Check it out here: http://mashable.com/2012/05/07/sparked/

Here’s a snippet:

Big Idea: Sparked is an online-only volunteer hub for people to donate their talents to non-profits, as well as an engagement tool for businesses to engage and incentivize employees to contribute to volunteer causes.

Why It’s Working: Users can donate expertise and skills instead of money, and make time commitments according to availability and interest level

 

• Recent thanks from nonprofits on the left
• Participation percentage
• Sumup of value for all teams
• Sumup of value for your team
• Recent activity feed
• Captain’s profile
• Featured member list
• Team rank (for the month prior)

In the screenshot, you can see one of the team pages from our awesome customer, Teradata.

And, for a limited time, if you want to access the old team page, just add a “s” to the word “team” in the web address. Ie: /teams/293993

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I realized this weekend that it was a year ago Christmas that I began as a
volunteer on Sparked.com. The year has gone by really fast and I have been
reflecting on what my volunteering has meant to me.

More than anything, I am just so grateful to be able to volunteer through
Sparked and in very small ways, help people who are on the front lines of
making a difference. It may seem crazy but in researching answers to
challenges I often feel like I am taking a little trip to a new place and
clicking on the Choose a Challenge feature is like taking a spin on a
roulette wheel where every number is a winner.

I also really enjoy being able to ‘meet’ the others Sparkers and
collaborate challenges. I love reading people’s answers and getting a
little glimpse into who they are through their profiles. Seeing the ideas
and contributions of others inspires me and challenges me to improve my own
contributions. The Sparked site is also nice in that we can acknowledge the
great ideas of others with a Thumbs Up or comment.

But having just looked back through my past challenges I feel a little
guilty my contribution has been more consistent. After all, it takes so
little time to help out on a challenge that I should simply schedule it
like everything else (done).

Looking back this weekend has also reminded me how important Sparked has
been for so many organizations, the challenge authors, and the causes they
serve. It reminds me to follow-up with a few of them I haven’t seen in a
while. It also reminds me just how important the micro-encounters we have
with one another on Sparked can really lead to some very big things
happening.

PS – I would also like to acknowledge the fantastic work by the Sparked team for their continued investment in the service. It has been a lot fun watching the innovations roll out and the popularity of the site explode.

Try what we might, some challenge requesters weren’t closing their challenges (~20% of them). Since we consider “closing the loop” with volunteers to be one of the very most important things that happens on Sparked, we thought this was a problem worth of a lot of time investment.

The result is a brand new challenge closing system that is front and center each time a requester interacts with their challenge. It displays all options in the same space that the requester uses to post followups. The new UI looks great and we hope will improve the closing percentage. Here are a few screenshots.Click to view slideshow.

We just came across this nice blog post from Mazarine Treyz who posted a challenge on Sparked on behalf of the Austin Civic Orchestra. Her challenge involved creating a new logo (some of the variations pictured here). As part of this blog post, Mazarine writes up a list of tips for getting the most out of Sparked – and we couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Here’s her list:

Top tips for getting the most out of Sparked.com,

• Make it funny,
• Make it specific,
• Make it manageable.
• It’s important to always be gracious and say thank you and give awards, just like you learned in Managing Volunteers 101.

The first is “Volunteering Rises on the Resume”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/giving/volunteer-work-gains-stature-on-a-resume.html

A great story about how volunteering online is really helping folks prepare for and find new jobs.

The second is: “Matching Volunteers to the Right Missions”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/jobs/matching-volunteers-to-the-right-missions.html

Which is about volunteer services, like Points of Light and Sparked that are matching people precisely with skills based volunteering projects. This piece profiles microvolunteering superstar Julienne.

This post is part of an ongoing series that features real results from Sparked, the microvolunteering network. Learn more about Sparked here.

*******

What a cool challenge. This one was posted by Gladys from HW Eggers Middle school. This is one of the schools that our awesome partner, DonorsChoose, onboarded over the past several weeks. Gladys asked for volunteers to help her build up a reading list for young girls featuring strong female leads.

Eight volunteers came up with a ton of suggestions – based on personal experience and research.

Great challenge result. Check it out here: http://www.sparked.com/ask/You-Go-Girl

Here’s a bit from their press release:

TORONTO, Oct. 12, 2011 /CNW/ – Koodo is very excited to announce Canada’s first online microvolunteering community: koodonation.com.  Koodo’s mission in business has always been to redefine mobility; today Koodo is proud to support a social change movement that is redefining volunteering across Canada. An entirely not-for-profit, grassroots community, supported and powered by Koodo, koodonation.com allows consumers and Canadian charities to work together where a huge percentage of Canadians spend their time – online — with the concept of microvolunteering.

Read more here: http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/857329/koodonation-tm-canada-s-first-online-microvolunteering-community-social-change-through-the-social-web-in-15-minutes-or-less

And be sure to visit: www.koodonation.com – Screenshot below.