Microvolunteering: A Year in Review for 2011
We did a review of microvolunteering for 2010 last year, so we thought we’d do the same thing again this year, just for the fun of it!
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Past Predictions
We made some predictions for 2011 – lets see what happened to them:
- ‘UK Governments’ Big Society vision intended to use microvolunteering as part of it’s agenda’ – microvolunteering was included in the Governments’ Giving Green and White Paper
- Cardiff to explore the possibility of it becoming the first microvolunteer capital in the world – never got off the ground
- VolunteerMatch (America’s leading volunteer portal) to look into adding a microvolunteer category to it’s database – didn’t happen
- ChangeMachine, Charity Champs, Two Bob’s Worth and possibly Voluntr may well be microvolunteering initiatives to keep an eye on in 2011 – none of them got off the ground
- Help From Home to introduce microvolunteering to school classrooms as well as the responsible tourist market – both schemes went live during 2011
- Step by step guide for non-profits to be published on how to set up a microvolunteer action – Published by Help From Home in March, 2011
Current Happenings
Here’s some of the more significant happenings in the microvolunteering arena over the past 12 months, mainly focussed-ish around the UK scene:
January
- Microvolunteering mentioned in UK government ‘Giving’ Green Paper as part of their Big Society vision
February
- The Daily Crowdsource started publishing a regular fortnightly article on microvolunteering activities and news
March
- ‘How to Set Up a Microvolunteering Project’ booklet published by Help From Home
- Orange released their 5 minute microvolunteering ‘Do Some Good’ smartphone app
April
- Volunteering England acknowledged microvolunteering and created a new category for it, on its website
- National U.S. based All for Good volunteering network created a brand new volunteering category, called…. ‘Micro’
- New online microvolunteering network started up in India, called Troopp
May
- ‘Microvolunteering: Evidence of Impact’ report published by Help From Home
- Microvolunteering appeared on the BBC Click TV programme, using the Orange ‘Do Some Good, mobile app as an example
- Microvolunteering mentioned in UK government ‘Giving’ White Paper as part of their Big Society vision
July
- New UK based microvolunteering network BrightWorks went live
- UK Government started promoting microvolunteering on it’s official Number 10 website
- Both Help From Home and Institute for Volunteering Research started independant surveys into the microvolunteering arena
October
- Surrey County Council became the first UK Council to actively promote microvolunteering
- New Canadian based online microvolunteering community, called KoodoNation premiered
November
- Help From Home introduced a new project called ‘Help From Holiday’, where microvolunteering meets responsible tourism
December
- The World’s Volunteerism Report by the United Nations Volunteers, described microvolunteering as 1 of 3 fast growing trends in the voluntary sector
Future Predictions
What will happen in 2012? Mystic Meg and her crystal ball predict the following!
- Results from HFH’s + IVR’s microvolunteering research studies to be published
- Spots of Time may well be an offline microvolunteering initiative to keep an eye on
- Help From Home to introduce free consultations to encourage non-profits to consider developing microvolunteering actions