Background

New forms of technology allow people to volunteer in different ways. But very little is known about why people take part in such activities or what the impact of involvement is on the volunteers themselves or on the organisations they help. In April 2011 Orange launched a new smartphone app called Do Some Good, available on iPhone, Blackberry and Nokia platforms. It allows the user to volunteer for a variety of five minute ‘actions’ for a number of different charities. To help us address this gap in knowledge, Orange hosted an action for IVR to find out more about this new form of volunteering.

Aims

The aim of this research is to find out more about micro-volunteering through smartphones. Specifically there area number of objectives:

• What motivates people to engage in this form of volunteering?
• What are the characteristics of those people who volunteer in this way?
• What impact does it have on them personally?
• Do people see micro-volunteering as different to other, perhaps more traditional forms of engagement?
• How do people want to see this develop in the future?

Methods

IVR’s action consisted of a short survey to find out more about this form of micro-volunteering. The survey went live at the end of June and ran until December, receiving over 3,000 responses. Analysis is currently being undertaken on the data.  

Outputs

The results of the research will be published in early 2012 in a research bulletin that will be available on our website.

Contact

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