truly expose the “unconverted” to new opportunities to give back, but if we don’t make the experience seamless from the beginning, it could very well have the reverse effect.

We’ve watched "do-it-yourself" service grow as individuals take it upon themselves to organize community initiatives. We know there’s a "new civic generation" of Millennials that came of age during the Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina disasters and they're volunteering at higher rates than ever before. Baby boomers are using their professional skills to help build capacity at nonprofits. But all of these were trends before the celebrities made a mass appeal to “participate.” So, what’s next and how can we push people to take action – if this type of campaign doesn’t work, what will?