Micro-volunteering

Micro-volunteering describes a task done by a volunteer, or a team of volunteers, without payment, either online via an internet-connected device, including smartphones, or offline in small increments of time, usually to benefit a nonprofit organization, charitable organization, or non-governmental organization. Micro-volunteering is a form of virtual volunteering. It typically does not require an application process, screening or training period, takes only minutes or a few hours to complete, and does not require an ongoing commitment by the volunteer.

Micro-volunteering has been practiced informally and on an ad-hoc basis, with nonprofits involving volunteers in short-term, low-commitment assignments via the Internet for some time^[1], through it was the San Francisco-based social enterprise called The Extraordinaries (now renamed as www.Sparked.com), founded in January 2008, which built the first platform for microvolunteering, which made micro-volunteering accessible to any nonprofit with an internet connection.^[2][3][4] Note that the Spanish microvolunteering website Microvoluntarios.org registered the Spanish version of the phrase microvolunteering as a web domain name on 27 Nov 2006^[5], but did not have a working Web service at that domain until May of 2008.

There are several definitions of the term microvolunteering in use, these being: - 'Easy quick low commitment actions that benefit a worthy cause' (Help From Home) - 'Convenient bite-sized crowdsourced and network managed' (Sparked) - 'The act of voluntarily participating in day-to-day situations that occupy a brief amount of time' (Student Volunteer Connections)

There has been some dispute as to the impact that microvolunteering actually achieves. One research study^[6] shows that an action on its own can risk being seen as fairly inconsequential, but en masse it can have a huge impact. As of July, 2011 2 further studies were being conducted into actual microvolunteers activities themselves, results of which are intended to be published in Autumn/Winter 2011.

See also

• Crowdsourcing
• Slacktivism
• Volunteer
• Distributed computing
• List of distributed computing projects
• Volunteer computing

References

1. ^ [http://www.coyotecommunications.com/tech/npo_and_net_history.shtml A Brief Review of the Early History of Nonprofits and the Internet
2. ^ The Extraordinaries: Will Microvolunteering Work? : NPR
3. ^ Smart-phone app lets you do good deeds in your spare time - CSMonitor.com
4. ^ San Francisco-based website offers micro-volunteering platform | abc7news.com
5. ^ http://whois.domaintools.com/microvoluntarios.org
6. ^ http://www.helpfromhome.org/articles-3.htm