Sparked Blog

This is a guest post from Extraordinary volunteer, Deb Carlen. When
she’s not volunteering, Deb runs Five Ideas, a communications
consultancy specializing in marketing, copywriting, and design. She also
edits fiction and non-fiction books, teaches workshops, and makes an
effort to garden. If there’s time left between 2 and 5 in the morning,
she creates jewelry and decorative art. You can reach her at
dkcarlen@comcast.net.

Volunteerism was a mantra in my family: both parents were involved in community and national efforts; my sister and I were expected to participate. So we did. No one made a big deal about it.

My first humbling experience came as a 13-year-old traveling by bus into downtown Atlanta then walking several blocks to volunteer at a children’s shelter. All I did was help with cookies and juice, and read stories before naptime for two summers. These kids had nothing. Being at the shelter was a vacation for them. And an education for me. Teaching a four-year-old how to use soap, how to unroll and nap on a little rectangle of blanket, how to accept food from the staff…this volunteerism early in my teens impacted me deeply, though I didn’t realize it for a decade.
 
Not all my volunteer gigs were life lessons. I was a hostess at United Nations dinners, a cold-caller to businesses for American Heart Fund donations. I recorded history textbooks for the visually handicapped, became a member of local and regional nonprofit boards where I taught marketing, graphic design, writing; coached speakers, taught ESL, and implemented  PR campaigns. Like everybody else, I’ve stuffed my share of envelopes and dug up thousands of e-mail addresses.
 
Sometimes my volunteer efforts got out of hand; I’m now a solo consultant, and getting out of hand has serious monetary consequences. What I wanted was a way to offer quick hits from a gazillion years of experience, and to get a fairly accurate idea of where nonprofits stood in the current economy. I wanted something that meshed with my erratic schedule. 
 
Even though The Extraordinaries is right down the road in San Francisco, I heard about them on springwise.com. A perfect format for me. Interestingly, in less than a month I was learning more than I was offering: about nonprofits I didn’t know existed, about the commonality of spirit that came through online, and selfishly important to me: incredible, amazing information offered by others. The depth of knowledge and creativity is breathtaking, little say the media fluency expressed by other volunteers. There are  volunteers with consistently low-key, brief, and relevant responses. They understand what’s needed and come right back with valuable, on-target information. They command what I call “the new fluency,” which also characterizes The Extraordinaries as a company and a platform. 
 
If you’d told me a year ago that I would use information I had about music education (Music National Service), organizations in Peru (Mejor Communities), cross-promoted Slow Food resources (World Savvy), relayed ideas on maze publicity, (East Bay Labyrinth Project), and wonder of wonders, communicated with one of my all-time hero-groups about space research—SETI—I would’ve called you crazy in three languages. But it’s certainly the most rewarding thing I’ve done in a long time. 
 
There’s a lot of speculation about whether microvolunteerism will “work.” Isn’t it interesting that while pundits discuss the question, others are light years ahead making it all happen? Apparently some of the big multi-nationals see benefits as well: their employees contribute much to the efforts, shoulder to virtual shoulder with the likes of me, who was looking for a place to land. 
 
We all realize the last two years have presented wicked challenges we didn’t anticipate. The answers that succeed will be creative ideas like The Extraordinaries, able to mobilize and connect need and fulfillment without the roadblocks of time and distance. Some of the world needs, and some of the world wants to help: The Extraordinaries is a brilliant matchmaker whose time is now.