Connecting Volunteers and Activists
SpaceShare is exploring ways to connect people who'd like to get involved to make a difference. We're happy to work with rallies or music festivals that hope to encourage their participants to be more active in the world.
Today, thousands of people will go to a Peace March or music-with-a-cause, get excited to make a difference, but never connect with their neighbors with the same interests to get started. Often, they rally, listen to music and speakers, get excited to help, & then perhaps face twenty impersonal organizations all begging, all telling them to put their name on an email list to get an invitation to a meeting sometime in the future.
It's too easy to feel anonymous and unable to make a contribution, too easy to be burned-out. People most often transform in community, not by joining large groups with more experience.
We'll create a place for people to get started, making the connections to start neighborhood action or discussion groups. We don't push any particular ideology: rather, our goal is to help people make the connections that will work for them. This is different from almost all other organizations, which are recruiting primarily for themselves.
Many of the ideas for this project come from Volunteer & Activist Seedlings.
A prototype is the best way to see how this works, meshing people's issues (peace or biodiesel), approach (protesting or gardening) and geography into one search so people can find their neighbors and get started!
We think that tools like this could transform the actual impact of music-with-a-cause festivals and rallies for the planet at accomplishing their mission: we'll provide the tools so that you can transform your event from preaching & partying with the converted, to helping them empower themselves and their community and start on a path to accomplishing their goals.
Our role in this is limited: we provide the matching tools. You would need to be enthusiastic about making it happen, strongly encouraging people to use the system to find their neighbors and get active after the festival. Normally, the majority of people, no matter how excited they get at an event to make a difference, don't take home any new mission. You'd need to help get them to the system. Having a volunteer or two to help people starting groups would also be a great contribution.
Of course, the above is wide-ranging overview. We'd be happy to work with you to explore how we can help your gathering.
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