December 2010 Update - again

- HFH collaborated with Twixtmas to encourage people to use the time between Christmas Day and New Years Day to do something positive for themselves, others and the planet, as well as look ahead to the future. It was a succesful campaign with articles in the media as well as on radio.
- Finally chatted to one of the Directors of VolunteerMatch, America's leading volunteer database, who was keen to see VolunteerMatch add a new category to their repetoire of volunteering types. A few hurdles to cross before this finally happens, so watch this space in 2011.
- HFH is based in Cardiff, the capital of Wales, UK. Cardiff County Council have expressed an interest in exploring the potential of the benefits of microvolunteering for the citizens of Cardiff.
- Michael Norton, OBE, co-founder of Changemakers, YouthBank and UnLtd (a busy boy then!) has invited me to become a contributory partner in 2 new projects - a book and a mobile app for changing the world via very simple actions. Watch this space!
- 4 more high street UK volunteer centres are now busily beavering away at promoting microvolunteering. These are West Norfolk Volunteer Centre, Neath Port Talbot Volunteer Centre, Telford & Wrekin Volunteer Centre and Tameside Volunteer Centre.
- In tandem with Sparked.com, who claim to be the world's first microvolunteering network, we have both adopted the spelling microvolunteering without a dash... since that’s how the New York Times spells “microfinance” and since #microvolunteering is the only possible hashtag on Twitter (dashes break hashtags).

Til next time!

December 2010 Update

- Was interviewed by a few newspapers with corresponding articles in each one. These being Alt:Cardiff (run by students in Magazine Journalism, Cardiff University) and Sunday MidDay (a leading newspaper in Mumbai, India no less than)
- More UK high street volunteer centres are promoting the concept of micro-volunteering and HFH, either through articles or news bite items, namely Volunteer Centre Surrey Heath and Volunteer Cornwall
- Came joint Runner Up in the Wales region of the TalkTalk Digital Heroes 2010 comp
- HFH got a 2 page spread in a 75 page report published by Media Trust, the UK's leading communication charity. Report was entitled, 'Inspiring Volunteers - A Guide to Recruitment and Communications'
- e-volunteerism, the world's leading resource for volunteer managers requested and published a long-ish article from myself about micro-volunteering for their online journal
- One of the Directors at VolunteerMatch, America's leading volunteer database, is interested in discussing possibly the potential of adding a new micro-volunteering category to their database.

November 2010 Update

- Director of Communications at VolunteerMatch (probably one of the largest volunteer database in the US) wants to chat with me about exploring the possibility of including micro-opps on to their database. If I can pull this one off - WOW! Watch this space!
- HFH has inspired 'vinspired.com' to create a brand new category of volunteering opps, called ...'micro-volunteering'. It's already getting quite a bit of interest from their 'customers'.
- Was shortlisted in Orange's Mobile Volunteering comp with a micro-volunteering based smartphone app idea, called 'Ripple of Kindness'.
- Have been shortlisted down to the final 3 in the Wales region of TalkTalk's Digital Heroes comp. Results in November. Wish me luck and please vote for me - pretty please!!
- Interviewed by The Fresh Outlook and ALT:Cardiff online newspapers
- Joint winner in '52 Weeks of Impact' Slacktivist Impact Challenge comp
- HFH mentioned in quite a few articles this month in webland, most notably 'JustMeans.com'
- WCVA (Wales Council for Voluntary Action) now promoting HFH
- HFH mentioned on 2 high street volunteer centre news articles, namely Volunteering Kingswood + Volunteer Centre Southwark

Til next time.

HFH shortlisted in TalkTalk Digital Heroes competition

I'm 1 of 3 shortlisted people for the Wales, UK region in TalkTalk's Digital Heroes competition for my efforts to promote micro-volunteering through Help From Home.

Would appreciate your support and if you're so inclined, you may wish to vote for me, Mike Bright, here
http://www.talk-talk.mirror.co.uk/region-wales.htm

No registration needed, just 1 click to vote!

This would be a huge break for me if I won, as the prize money and the 'opening of doors' that winning this comp would bring, would be used to set up schemes to promote micro-volunteering to school kids (Help From School), the responsible tourist market (Help From Holiday) and prisons. I already promote it to office workers and care home residents as well as to people within their own homes.

Thanks so much in advance.

October 2010 Update

- i-volunteer.org.uk launched their micro volunteer campaign based on how HFH promotes micro volunteering, ie. in yer pyjamas. From what I can see, its gone global prolly because of its cheeky/provocative poster of 2 people in a bed doing… what 2 people in a bed do. ...Ooh, err! It also won the Third Sector's 'Digital Campaign of the Week'.

- After my interview with UnLtd last month, I made a few suggestions to the interviewer that might hopefully improve the user experience for Awardees on the UnLtd website. Amazingly, well amazingly to me, they are considering these suggestions and potentially taking them forward. Blimey!

- UnLtd (Head Office) did a press release for HFH to try and get HFH in South Wales Echo. Unfortunately, SWE didn’t bite.

- Spark Radio, a radio show from the Canadian media group CBC, aired a slot on micro volunteering a few weeks ago. One of the people on the show was Dave Rand an evolutionary biologist for technology and the internet, based at Harvard Uni, US. The upshot of it all was that this guy wants to pick my brains in October on micro volunteering.

- Added a ‘Donate’ button to the website. Know any rich philanthropists out there?

- Have at last appointed a web designer to do HFH v2.

- Increased number of micro volunteering opps on HFH from 500 to 700.

- Volunteer Centre Bedford have created a whole new category on their website devoted to micro volunteering in response to growing interest from their ‘customers’

- HFH popped up in an online volunteer management staff development seminar from a leading internationally recognized volunteer manager resource website. President of company described HFH as ‘the only website on the net that is pushing the boundaries of micro volunteering.’ V. nice of her to say so, I thought

- Had a chat with Matthew from ClickConnectDiscover.org (mentioned in this FB page a few weeks ago) who seemed to be v interested in promoting HFH as part of a package to encourage take up of technology in Wales. Watch this space.

- Included (or about to be included) in SocialActions.com 60+ global action sources alongside the likes of Kiva, PledgeBank, VolunteerMatch etc. Pyjamatastic!

- Entered TalkTalk’s Digital Heroes 2010 + Community Channels’ Community Champions competitions. Gotta make it to the shortlist first before I get anywhere and there’s prolly hundreds of entries, meaning to say that I prolly won't get anywhere! Still, you never know.

- Have been invited to do a lengthy article on micro volunteering for a global e-volunteering mag that is read by volunteer managers and the like across the world.

- Til next time

September 2010 Update

- i-volunteer.org.uk (the only UK social network that connects volunteers, charities and volunteer managers across the UK) is going to be launching phase 2 of its services to the volunteer sector within the next week. They have chosen micro volunteering as the thing ...they will be focusing on, largely in part (and forgive me for being a little smug about this) down to my efforts of promoting micro volunteering on their network. The fortnightly articles I have written for them are the most widely read and sought after on their network. I’m dead chuffed about this and think this is a hooge breakthrough for micro volunteering, coz this is one of those volunteering bodies that has a large influence in the UK voluntary sector and they are even going to be initially promoting micro volunteering based on how I have promoted it – in your pyjamas (well sort of). It's quite a cheeky little poster they're going to be using to promote micro volunteering – details to be revealed soon! I'm one of their 7 site beta testers at the moment (and the only outsider from their org). i-volunteer have asked me to populate their site with micro volunteering opps in advance of their phase 2 launch. It took me a nano second to say yeah or nay. I'll leave you to guess which one it was!

- Following up from last months item about trying to get in on do-it.org's database via the back door through Wessex Community Action. All I can say is mission accomplished and I'm already getting responses from HFH's inclusion in it.

- A few other high street volunteer centres have been warming to micro volunteering and promoting HFH. South Northamptonshire Volunteer Bureau contacted me out of the blue to say they are promoting HFH in their local paper and newsletter. Voluntary Sector Gateway West Lothian have added HFH to their 'useful volunteering links'.

- Been looking for web designers to expand my site and do some snazzy things with it. Going to be adding a few things soon from my 'Vision' page to HFH.

- Conducted my first ever leaflet drop to 10,000 homes in Cardiff, uk. Wot a disappointment that was, with hardly any rise in visits to the website. Ho hum!

Til next time.

Happenings in July

Here's a brief summary of things that happened to Help From Home during the merry month of July:

- Received an invitation to participate in a survey from Richard Branson's Virgin Unite, as they want to provide volunteering opps to their 50,000 employees worldwide as well as for their customers. They were interested in trad and micro opps. I was quite chuffed to take part in it, only because of the calibre of the 40 or so other organisations invited to participate from around the world. HFH was included in amongst the big boys like United Nations, Volunteering England and the like - dead chuffed I woz! The bottom line is that they may or may not contact me to supply them with micro opps to whatever database they choose to pursue. Be MEGA exciting if they did!

- Been a month on vinspired.com's (UK national volunteering for 16 - 25s) database and as far as I can see HFH is one the most popular volunteering opps on their database. Whoopee!

- Volunteer Scotland promoted Help From Home and micro volunteering in their July eBulltein. Got some encouraging emails from three Volunteer Centres but nothing to write home about.

- Tried for a second time to get Do-it.org (UK national volunteering database) to accept micro volunteering as a legit form of volunteering as I had endorsements from a few key personell in the volunteering sector, which I hoped might sway their decision. For a second time they refused. However, all is not lost as Wessex Community Action (a high street Volunteer Centre) contacted me out of the blue to put some micro opps on to their database, as apparently they’ve had quite a few ‘customers’ enquiring about home based volunteering. Wessex Community Actions database feed into Do-it.org so I just might get onto Do-it.org via the back door anyway, so to speak. Watch this space!

- Was contacted out of the blue by Rob Johnson, one of the Directors of Volunteering England, inviting me to collaborate with a start up venture called Voluntr. It wants to connect people to volunteering via Facebook - nothing new there then, but it's the way they are doing it which is different. Had a chat with them all the way from Spain and initially they were just scouting for info, but who knows, something may come out of it. Anyway, it was nice of the VE Director to bear me in mind for a potential volunteering start up venture. Watch this space!

- Conducted my first ever leaflet drop to 10,000 homes in Cardiff, UK. Wot a disappointment that was, with hardly any rise in visits to the website. Ho hum!

On Vacation

Not much happened during the merry month of June as Help From Home was 'out of town' so to speak. Still, I managed to add a 'Business Case for Employee Volunteering' webpage to compliment the 'Lunch Break Volunteering' campaign I'm running at the moment.

Some other brief snippets of 'happenings':

- Managed to secure the endorsement of Jamie Thomas, CEO of Red Foundation and i-volunteer for my campaign directed at encouraging high street Volunteer Centres to promote micro volunteering. Pyjamatastic!

- I contacted the WCVA (Wales Council for Voluntary Action) to support my campaign at Volunteer Centres. They stated they wouldn't put their name to it, but instead would actively promote micro volunteering to the various Welsh Volunteer Centres under their wing using information I supply them. This is really encouraging as they are the first main volunteer body to both acknowledge and promote micro volunteering. Marvellicious!

- I wrote a feature back in January explaining the concept of micro volunteering for i-volunteer. Have been told in the past couple of days that it is the most widely read article on their network. Looks like micro volunteering is gaining ground in popularity. Woohoo!

- In the past, I haven't been too sure about the impact that HFH could make in the volunteering world. I'm beginning to see some real tangible results from my efforts and it really is only now dawning on me as to how massive the untapped market of micro volunteering could be.

- I've looked at a few stats to see what potential the market has, that HFH could tap into. I have no idea how many people might be interested in micro volunteering, so I've just let the figures speak for themselves and let you decide what the market could be:
England + Wales adult population (Help From Home) = 26 million
UK businesses (Lunch Break Volunteering) = 2.15 million
UK Care Homes (Care Services scheme) = 21,000
UK outgoing tourists (Help From Holiday - under construction)= 8.8 million
England + Wales school kids (Help From School - under construction) = 12 million
UK Volunteers (people who participate in a voluntary act) = 20.3 million

Figures taken from various sources including UK 2001 Census, carehome.co.uk etc

That's alot of people and obviously, not everybody will be interested in micro volunteering, but the high number of UK volunteers is suggestive that there's potentially a huge area of interest to be tapped.

But of course, that's just the UK, what about ..... well, I'll just let your mind wander about the rest of the world!!

Bits and Pieces

Last month saw quite a few organisations show a bit of interest in Help From Home as well as say some nice things about it (whether they say that just to be nice to every initiative that comes along is something I’ll never know). Anyway, here’s a few organisations who showed a bit of interest in Help From Home and what they promised to do.

- Community Channel, which is a TV channel/website, have hinted that they are interested in showing a video that I made about micro volunteering on their TV channel. A few technical issues have to be ironed out first. Watch this space!

- Media Trust, which is the parent company of Community Channel, have hinted that they are interested in including Help From Home in a UK National Guide to Volunteering. They are interested in the ‘Do Good’ card campaign as well as the ‘pyjamas’ hook I use. Watch this space!

- NAPA (National Association for Providers of Activities for Older People) have hinted that they are interested in writing an article about Help From Home concerning its efforts to engage residents of care homes in micro volunteering via its meaningful activity programme suggestions. Watch this space!

- Vinspired, a website that promotes volunteering in the UK between the ages of 18-25 have hinted that they would like to include Help From Home onto their database. They attract over 100,000 visits/month so that would be quite something if I could get on their database. So far, I’ve not been able to get the appropriate form from Vinspired to get to the next stage. Watch this space!

- Voluntary Action Cardiff (VAC) have hinted that they would like to see an article about Help From Home in their next quarterly magazine, due out in September. Watch this space!

- Seems to be a lot of staring into space lately!

In other news, I am gearing up for an email campaign directed at all the Volunteer Centres in the UK, to try and encourage them to consider promoting micro volunteering if a ‘customer’ seems to be interested in something like this. So far I have got Rob Jackson one of the Directors of Volunteering England to endorse this campaign which I hope will add a bit more weight/credibility to it. I do hope it will be a stepping stone to reel in some more big fry from the UK voluntary sector.

I’ve also freshened up the website a bit with swishes of green and orange lines instead of the previous dominant purple colour. I’ve also added a bit more emphasis to the pyjama hook I use to encourage people to micro volunteer.

Til next time.

Flurries of interest

The month of April brought a flurry of interest from what I consider to be some key personnel in the UK voluntary sector. Take for instance:

- the Rt Hon Angela Smith, Minister for the Third Sector of the current UK government. She wanted to discover a bit more about HFH, so a meeting was arranged with one of her mistrial reps. I am now following up some leads that this ministerial rep gave me at the meeting.

- Then there was Rob Jackson, one of the Directors of Volunteering England who is now helping me to encourage Volunteer Centres to take a look at the micro actions featured on HFH. He’s asked me to write an article on this issue for the Volunteering England magazine.

- Also included is Jamie Thomas, who is CEO of Red Foundation and i-volunteer and the person behind the setting up of do-it.org.uk, the UK’s national volunteer online database. He has proposed an idea to me which is also aimed at encouraging volunteer centres to include micro volunteer actions on their database.

Part of this interest has come about because of a survey I conducted into the micro volunteer arena. I contacted exactly 350 initiatives from HFH’s database and received 26 replies. Not a quantity that will produce any meaningful results, but nevertheless a few interesting trends were noted eg. the high level of repeat volunteering and the extremely high number of initiatives wanting to be included on UK Volunteer Centre ‘books’.

I added a couple of new pages to HFH last month. One of them was to do with a collection of articles about the micro volunteering arena which can be viewed here and the other was the first of many pages for a new campaign to promote volunteering in your lunch break – aimed mainly at office workers. The tagline for the campaign is ‘Change The World In Just Your Lunch Break’ and is the first step in accomplishing one of the ideas on the ‘Our Vision’ page. Hope you’ll check it out as the actions have been collected together on a cafe style food menu – something which I think has not been tried before and something which has potential within the internet café market.

I attended an Awards Day last month, hosted by UnLtd, who are the current funders of HFH. Met some amazing people who are running some amazing initiatives. I am simply in awe of them and it’s a whole new world for me, to see people doing so much good.

Til next time

A Few Meetings

Held a few meetings with the Cardiff Institute for the Blind and Royal National Institute for the Blind Cymru over the past month. I approached them to see if there was any scope in introducing some of the home based volunteering actions featured on HFH to some of the visually impaired people, who through their circumstances may spend a greater proportion of their time at home than sighted people. They seemed to like the idea to the point that they intend to initiate a pilot project to see how it goes. If successful, then they intend for this scheme to go nationwide.

The way it would operate would be for volunteers to go out to people’s houses in their normal course of volunteering with the blind and introduce them to the concept of micro volunteering. If they grab the bait, so to speak, then the volunteer would initially help them to become more involved with whatever micro action they’re interested in. This is quite an exciting project and it has been suggested that I may be invited to give a presentation on HFH to RNIB HQ in order to kickstart the project before it goes nationwide. Watch this space!

Received an invite from Volunteering England to attend a roundtable session on innovation in volunteering, hosted by no less than Angela Smith, MP, Minister for the Third Sector at The Cabinet Office in Whitehall, London. The invite went out to ‘key volunteer involving organisations’. I didn’t attend it as I got invite too late to rearange other commitments. Apparently, it turned out to be a useful meeting with lost of interesting points raised.

On the back of this Roundtable sesh, I then got a personal invitation from THE Angela Smith mentioned above to attend THE Cabinet Office at Whitehall, London to discuss HFH with one of her staff members. At time of writing, time and date of meeting is still to be arranged. Watch this space!

During the merry month of March, I conducted a survey amongst most of the micro volunteering initiatives feature on HFH's online and offline database in order to produce a snapshot of the current state of the micro volunteering arena. You can download it here. There wasn't a huge response to this survey, but it did highlight some potential interesting trends about repeat volunteering and UK Volunteer Centres. Although the survey was by no means a comprehensive one, it is hoped that it will serve as a springboard for other orgs within the UK voluntary sector to do some further research and so bring greater awareness of the micro volunteering sector to the general public. Watch this space!

Til next time.

New Directions?

A few things have happened this month which have steered me off the route I was originally taking with Help From Home, but which I thought were worth spending the time exploring.

1.There have been a few queries raised in some forums about the effectiveness of micro volunteering initiatives. These amongst others, have come from Rob Jackson, Director of Development and Innovation of Volunteering England and Jamie Thomas, Founder and Chief Executive of Red Foundation and i-volunteer. In response to this, I have decided to conduct a snap shot general overview survey of all the micro volunteer initiatives I’m aware of. This survey is now fully supported by the organisations listed above and is, I believe, the first ever survey to be undertaken of the Micro Volunteering arena. I’m aware that the results are keenly awaited by certain key people in the voluntary sector, as it is hoped the results will ignite a debate with these key decision makers as to whether micro volunteering becomes an integral part of the volunteer opportunities that Volunteer Centres can offer.

2.I’ve noticed over the past month that a few organisations that are involved in the rehabilitation of housebound people, have taken an interest in Help From Home. This is an interesting development and one that I think needs looking into as I believe it has huge potential to help housebound people gain more self worth. To this effect, I've created a Helping The Housebound and a Cheat Sheet to help this process along.

Was contacted by Charity Champs last month with a view to forming a partnership with them. Charity Champs in building a web community that acts like a loyalty program to develop socially responsible attitudes in youth through micro philanthropy. They want to integrate the micro action featured on Help From Home into their web communities. They were recent winners of the huge Aviva Community Fund competition and with that boost of credibility behind them are now full steaming ahead on their vision.

Urbantastic.com, a Canadian website that featured local micro volunteering opportunities in Canadian cities in closing down. Who cares? I do as they were kind enough to offer to redirect their traffic to Help From Home. This means more people in their pyjamas doing wonderful things. Ooh err, missus!

Til next time.

Kerching! Or the Money Floweth!

I received news at the end of January that UnLtd and 4iP, an initiative of Channel Four Television Corporation, have awarded me free funding of £5000 to help promote the concept of micro volunteering. I am indebted to their kindness, as I’ve been funding HFH from my own back pocket up til now. I think this calls for a WOOHOO!, don;t you?

During the last month or so, I’ve added several gizmos and gadgets to Help From Home, these being:

1. a Widget, which you can embed onto your website and provides a slideshow of the various opportunities featured in Help From Home.

2. a Toolbar, which you can install into your favourites browser and has all of the main web links to each micro action featured in Help From Home available to you a click away without having to visit Help From Home.

3. a Video which gives a brief introduction into the concept of micro volunteering. The special effects in the video were provided by Animoto who give who gave me a free ‘Animoto for a Cause’ account, which enabled me to have all the pizzazz that goes with a paid up pro account for free. I am indebted to their kindness.

With all this new additional technical, digital media, wizardry added to Help From Home, I entered Help From Home into Media Trust’s ‘Inspiring Voices’ awards. The award is designed for projects that are helping disadvantaged communities though the use of digital media. There will be a winner drawn every week up to the end of March. Fingers crossed with this one, but I’m hopeful of getting anywhere as I think I’m pushing the limit of their definition of the type of project they are looking for.

Life takes on funny twists and turns sometimes. Take for instance a chance remark I made in response to an article featured on i-volunteer.org.uk. The remark I made was nothing in particular, but it did bring Help From Home to the attention of the owners of the site. One thing leads to another and I’ve now been given the task of producing a fortnightly-ish mini article highlighting a different micro volunteer opportunity. It’s an experiment, so we’ll see how it goes, but this is something that as part of my vision for Help From Home, I wanted to approach newspapers/magazines with, ie a regular Micro Volunteer spot feature.

Taking about vision, I added a new webpage to Help From Home focusing on the vision that I wish Help From Home to become. This all came about from my meeting with UnLtd, a few months back, where I laid down my vision for Help From Home in an effort to obtain some free funding from them. You can now see where I intend to go with Help From Home and if you feel you can help out in anyway, then just contact me.

I have also now implemented an idea that arose from an open discussion format during a presentation I attended as part of my Runner Up prize in the ‘How to Make a Difference’ competition I entered late last year. The idea was to encourage people to send in photos of what they do in their pyjamas to change the world. This idea has been added to Help From Home’s Facebook account and once again it’s just an experiment. I don’t see it taking off just yet, but you never know.

Til next time.