The Extraordinaries -- On-Demand Volunteerism by Mobile Phone. (Got A Few Minutes Free? Be Extraordinary!)
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
The Power of Us: Re-Imagine Media competition.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
44 Elsie Street
Project City
San Francisco
Project Province/State
CA
Project Postal/Zip Code
94110
Project Country
United States
Your idea
Will you launch your idea as a business or non-profit?
Non-Profit
Web site (url)
Name Your Project
The Extraordinaries -- On-Demand Volunteerism by Mobile Phone. (Got A Few Minutes Free? Be Extraordinary!)
Describe Your Idea
Innovation
What is your idea? What makes it innovative? Why is it important?
Problem: Only 26% of Americans volunteer, and 46% list “lack of time” as the main reason for not volunteering (BLS, Jan 2008).
Root Cause: With 60-hour workweeks, raising a family, running errands, or going to school, traditional volunteering has become too big of a time commitment in our hectic lives.
Approach: We use smartphone technology to link people, based on a platform of trust, to actions for social good. We look at the brief moments in a day when someone has idle spare time (20 minutes or less), and deliver brief actions for social good to their smartphone (iPhone, Blackberry, G1). These moments include riding the bus, carpooling to work, sitting in an airport, waiting in a doctor’s office, getting your oil changed, and more. People have tens of billions of hours of “idle spare time” throughout each year – an enormous pool of untapped human energy.
Solution: By delivering tasks through mobile phones, we make it feasible for someone to actually utilize a few minutes of spare time for social good. Delivered on-demand like a stream of new adventures, people scroll through a list of tasks that match their interests, and episodically accomplish a task on their smartphone. Our process is a systemic change in how people approach the use of their spare time, and it gives anyone with a smartphone the potential to be a changemaker.
It only takes a few minutes:
-To beam an iReport to newswire services, with a photo, audio commentary, and GPS location.
-To help NASA explore Mars by drawing circles around craters (http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov).
-For a water sanitation expert in California, to offer a few ideas to a village leader in Africa, on how to solve a water sanitation issue.
-To translate a paragraph into Spanish (or any language) for a nonprofit’s new brochure.
-To help cities identify problems (like potholes, rusty bridges, graffiti) by sending a camera phone image (tagged with GPS location) to the public works department.
And so much more...
Impact
What will be the impact of your idea?
Barack Obama raised historic amounts of money by pooling millions of individual donors to create a powerful force for social change. Not everyone could give $2,000 at once, but millions could give $20 multiple times. Linked together, small donations had massive impact. Comparatively, in a hectic day people do have free moments but often in blocks of only a few minutes. Linked together, their aggregate spare energy can have a massive impact.
For most people, spending several hours doing an in-person volunteer activity is just not feasible anymore, yet the old models refuse to adapt. As a result, in 2007 only 26% of Americans volunteered, and 46% listed lack of time as the main reason for not volunteering (BLS, Jan 2008). Virtual volunteering has had some success, but it’s not enough. By catering to people’s idle spare time and fostering short tasks accomplished via mobile, we make it easier for millions to do social good, allowing anyone with a smartphone to be a changemaker.
We provide a framework for people to participate in social good during any moment, from any location. Our initial target is iPhone, but eventually all smartphones. In 2007, global smartphone sales were 115 million (CNET, Nov 2008). Global sales are expected to reach 700 million by 2012 (WashPost, Aug 2008) as mobile is now the focus of innovation for companies like Apple and Google. By establishing an environment for social good to occur via mobile phones today, our impact will only increase over time.
This Entry is about (Issues)
People: We are looking for ideas from people who can make them happen.
Ben Rigby and Jacob Colker are the Co-Founders. Between the two, they have organized thousands of volunteers for political campaigns, and built several successful companies and organizations (http://www.theextraordinaries.org/team.html).
Jacob Colker will lead the business side as the Executive Director, and Ben Rigby will lead the technical side as Technical Director. The Extraordinaries is in early-stage development, and is the primary initiative of MobileVoter.org, a 501c3 nonprofit organization.
The Extraordinaries (formerly called “Volunteer Now!”) was a finalist at the N2Y3 Netsquared Mashup, and has come quite a long way since it’s inception. We have built many relationships among individuals in the field and potential partner organizations. We have launched a successful blog (http://www.TheExtraordinaries.org), established an email list of several thousand, and recruited a top-notch team of advisors (including Katrin Verclas, Alan Rosenblatt, and more).
The two most exciting accomplishments are a working prototype on the Google Android platform and the soon to be completed “version one” for the iPhone. We expect to move into field-testing in February and March of 2009, and depending on the success of Q2 fundraising, we plan to launch nationwide in Q3 or Q4 of 2009.
Sustainability
How much will it cost to launch your idea?
Currently, we have $13,000 in soft pledges, but we are having difficulty closing the deal with these donors. We feel very strongly that seed capital from WeMedia would create a fundraising tipping point by providing third-party validation of our idea, and help finalize donations from these donors.
The WeMedia seed capital would also be enough to pay final development costs of version one for the iphone, and get us through our first field test. A successful field test will help further fundraising efforts considerably by having a case study that validates our model in a real-world context.
Our budget for year one is $275,100 and year two is $287,700. By year three, we intend to be fully self-sufficient through four main avenues:
*Creative Advertising– Instead of banner ads we offer volunteer ads: “Help Best Buy tutor math skills.” This provides a subtle way for corporations to align their ad with a positive volunteer experience, not to mention that their ad costs are tax-deductible because we’re a 501c3. It’s a win-win.
*Featured Opportunities– Organizations can pay to feature their opportunity, like Google AdWords. This ensures a placement in everyone’s opportunity task list.
*Corporations/Schools– Branded login pages and custom productivity reports for volunteer departments.
*Consulting– Training organizations on how to use the system.
We’re ready to make this happen, we just need a little jolt financially. Please consider our idea, and give us the opportunity to “
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 | 122 weeks agoE Whymandesign.com said: Maybe you could work with Frontlinesms Your work looks great and I hope it might be possible to work together somehow ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 169 weeks agoThe Extraordinaries -- On-Demand Volunteerism by Mobile Phone. (Got A Few Minutes Free? Be Extraordinary!) has been chosen as a winner in The Power of Us: Re-Imagine Media . |
| 174 weeks agoThe Extraordinaries -- On-Demand Volunteerism by Mobile Phone. (Got A Few Minutes Free? Be Extraordinary!) has been chosen as a finalist in The Power of Us: Re-Imagine Media . |
| 174 weeks agobarbara fann said: Good idea for sharing the specialized talents of folks who own such devices around the world. That's rather a rarefied group and limits ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
