Volunteer Square matches willing helpers with charitable tasks

A Connecticut website provides a place where people find volunteer opportunities, and nonprofits find new volunteers.

|
Volunteer Square
'We try to take the legwork out of [finding volunteers] for nonprofits,' says Rachel Reese, executive director of Volunteer Square, an online database used by volunteers and nonprofit groups.

It’s eHarmony for volunteers.

VolunteerSquare.com, a virtual town square, matches nonprofit agencies in Connecticut with potential volunteers who want to help but aren’t sure where to apply their particular skills.

It's the invention of Ned Brokaw of Darien, Conn., who spent 27 years in the financial services industry, most recently as executive director of investments for Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. Mr. Brokaw wanted to create a centralized resource that was user friendly and harnessed the power of social media. And he wanted something both youths and adults could easily navigate.

 IN PICTURES: Volunteering for Thanksgiving

In 20 minutes or less a person can log on, create a profile, and sign up for email alerts from various agencies and groups, from those who deliver meals to the elderly or to those who help repair a home. Volunteers apply directly to an agency for an opportunity through Volunteer Square. After that it’s up to the agency and the volunteer to connect with each other and decide if they are a match, says Rachel Reese, executive director of Volunteer Square.

A year old, the Volunteer Square database focuses on Fairfield County, sometimes called Connecticut’s Gold Coast.

“It’s a little jarring for people because there is this sense that everyone in this county has money,”  Ms. Reese says. “But that’s not true. There are places in every town with tremendous need.”

As of October, unemployment in the county stood at 7.5 percent, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The city of Bridgeport, Conn., has a whopping 12.5 percent unemployment rate.

Superstorm Sandy highlighted local needs. More than 6,000 people sought temporary housing, and the number of people needing access to food pantries also rose. Volunteer Square’s activity increased, Reese says.

In Fairfield County residents used the site's blog as one way to organize a beach cleanup. More than 1,000 volunteers turned up to clean a three-mile stretch of beach. In Darien, Conn., the nonprofit group Person-to-Person used the site to publicize the need for food donations in Stamford and Norwalk, Conn.

The uptick in activity came because of the storm but also because it's the start of the holiday season. Nonprofit agencies are often booked with volunteers six months out for Thanksgiving, Reese says.

“It’s so exciting to see this huge boost, but there’s a lot of need the other 364 days of the year,” she says. About 14 percent of Connecticut is “food insecure,” meaning families at times run short of food, according to a 2012 Connecticut Food Bank study.

Volunteer Square says it believes every citizen can contribute as a volunteer regardless of their age.

The centralized database lists about 100 organizations and more than 600 registered users. Participants range from agencies such as the American Red Cross to Home Front, LLC, a community-based home repair program that helps keep low-income people in their homes.

“Its exciting that big legacy agencies are using us, but we are also getting smaller, mom and pop agencies; the start-ups. It’s exciting to me to see smaller agencies using the site,” Reese says.

One of those agencies is Kids Helping Kids. Based in New Canaan, Conn., the youth-led nonprofit focuses on projects that impact other children. Each Thanksgiving kids gather to bake and sell bread at $10 a loaf. All of the proceeds go to various philanthropic projects. This year the proceeds will help renovate a playground at a homeless shelter.

“They have been amazing for me,” says Jennifer Kelley, director of Kids Helping Kids, referring to Volunteer Square. Ms. Kelley found a summer intern and an administrative assistant through Volunteer Square, she says.

Volunteer Square receives no state or federal funding. It relies on individual donations. It has no office building and its staff are themselves mostly volunteers.

The interactive online community also works like a community room. Agencies can post pictures, videos, and news. With a few clicks the posts can be shared on multiple social-networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

“Nonprofits are very strapped and very short staffed. The whole process [needs] to be as simple as possible,” Reese says. “We try to take the legwork out of it for nonprofits.”

• Sign up to receive a weekly selection of practical and inspiring Change Agent articles by clicking here.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Volunteer Square matches willing helpers with charitable tasks
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2012/1116/Volunteer-Square-matches-willing-helpers-with-charitable-tasks
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe