Help From Home Blog

November 2011 Update

2011-11-29T22:30:00.000-08:00

Woohoo, we actually got a new website design up and running with more microvolunteer actions, new video, improved actions tracker and more info on the microvolunteering arena. Anyway, have a browse around and see if it gets your juices flowing.

As part of the roll out of the new website, we introduced a new project as well. It’s called Help From Holiday and is an attempt to encourage people to think about benefitting the countries they visit Before, During and After their holiday. You can now microvolunteer in your swimwear, and no excuses will be accepted.

Vinspired, UK’s national youth volunteering network, is piloting an employee volunteering project called Volunteering Works. As part of the scheme, they’re going to be incorporating microvolunteering into this project. This is a new direction for them, as the type of microvolunteering that Help From Home promotes has never been tried out in an employee volunteering environment before. Fingers crossed, it get the thumbs up, so to speak.

Help From Home got a whole article to itself on The Crowdsourcing Gazette UK during November. Thanks to Ramon from the Crowdsourcing Gazette who composed a splendiferous piece on us, who explained to us that he’s using the article to segue his way into creating more pieces about the microvolunteering arena.

Susan J Ellis of Energize, and who is very respected person on the global volunteering arena gave a seminar a few weeks ago. She was talking about the trends in volunteering and went on to say that “...the trend towards short-term volunteering, from the weekend or one day warrior to the microvolunteer, is no longer a trend, but a fact.” Couldn’t agree more!

Til next time

October 2011 Update

2011-10-31T14:03:00.000-07:00

We were due to launch our new look website back in October, but we now envisage a launch sometime in November, maybe even December. No definite date is planned so, watch this space is all we can say!

It was spotted during the month of October that Surrey County Council became the first (as far as we are aware) UK government Council to start promoting microvolunteering and more specifically HFH, as part of their volunteering strategy. We hope to build on this and take microvolunteering to other UK Councils.

Yet another UK Volunteer Centre came on board to promote microvolunteering. This time it's Voluntary Action South West Surrey, which now brings the total upto 57 Volunteer Centres that jumped on the microvolunteering bandwagon. We're slowly getting there with our project of encouraging UK volunteer centres to promote the concept.

Til next time.

New website almost there!

2011-10-07T07:12:00.000-07:00

Been a bit absent from blog posts of late. That's because we've been working on the completely new look website that will have more functions, more actions, and more information about everything microvolunteering. We're also going to be simultaneously launching a brand new project called 'Help From Holiday'. Watch this space over the next 2 weeks and get ready for a bit of revamped pyjama action!! Ooh err, missus!!

July 2011 Update

2011-08-02T05:46:00.000-07:00

The UK government’s official website, Number 10, included Help From Home within its volunteering sections. There are only four other organisations featured on the web page and they are all the ‘main players’ of the UK volunteering world, so we’re quite chuffed to be included amongst them. The UK government in its Big Society vision wants to promote more flexible volunteering and we’re quite honoured that it seems that they’ve chosen Help From Home to represent part of that vision.

We’re in the middle of transferring our current website over to a new fresher design that also provides a facility to record a person’s participation in an action within a profile they can set up. We envisage a launch date of the 1st October 2011 or there abouts for this new look, which is being hosted on the ubiquitous Wordpress platform. Watch this space!

Oasis Academy Shirley Park, an educational establishment in London, UK approached Help From Home with a view to including microvolunteering as part of the school’s activities next school term in September. If all goes well, this might spread to the other educational establishments dotted around the UK under the Oasis Academy umbrella. Fingers crossed

Till next time.

June 2011 update

2011-07-06T05:41:00.000-07:00

Had a bit of a volunteer recruitment drive last month, which resulted in one person offering to volunteer for Help From Home. Many roles were put up on offer and the one this volunteer went for was to form partnerships with like minded organisations, who have the vision to integrate microvolunteering opportunities within the portfolio of services they offer.

The UK Government published it’s Giving White Paper in May. Help From Home compiled a response, which is available here to read. Basically the UK Government wants to promote a more flexible approach to volunteering that fits in with people’s lifestyles. Mircovolunteering certainly appears to have this flexible approach covered and our response highlights those areas in the White Paper where we are either already delivering or proposing to deliver on its aims.

Hot on the tails of last month’s research into the evidence of impact within the microvolunteering area. Help From Home is now conducting a survey about actual microvolunteers themselves. This will run for quite a few months and goes into the who, what, why, where and when of microvolunteers activities. As far as we know, the voluntary sector is starved of research into the microvolunteering arena, and we hope this survey will serve as a springboard for further research. Indeed, the UK based Institute of Volunteering Research has approached Help From Home with a view to being involved in a much larger research project whose aims have yet to be thrashed out. All that side, we would be grateful of your responses to our survey.

Til next time.

May 2011 Update

2011-06-02T11:36:00.000-07:00

- Had a meeting with Cardiff County Council to discuss my idea of them becoming the first ;Microvolunteer Capital of the World'. This idea has been scaled down a bit, as a pilot project needs to be run first to see how it all goes. So, the scaled down project is now designed to provide microvolunteer opportunities to all 18,000 Cardiff CC's employees. Being a local authority, there are still a few red tape issues to be overcome, like health and safety/insurance, but hopefully these are minor issues and can be resolved.

- There has been some concern recently about whether the microvolunteering arena in producing any impact at all. Can such seemingly small actions achieve anything? In answer to this, I compiled an article that collated all the impact stats from as many microvolunteering initiatives I could find – 150 ish in all. Whilst it can clearly be derived that impact is being made, there have been further calls that the impact figures I provided should be broken down yet further. Although this is beyond my time and resources, I have had a request from a major UK volunteering involved organisation namely Red Foundation to collaborate with me on the more detailed research. Once some funding is in place, it’ll be all systems go for the next tranche of research. Watch this space!

- Over the past month or so, a few enquires/opportunities have arisen whereby Help From Home has provided some tailor made caused aligned action lists to fit in with an organisation’s mission/ethos. This has inspired me to promote a new free service along those lines and already five such lists have been produced – these being for African Mothers Foundation International, It starts With Us, The Laptop Project, Cardiff County Council and a project down in London which has yet to get off the ground. This is an exciting direction to be going be going in and one which I don’t know where it will lead to.

Til next time.

April 2011 Update

2011-04-30T05:14:00.000-07:00

- We're looking for partner collaborations for HFH's 'Volunteer Anywhere' project to take microvolunteering into schools, employee volunteering schemes and civic engagement projects via a Facebook-esque social media interaction format where it is envisaged an income stream will be produced from quantifiable social impact reports

- We also launched our 'Change the world from just your classroom' project, which provides a free downloadable Teachers Education Pack that introduces the concept of microvolunteering to students, whilst enabling them to put into practice what they've learnt and actually volunteer within class time

- We felt the microvolunteering actions for care homes residents were lacking something, so we enhanced them with 'beneficial stimuli' tags that should allow carers to match the needs of residents with greater ease

Til next time

March 2011 Update

2011-03-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

- Published a 'How To Develop A Microvolunteering Project' handbook. It's 40 pages big and getting alot of publicity. It explains what microvolunteering is and why you should set one up. It then moves on to developing the project, whilst also covering the all pervading smartphone app in terms of microvolunteering actions. Most usefully, 13 organisations have provided the trials and tribulations process they went through to set up their own project - priceless in terms of experiences to learn from.

- HFH is now an official RaceOnline 2012 member. This is a UK government led movement to encourage non-onliners to become onliners. HFH is using it's 'Care Services' project to encourage the older generation to get online.

- HFH wishes to expand it's reach within the voluntary sector and so has started to recruit volunteers, but as of this blog publication date, there are no takers yet wishing to change the world in just their pyjamas! Take a look at how you could help us out. Any offers anyone?

- HFH is wishing to start up a social enterprise business via microvolunteering. It's produced a wireframe template of a website that combines participation in micro-actions and social interactivity, whilst having the facility to provide quantifiable impact reports. The mechanics behind the website would allow it to be suitable for environments like businessess, schools, care homes, community orgs etc. If anybody is interested in expressing an interest in collaborating on such a project, just email HFH via our 'Contact Us' page.

Til next time.

February 2011 Update

2011-02-28T01:04:00.000-08:00

- UnLtd, who are my current funders, put me in touch with a social enterprise mentor. Let's just say that my personal circumstances are changing with my day job and so I now need to look at income streams from HFH. For those that don't know, I derive no income from HFH and do it because it feels the 'right' thing to do. My newly found mentor is extremely helpful to me and it's amazing that she wants to help me out in her own time.

- Met up with Cardiff County Council, who are the local authority organisation ressponsible for the city I live in. They were very interested in my idea of them becoming the 1st 'Microvolunteer Capital of the World'. They are already the 1st 'Fairtrade Capital of the World'. I need to investigate all the ideas tabled at the meeting to see how viable it could be, but what a coup this would be if I get the city I live in to be promoting microvolunteering. Even if it doesn't go down the route of being the Microvolunteer capital of the world, I still might be able to use the experience gained from this idea to encourage other UK cities to engage their citizens in microvolunteering.

- Have been invited to co-contribute microvolunteering articles to the #1 crowdsourcing news site: The Daily Crowdsource. I will be contributing to a regular 'Microvolunteering Wednesdays' column that only started up at the beginning of the year. I will be concentrating on microvolunteering opps from HFH, whilst the other contributor from America will be focussing on those from Sparked.

- The Jewish Volunteer Network contacted me the other day and wondered whether I would add a few more microvolunteering opps to their database. Of course I said yes and so I'm uploading them up as I write.

Till next time

January 2011 Update

2011-01-29T00:35:00.000-08:00

- HFH mentioned in the latest UK Government Green Paper, 'Giving' as an example of a platform that delivers non-traditional volunteering opportunities as part of their 'Big Society' vision
- Got a few mentions in the media, most notably the UK 'heavyweight' The Sunday Times which included HFH in an article on mentoring people. Needless to say, the numbers of website visitors have spiked up
- Approx 10 more Volunteer Centres are now promoting microvolunteering, some in Ireland + Scotland. This about wraps up HFH's campaign to encourage UK Volunteer Centres to embrace microvolunteering. The campaign was a huge success as it's now put microvolunteering on the voluntary sector radar in the UK. HFH will continue to promote microvolunteering Volunteer Centres via articles in relevant volunteer sector forums. To get a picture of how many volunteer centres started to promote microvolunteering, please visit here.
- HFH has been invited to give a talk at Voluntary Action South West Surrey Volunteer Centre Convention on the barriers to volunteering and how they can be overcome via microvolunteering.
- Also been asked give a talk on microvolunteering to Patchway Filton & The Stokes Volunteer Centre at their monthly team meeting

December 2010 Update - again

2010-12-29T23:28:00.000-08:00

- 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

2010-11-28T07:30:00.000-08:00

- 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

2010-10-30T04:42:00.000-07:00

- 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

2010-10-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-01T01:04:00.000-07:00

- 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

2010-09-01T05:28:00.000-07:00

- 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

2010-07-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-25T05:51:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-02T11:56:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-29T05:34:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-03T02:40:00.000-07:00

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?

2010-03-02T22:52:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-02-03T05:05:00.000-08:00

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.

Funding & Twixtmas

2009-12-29T06:46:00.000-08:00

Earlier on in the month, I met up with the Director of UnLtd Wales, Gareth Bickerton to seek some funding for HFH. UnLtd Wales is a funder of social entrepreneurs. He stated, amongst other nice things, that HFH was the most innovative initiative he had seen all year and that there was a good chance of receiving some free funding. This funding can be used to progress 'do good' initiatives like HFH. If I'm lucky enough to be awarded some, I intend to enhance the HFH website so that users can access the micro volunteer database easier. I also intend to get a video made to explain the concept of micro volunteering.

Seeing as HFH seems to be getting noticed a bit more, I have decided to design a logo, which I hope conveys the concept that people can change the world from the comfort of their own home. The logo comprises one half of the globe and one half of a house. I tried and tried and tried to get a pair of pyjamas in the logo somewhere, but came up blank, so the current logo is the final design - unless somebody else comes up with a better one.

Was contacted by Andy Green of Twixtmas during the month to see if we could get a joint campaign going to encourage people to do things for worthy causes during the 5 day period between 27th – 31st December ie Twixtmas. A lot of people just lounge about during this period, so it's an ideal time for people who are time starved for the rest of the year to do some good works. We’ll see whether it was successful or not later on in January 2010.

Was also contacted by Sylvia Ng of Charity Champs to contribute to an internet chat session on micro philanthropy organised by the Canadian website Taking IT Global. The chat session hasn’t take place yet but I was posed several questions, the answers to which can be found here.

Til next time

BBC, UnLtd and a little seminar on the side

2009-12-03T05:33:00.000-08:00

Forgot to mention in my last blog, that I was interviewed by the BBC on the back of the Runner Up award in Community Channel’s ‘Make a Difference’ competition. If you’re easily frightened, then don’t click through to the interview, it contains a picture of me prominently displayed.

HFH reached a small milestone during November. It now features over 500 plus actions/invitations in it’s database and there’s still loads more waiting in the wings to be vetted.

At the end of November, I attended a seminar entitled ‘Introduction to Social Media’ which explained about the magic and mysteries behind using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for creating awareness about your organisation. It was my choice of prize from the competition I mentioned above. Here’s a TwitPic of the event.

One of the twelve attendants at the seminar was a lady from UnLtd, who like me wanted to learn about the social media out there. I mention this as UnLtd is a charity that supports social entrepreneurs. Upon learning about HFH, she mentioned that I was the type of social entrepreneur they are looking to fund as well as support projects like HFH. I was quite surprised at this, as I hadn’t considered myself a social entrepreneur before. Still, I’ve sent an email now off to UnLtd informing them about HFH. We’ll see what happens from here.

And last but not least, I’ve received an invite from Social Actions to share HFH’s database with them. It will be done via RSS Feeds which I know nothing about, but hey a lack of knowledge about something has never stopped me in the past.

Til next time

And the Winner is …………

2009-10-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

Not me. I entered Help From Home into a UK nationwide competition a couple of weeks ago for ‘small groundbreaking projects that are making a BIG difference.’ I entered the competition and promptly forget about because it’s one of those things you do impromptu and think ‘seriously, me winning – never.’

Surprise, surprise I didn’t win, but fanfare of trumpet, roll of drums, I did come second. Apparently over 100 project entered the competition and as I’ve found out later, the eleven other initiatives that were shortlisted either were sponsored by some big firms and/or received thousands pounds in grant money and/or have many people working on the project either full or part time. I can claim to none of these, which for me if I’d known about the calibre of the projects entering, I wouldn’t have entered. Anyway here’s the link to the comp announcement page.

The other day, I came across an article on Web land about the connection between kindness and your state of health. Apparently there is a connection and it’s a very beneficial one for the person doing the kind acts. Check out the article here and see whether it’s better to be angry or kind. OK, so you can’t be bothered to read it, but the gist of the article is that kindness is good for you. So take another look around Help From Home and see what kind acts you can do. I am now thinking of displaying a health warning log for Help From Home – but in this case, it will be the warning that you will come into some good health. LOL

Til next time.

2009-09-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

There were several reasons why I started Help from Home.
(1) I was already doing home base volunteering and thought others should have know about it (2) there wasn’t really anybody else promoting home based volunteering to the same extent as to what HFH has become.

Well I now need to correct point 2 above as a website called Charity Guide is also promoting volunteer actions which can be done in bite sized chunks. The site’s concept is similar to HFH but not too similar that we’re duplicating information. Charity Guide has been going for 3 years now and I feel that we could strike up some sort of collaboration somewhere, so watch this space to see what happens.

I’ve tinkered around with the website look again. I’ve never been really happy with the home page, so I’ve given it a slightly different look again. I’m hoping this will be last tinker for some time to come.

I’ve been working on the 2 projects that I mentioned in my last blog entry, but only on the tag lines that I intend to use for each of them. Without revealing too much, these are the tag lines I’ve come up with so far. For ‘Unfolding kindness’ its ‘Changing The World with Just a Bit of Paper’ and for ‘ChariTree’, it’s ‘The personalised Present that rewrites the Past to change the Future’. Not exactly tripping of your tongue tag lines, but they are apt to the projects I have in mind to release at a later date.

Til next time.

New Features Added

2009-09-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

Several new features were added to HFH last month, which I’ll explain below.

One thing that you’ll see is a bit of a facelift to the homepage. I’m trying to focus people’s attention on certain pages of the website in the hopes of getting a bit of interactivity going between visitors to the site.

I introduced two new features to the website. One of which were the ‘Do Good’ cards I mentioned in last month’s blog. These cards have acts of kindness printed on them along with a unique tracking number. These cards are intended to be distributed freely with the added excitement of being able to track the impact you’re making around the globe.

The other feature I added to the website were some ‘Volunteer Challenge’ sheets. The purpose behind these is to encourage people to perform a defined number of voluntary action which once completed will be rewarded with a ‘Certificate of Achievement’. I’m hoping this will be an incentive for people to volunteer more at home.

I haven’t done any promoting of the site in approximately two months, so it’s my intention now to get that back on track. However, things in the pipeline are projects called ‘Unfolding Kindness’ and ‘ChariTree’. More about these in subsequent blogs.

Til next time

Purge, Splurge and Future Features

2009-07-30T13:25:00.000-07:00

I’ve had a bit of a purge of some of the actions listed on the website, as I noticed that there was quite a few links that were pointing to out of date pages or sites that were no longer active. The flipside of this, is that I’ve had a bit of a splurge on adding new actions to the website. I usually add three or four per month but this time round I let the floodgates open and added a whole load of them. I’m not going to list them all as that’s the domain of my newsletter to do that, so I'll let you pop over to the August newsletter (once it's published) and see what ones have been added.

As for future features, I’ve added a new mapping facility from Frappr to give a bit more interaction on various pages, namely Leaflet Campaign, Home Volunteer Groups and Volunteer Bureau page.

As I write, a very kind person, namely Peter Bailey, has offered to set up a tracking facility for some ‘Do Good’ cards that will eventually roll out sometime in August. These are cards that will attempt to spread some random acts of kindness that have the ability of being able to track where that card has travelled to, once you pass it on to someone else. Exciting stuff!!!

Also, if time permits, then a new Volunteer Challenge feature will be introduced in August as well. This will be a downloadable sheet of actions, which once completed will be rewarded with a Certificate of Achievement. It’s just another way, among many on the website, to encourage people to perform actions that benefit others.

'Til next time.

Be Extraordinary

2009-06-30T14:29:00.000-07:00

Came across an initiative the other day, which in my mind truly promotes the concept of micro volunteering. It’s called ‘The Extraordinaries’ and they are trying to encourage people to volunteer their time whilst for instance they are at the bus stop, on the tube, waiting for a pizza etc. It’s all done via a person’s mobile phone and they’re suggesting that the few minutes that people have spare through the day could be devoted to helping out worthy causes. Check them out. Quote extraordinary!

I hadn’t come across the term micro volunteering before until I’d came across the The Extraordinaries website and I now realise that this is what Help From Home is promoting. Talking about promoting Help From Home has been featured in quite a few blogs last month and is now starting to get Twittered.

I was interviewed by the Huffington Post internet newspaper for an article on volunteering last month. I must say that the reporter did a very good job of what seemed to me to be random ramblings coming out of my mouth. Top marks to her.

I’m trying to promote the concept of Home volunteering to volunteer bureaux as, from my research, they don’t seem to tackle this side of volunteering at all. To this end I had a meeting with my local volunteer centre in Cardiff, UK who agreed to include my website on their books. They advised me to contact the other volunteer centres around Wales, so that is what I am going to do. I’ve actually created a web page for managers of volunteer bureaux to read, so if you know of any do let them know about Help From Home.

As the site continues to grow, so the number of web pages I add to the site grows as well. In addition to the ‘Volunteer Bureaux’ page mentioned above, I’d added a FAQs page and on ‘In the media’ page. Hopefully you’ll check them out.

In order to provide different ways of promoting the concept of Home Volunteering, I’m aiming to produce ‘Do Good; cards rather like these ones here and a Volunteer Workout Plan. The Workout Plan will be based on a Fitness Workout Plan but with a twist. More details will follow once I’ve finalised the details.

On a final note, have a read of this article about some research that shows you are likely to live longer if you are doing something positive in your life like volunteering. Quite extraordinary!

'Til next time.

2009-06-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

Here in the UK, its National Volunteer Week, where traditionally people get together in groups at a certain place and a certain time to perform activities that benefit others. Of course, volunteering can also be conducted in the comfort of people’s home, a concept that I believe is lost on many of the main volunteering portals website eg http://www.do-it.org/ In time, it’s my intention to approach them on this issue and urge them to provide a category for home based volunteering activities. Watch this space!

Whilst on the theme of National Volunteer Week, I created a petition to promote the concept of a National Volunteer at Home Day. As the focus of these volunteer weeks is on groups of people getting together, I thought what better time to start a petition to get people to think about volunteering their time at home. If you feel that this is an issue worth pursuing, then let others know by signing the petition. It’s going to be up and running for a whole year, so you’ve got plenty of time to put your name to it and to encourage others to support it.

Following on from last month’s blog request for volunteers, I’ve actually created a web page so that visitors to the site can see the direction in which I hope to expand Help From Home. Volunteers are required for creating a education/action pack for children/teachers; setting up home volunteer groups in their own community; producing a book centred around the home volunteering concept; creating a web widget for webmasters to add to their websites that show up randomly selected home volunteer opportunities on every page refresh. If you’re interested in any one of them, just pop over to the page ‘Make A Difference’ and see if you can help us.

Big ambitions eh! You bet, but there again the concept of volunteering your time at home is, I believe, not on people’s radar and for this reason, I feel there is huge scope in promoting the idea.

Til next time.

A Few Changes

2009-05-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

There’s been a few changes to the HFH website. Here’s a brief list of them:

1) A little purple man should appear in your internet browser’s address bar opposite the HFH web address. It’s called a favicon, if you really want to know.

2) The website had been ‘broken’ in the Firefox internet browser ie. pictures and text on some pages were all over the place. This has now been fixed. There are still problems if the site is viewed in Opera.

3) By popular request a newsletter is now being offered on a monthly-ish basis. Please click here for more details.

4) The whole purpose of the website is to encourage people to volunteer their time from the comfort of their own home. This means that people are performing these actions in isolation from everybody else. To overcome this, an action tracker has been added to the website to enable people to see what actions are being performed by others, in the hope that it will provide a sense of community amongst fellow volunteers. Click on the following link to see the Action Tracker in action. BTW, the Action Tracker was very kindly created by Mark Sinkinson who is a freelance web designer. If you need any website design just contact him here, he’s very good and very capable.

5) The 'Forum' and 'Submit a Site' web pages have been substituted by a ‘Soapbox’ page. Same format as the previous 'Submit a Site' page, but this time a different emphasis has been placed on the theme of what can be contributed. Check out the following link to the Soapbox page.

Well that’s enough changes for one month. Till next time.

Perplexed, Puzzled and Pondering.

2009-04-04T09:21:00.000-07:00

I’m now back from Southern India and involved in arranging a school twinning exchange with the school I visited whilst on holiday. All this can be done from home and without getting out of my pyjamas. If that isn’t a great example of what this website is all about then I don’t know what is.

I’ve been perplexed and puzzled by some of my promotion efforts to spread the word about HFH. I’ve joined (or at least tried to join) various Yahoo groups whose 'raison d’etre' purports to be the promotion of information and actions that benefit people or organisations that would be considered as worthwhile causes. I question some of the notions behind some of these groups, as my attempt to join or put a message about my website within some of these groups were denied. They either want to help people or they don’t want to help people and I honestly believe that my website would be a valuable source of information in their efforts to help others. To this day I still remain perplexed and puzzled over their decisions.

I am pondering various developments for HFH. A visitor to the site has asked about the provision of a newsletter. This is in the pipeline and just needs to be slotted into my busy timetable. I have also been pondering on ideas for a kids zone on the website where the actions are surprise, surprise geared to things or causes that would be of interest to children. Watch this space and keep watching, as this will take a long time to get off the ground.

All this takes up time and what I could really do with are some volunteers to help me out. Well, low and behold I have already had one offer of help but a few more would certainly be most appreciated.

Yours perplexed, puzzled and pondering.

Getting The Word Out

2009-02-01T09:39:00.000-08:00

I have been quite surprised at the events of last month. What with one thing and another, I actually only really got down to promoting the site during the 2nd week of January and then that only lasted for 1 week, coz something else cropped up.

On the 1st weekend that I started to promote the site, I contacted the local newspaper, South Wales Echo, who picked up on it straightaway. A pic of the article is to the left - yes that's moi. On the back of this article, I was then contacted out of the blue by BBC Radio Wales. An interview for this radio station has yet to materialize, so I'll reserve that news for Febs' blog - if it happens.

I should also be getting an article in a locally produced magazine as well during February. My website was actually mentioned in the monthly ezine by 365act.com. At the moment, all this publicity draws in a small but steady stream of visits to the site. Not bad considering I haven't really done that much to promote the website.

I changed the emphasis in the tagline for Help From Home to make it read that you could change the world in your pyjamas - a much more intriguing tagline, methinks. I'm also going to be changing the Easy Random Actions part of the site, as displayed on the right of every page. Here, I'm going to place the emphasis on actions that can be performed under 1, 5, 10, 20 and 30 minutes. Once again, methinks this may be more intriguing to visitors of the site.

I also want to get more user interactivity going on in my website, whereby a user can record that s/he has performed an action and this then will be tallied up with everybody else's actions. Here's an example of what I mean. I am only a novice web designer, so I have no idea how to go about doing this. More research is needed by me, methinks, unless you the reader know how to do this, in which case I'd be grateful of your help.

I'm on holiday in Southern India during part of Feb and March, so the next blog will be sometime in mid March. One of the things I will be doing in India is visiting a school where I plan to donate lots of pens and pencils which I'm told they need. Hopefully I'll get a photo to prove this.

Til next time.

Website Launch

2008-12-20T10:26:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the 'Help From Home' website. What with one thing and another, I have spent almost a whole year researching and setting up this website. It's a labour of love, born out of the apparent lack of information out there that is all in one place about how somebody could use their time more usefully (from a volunteering point of view) in the comfort of their own home.

Let's face it, most of us spend more of our leisure time in our own home compared to any other activity we pursue. What if just 30 minutes of this 'home' time could be spent on helping out a worthy initiative. What if then, that volunteering effort cost nothing or hardly anything at all, didn't involve any commitment and would take up less than 30 minutes of somebody's time to complete. I know such volunteering activities exist because I participate in some of them on a regular basis. Trouble is, I don't think other people know about them, which is why 'Help From Home' was set up.

Now that the website is up and running, the next task is to promote it. Over the coming months, I intend to pursue an active promotion drive encompassing internet forums, newspapers, volunteer bureaux, leaflet drops etc. etc. I hope it will be successful, but only time will tell.

I hope you will find a useful volunteer opportunity on this website. Even better would be the passing on of information about a volunteer opportunity which is not mentioned on this website. If you know of one, let me know by the 'Submit A Site' or 'Contact' page.

Til next time.