To gain some knowledge into how volunteers are recruited for charities and the methods which they use to market their charities I emailed charities both locally based in Lincoln and world-wide charities in order to gain a better understanding on how charities work.
The email compromised of a brief of the app I am proposing and questions around their volunteering recruitment process, raising awareness methods, websites they use and finally whether they would consider using Spare a deed app.
The responses I received were overwhelming, they included websites which many charities use to recruit volunteers, the most popular being https://do-it.org/ which provide volunteering opportunities in your area and provides a well detailed overview of what the jobs consist of, number of positions available, hours of availability, location, application process etc. I found the website very useful and the easy usability of the site makes it obvious why this is the most popular site used for volunteering recruitment.
What I found interesting from the responses is that none of the charities know of or use any mobile applications which can recruit volunteers for them. Many charities said they would definitely use such an application and some said that this app based recruitment is a process which they are looking into expanding to. The feedback also included that this process of recruitment could also open up new windows of opportunity to recruit people with less time: ‘We would probably gain different types of volunteers, e.g. people who are younger or who have less time to volunteer. Having the opportunity to offer one-off things to do would be good as this is a market of people that we don’t necessarily reach at the moment.’
The email responses clearly show a gap in the market for this type of application with feedback including ‘I like the sound of the app you are developing, especially the idea that you can advertise both formal volunteering opportunities and also one-off good deeds as well.’. Age UK also wrote at the end of their email ‘I hope that this is helpful. Could you let us know if and when an app becomes available/is in progress please? I am happy to help you to fine tune the app if you wish’ which highlights that charities would be open to using and subscribing to the app once developed therefore creating the need for the gap in the market.