Skill-based volunteer platform

Timeframe

2017

Project

Project 501

Category

venture

When looking for opportunities to volunteer, I found that the majority of volunteering opportunities were unskilled: show up and stand around, hand things out, pick things up, etc. At the same time, many non-profit organizations struggle to maintain their websites and effectively engage their community of email subscribers or social followers. I had a skillset that could help, but I wasn't sure how to connect with organizations that needed that sort of help.

To solve this, I built a simple platform to connect skilled volunteers with non-profit organizations. Non-profit organizations could post projects that they needed help with. Volunteers could create a profile and then "apply" to the projects. The organizations were able to review and message all of their candidates through the platform. After becoming a top product on ProductHunt, more than 500 volunteers joined the platform, connecting with dozens of projects posted by organizations. Shortly after that launching, I merged Project 501 with a similar platform launched by a few partners at Y Combinator.

Once a project is posted, volunteers could submit interest in helping by sending a quick message to the organization.

Volunteers and organizations could use the platform to privately message each other until they decide to work together.

The simple design style intended to lower the perceived barrier to volunteering. Shown here are several views from the organization's perspective.