Micro-volunteering

14 February 2013

What is micro volunteering?

Micro-volunteering - sometimes called virtual volunteering - describes a task done by a volunteer, or a team of volunteers, without payment, normally online or on a smartphone.

Friends of the Earth and micro volunteers

Volunteers have always been essential to the way Friends of the Earth works - in our offices, in our local groups, in our international network [links].

But modern lifestyles mean we have to respond to how people can volunteer. Micro-volunteering is the perfect way anyone can make a valuable contribution, 10 minutes at a time.

How can I volunteer?

Sparked is a micro-volunteering site, with over 70,000 volunteers and 6,500 nonprofits - including Friends of the Earth.

Sparked makes it really easy for you to support our work - all you need is a PC or a smartphone. Waiting at the bus stop or got a few minutes to spare in your lunch break? We've got a nonprofit 'challenge' for you.

Simply register, choose the causes you're passionate about, and list your skills, then you'll be alerted to suitable challenges from nonprofits.

Skills cover a wide range - brainstorming, copywriting, web, IT, research, social media, translation, marketing. Many of Friends of the Earth challenges have simply needed lots of great tips or ideas - so you don't need to be an expert in a particular profession to get involved.

Success stories

These are just a few of the projects we've achieved with help of Sparked volunteers:

1. Brainstorm uses for lemon juice
   We crowd-sourced your eco friendly ideas in 40 handy lemon tips, attracting a lot of new visitors to our site.
2. Brainstorm top tips for stale bread 
   We were inundated with great ideas. Watch this space, they'll be published soon...
3. Ideas to get us to 10k Facebook likes
   Volunteers gave plenty of useful recommendations, which we continue to develop in promoting our work on Facebook.
4. Tell us your favourite green company/products
   We published these crowd-sourced recommendations in our supporter magazine Earthmatters.
5. Help us choose a name for our forthcoming Bees campaign
   We got absolutely loads of suggestions, and the winning one was ... The Bee Cause
6. Digital strategy - what's the one thing we should use?
   We used volunteers' recommendations to help steer our Digital Strategy.

Will you join us for our next challenge?
 

Find out more about sparked.com