Causecast

by KRISTEN IRVING, Causecast Director of Nonprofit Relations

Even prior to Obama being elected president, his commitment to service and volunteerism was definitely at the forefront of his campaign. It should come as no surprise, then, that on Monday, Michelle Obama announced the administration’s United We Serve initiative, encouraging expanded public service efforts from June 22 through September 11. It should also come as no surprise that various nonprofits, corporations and even tech companies are taking advantage of this expected good will, and why shouldn’t they?

Headlining the list of companies looking to provide tools for people to give back this summer is official United We Serve and Causecast partner All For Good, an online resource for people looking to find and share volunteer opportunities with friends and family. A self-organized crew of software engineers, marketing managers, product developers and designers, All For Good brings together volunteer listings from organizations and local groups to help you find opportunities that suit your location and lifestyle. In addition to finding already existing volunteer opportunities, All for Good provides you the tools to create your own do-it-yourself service project, registering it with their network.

The challenge for web experts and companies looking to bridge the gap between online tools and social media is quickly becoming obvious. How do web companies, versed in tech speak but not nonprofit jargon, make their products accessible to the nonprofit community? What we find time and again, from major donor management services and volunteer databases, is that many nonprofits find that the tools require technical skills beyond their resources.

This is one of the many goals of Causecast. Our new platform aims to be accessible to both activists and nonprofits. If you’re an activist, looking to use All For Good during the summer of service, here are a few quick tips:

•Go to allforgood.org and type in your cause and location (in this example, animal rights in Chicago, IL).

• Only one result comes up and this is an external link to volunteermatch.org. Thus, you may want to redefine your search to be more general and find more organizations working in that arena. For example, performing the same search with just the word “animals” will provide many more results and can help you find a volunteer opportunity suited to your strengths.

If you run an organization and don’t see your events on All For Good, create a profile on Causecast.org and post updates with your upcoming programs. Our dedicated nonprofit team look through all posts made on nonprofit profiles, and we can create event pages to help spread the word.

By working together, activists and nonprofits alike, we can make United We Serve a once-in-a-lifetime giving opportunity, and a chance to do an immeasurable amount of good the world over.

Photo by oneVillage Initiative