Ryan Whitman created Join The Effort, a Jacksonville non-profit in 2011. The initial idea was to create a platform of sorts that helped recruit and encourage people to volunteer at various events, causes and other non-profits across Jacksonville. As an example, Join The Effort partnered with last year’s OneSpark winner Re-Threaded. In that effort, a project to help clean and maintain the Re-Threaded warehouse and offices was added to the Join The Effort site. There, people in the area could see the project and volunteer to participate.
Everything was, and is going well for the organization. The idea caught on and began to grow. But at the same time Whitman saw that he could do even more with Join The Effort. The organization could start expanding by creating what Whitman calls the “philanthropic social network”.
Like other social networks, 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.
The social network platform also allows organizations to communicate their needs in large and also communicate when they are holding projects, need volunteers or just to say thanks.
Like many social networks, members can create and comment on posts, share thoughts and ideas and even chat both privately and in a group setting. The philanthropic social network has all of the key elements that people are already used to from their existing social networks except in this case, the network revolves around causes, volunteering and true community.
“When people think of social networks, they think of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and the like. Just as these applications have become so popular in our world today, we want Join The Effort to carry the same weight in the realm of philanthropy. Join The Effort creates a virtual platform for people and organizations to not only list volunteer opportunities, but to network & collaborate with one another in a similar social setting that we’ve become so familiar with. We’ve taken the idea of a “philanthropic / volunteer website” and built it on top of a social network” Whitman said on their OneSpark Creator Page.
At the OneSpark event April 9-13th, JoinTheEffort is raising funds to take the philanthropic social network to the mobile space with multiplatform apps.
The group is creating an app that will allow users to experience their main functionality on a mobile device. Users will be able to communicate better on the go, with organizations and event organizers. Whitman is also planning on expanding the social network and mobile app, globally, making Join The Effort the largest most active social network of it’s kind.
You can meet Join The Effort at the Jacksonville Landing April 9-13th and you can find out more online, here and here.
