Another One Spark Creator that we have been looking forward to speaking with was Join The Effort. Join The Effort is a non-profit, “philanthropic social network.” Join The Effort began as a sort-of recruitment tool for charitable and other organizations to recruit volunteers. However, as the platform began to grow and rapidly expand in both reach and function, the organizations founder, Ryan Whitman, saw a huge opportunity to do more good.

Acting on the success of Join The Effort, Whitman transformed the platform into the “philanthropic social network,” that it is today. Just like Facebook and the other social networks, Join The Effort allows “organizations, causes, volunteers and organizers can all set up social profiles. People can follow the organizations that they want to and in turn be followed back. They can also follow other volunteers and friends they’ve made in the community by participating in volunteer events. This allows them to stay and touch and expand on the important friendships they made performing great work.”¹

This was a natural evolution for Join The Effort. After a great deal of success, in terms of facilitating the volunteering process anf connecting people with causes, it makes sense that Join The Effort shifted into a social network of sorts. Rather than offering one-off volunteering opportunities, why not create a lasting network to allow these charitable organizations to form lasting, meaningful relationships with the people who volunteer and are committed to the cause. In Join The Efforts own words:

If 10 people come together to accomplish something, they have the potential to accomplish a lot more than 1 person. If a thousand people come together, they have the potential to accomplish a lot more than 10, or than 100. Simply put, if a lot of people come together, we have a greater shot at making a difference. It’s our mission, therefore, to bring people together for the purpose of helping others and making this world a better place.

To carry out this mission, we’ve developed a “philanthropic” social network that gives people, charities, churches, and other organizations a platform to connect, collaborate, and further their philanthropic & charitable mission. It provides similar social networking tools that we’ve become so familiar with, such as the ability to build a profile, add / follow people & organizations, make posts & comments to share thoughts & ideas and to solicit volunteers & support, & have private and group conversations. Additionally, it gives organizations the ability to identify themselves by cause / category (i.e. homelessness, human trafficking, children / youth) and the ability to create events and volunteer opportunities.²

We had a chance to speak with Join The Effort’s president,  Ryan Whitman, during One Spark. We were really blown away by Whitman’s passion for this project:

To vote for Join The Effort, check out their One Spark Creator Profile. Head on over to Join The Effort to join the philanthropic network.