Hack Days & Collaborative Funding
Progressing Volunteer Impact in 2016
I have high hopes for Volunteer Impact in 2016. Personally speaking, it’s one of the projects I care most about seeing come to life, that I’ve ever worked on.
Don’t Rush Important Projects
Against an entrepreneurial backdrop of ‘fail fast’, ‘high growth’ and ‘pivot or persevere’, I’ve become increasingly interested in alternative models of building sustainable ventures which move a little more slowly and intentionally and allow more time and space to think and act.
Whilst this is a pragmatic response to not having the deep pockets (or helping hand of other people with deep pockets) to fund a full time team to work on things, it is also based on thinking about ecological metaphors of growth. Stage 1, or pioneer ecosystems are full of weed-y species which grow and die off quickly, creating resources and environments for other species to grow in. Stage 2 ecosystems sometimes spring from the soils of the Stage 1's, taking root and growing slower but lasting much longer. In Stage 3, mature ecosystems there are a great mix and diversity of species, often including the forest giants which are iconic to us – the great Kauri, the Wollemi Pines, and the giant Redwoods.
Volunteer Impact’s purpose is too important to me to allow it to be a rapid cycling project which lives and dies in a couple of years. I’m letting it incubate on the forest floor whilst it waits for the gap in the trees which the sunlight streams through.
Building Momentum With People Who Care
I had big hopes for making a small leap forward with Volunteer Impact through working with the social hackathon community at Random Hacks of Kindness in May.
I spent significant time and energy preparing a package of files and foundational documents to help guide the team which would form for a weekend and try to build a technology solution for us.
Unfortunately the hack didn’t bring that to fruition; the team was earnest in their desire to support the vision and build a prototype, but hit snags at multiple turns and we ended up with little progress toward our first fully working prototype. Whilst a little disappointed, on reflection I had made a lot of progress in developing the foundational documents to make the next steps easier. Here’s one of the visual directions we explored in the weekend to help show you some of our latest ideas about Volunteer Impact:
I had also been working for several weeks to rebuild our website to give the latest take on our direction, and make us more contactable. We relaunched it on the Hack weekend so we’ve been very quiet about it until now.
Being Backed By Enspiral Foundation
Since the very nascent stages, Volunteer Impact has been nestled in the Enspiral Network (a collective of social entrepreneurs, techies and much more) and we’ve had some great advice and support along the way.
A short while ago we engaged in the Enspiral Foundation’s internal crowdfunding rounds (run with Cobudget), and are delighted to announce we recently raised a small grant to help us further develop Volunteer Impact!
Whilst the money itself isn’t huge, the feeling of being rallied around and supported to move forward by my colleagues and friends, is a huge boost.
Whilst I can’t make promises that I think there’s a gap in the forest canopy opening up which will pour sunlight onto our little seedling, it feels like there’s something happening which will see a spurt of growth before the year’s end.
This article is written by Sam Rye, Founder of Volunteer Impact
Want to get in touch?
Twitter: Sam Rye / Volunteer Impact | Web: volunteerimpact.co
