Need to replace volunteer? Charity can turn to app

This post came out from The Sunday Times (23 August 2015)

Some charity food items have to be delivered urgently, but what if some regular volunteers are not free? What does a charity do?

At Food From The Heart (FFTH), it can turn to a new mobile app that can broadcast messages to hundreds of volunteers at one go when a replacement is needed. It is similar to taxi booking app GrabTaxi and said to be one of the first such apps for the social sector.

The app, which was launched yesterday, comes weeks after calls to involve more people in volunteerism and better engage them. At FFTH, about 100 volunteers are needed to collect unsold bread from 100 bakeries and deliver them to beneficiaries at some 150 locations islandwide each day. But a volunteer may not be able to make a delivery because of other commitment. This means a staff member has to find a replacement from its huge pool of 1,700 volunteers. The challenge is compounded when up to 40 replacements are needed in a day.

But with the charity's new Volunteer Broadcasting System app, multiple replacement requests can be managed. If a volunteer cannot make his delivery, he "de-registers"from the route through the pap, and an alert is sent to other available volunteers whose home addresses are in the same area as the bakery. Volunteers can also see other assignments if they wish to deliver from bakeries, for example, near their offices. Ms Carol Wee, senior executive for special projects at FFTH, said: "Sending push notifications is much more efficient than broadcasting a message via Facebook or e-mail."

The app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and, soon, the Apple App Store too. For details on volunteering with FFTH, go to https://foodheart.org

Thoughts:

1. Reporting about abuse and now on getting a volunteer replacement online - Good ways to tap on the new ways of technology to help manage issues. 
2. Regarding volunteerism, one main problem would be that of keeping volunteers meaningfully engaged, one of which is to keep them abreast of things/ activities that they can work on. 
3. This app, through its push notifications, will then make it easier for the organization to update available activities that its volunteers can work on. Win-Win situation. 

Thoughts anyone?

Yours,

Something Small Thinking Big