Better Together: NYC Service & VolunteerMatch
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. ~Harry S Truman
If you've spent any time working in the nonprofit sector, you know that there is a cultural expectation to publicly avoid the appearance of competition between organizations...even when (actually, particularly when) they are in fact competing.
So it would be polite to say that NYC Service and VolunteerMatch have for many years been working in the same space...with a shared goal of making it easier for New Yorkers to find volunteer opportunities.
But now, thanks to the leadership of the city's Chief Service Officer Paula Gavin and her team at NYC Service, we don't have to say that anymore because now we can say we are partnering to achieve that goal together.
That is right, just in time for National Volunteer Week (April 12-18), NYC Service is breaking new ground to become the first City of Service in the nation to adopt VolunteerMatch's free Public Use API.
What does this mean? Every VolunteerMatch opportunity in New York City will also be available on NYC.gov/Service -- no double searching, no double entries.
The partnership has been in the works since last fall, and it means that NYC Service will have another thousand volunteer opportunities for New Yorkers looking to make a difference. It will also mean that VolunteerMatch's nonprofit members will automatically gain additional exposure on the popular NYC Service website.
This is a first-of-its-kind partnership between local government and a national nonprofit. It promises to bring all the advantages of local political support together with the efficiency of national scale -- to grease the skids of volunteering.
The partnership will launch next week with an announcement from the Mayor's Office, and we hope it will be the first of many successful Public Use API partnerships between Cities of Service and VolunteerMatch.
Thank you to Paula and her great team for making this happen. In my opinion, you deserve all the credit, but we are happy to share.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/today/author/1689272
Congratulations Greg! Perhaps Boston is next!
Fleet Technician at City of Boston, Boston Police Dept.
9 年This is wonderful Greg! Love seeing collaborations of this type with municipal government as it is a great testing ground for national policy. You should contact the Walsh Administration in Boston, I think this would fit in with his vision for the City. Nice work. Dan.
Very happy to see this collaboration. Congrats to both orgs. Hope this leads other cities to do the same, keep it up Greg Baldwin
Promoter of Wellness and Equity in People and Communities | Story Teller | Picture Taker | Advocate
9 年thats a fabulous collaboration!