Mention the word Internet to most people and they probably think of its value as a business tool or perhaps its potential for on-line commerce. Few would consider the Internet an important tool for civic engagement. But that may be changing with the development of such Web sites as www.VolunteerMatch.org, which allows users to plug in their zip codes to locate available volunteer opportunities anywhere in the United States.
In just two years, VolunteerMatch has matched nearly two hundred thousand volunteers with ten thousand nonprofits across the United States. In 1994, a group of civic-minded individuals recognized that the Internet' s potential to reach millions of people created something much more than just a breakthrough marketing technique. They understood that this new technology created an opportunity for civic engagement of unprecedented proportions. The group incorporated itself as a nonprofit called ImpactOnline and started to spend a lot of time trying to figure out exactly how they could harness this technology for the greater social good.
Originally, the fledgling "dot org" positioned itself as an on-line library of nonprofit resource and management information, but soon found that static archival data did little to draw any visitors. Shortly thereafter, the company switched gears to keep pace with its constantly evolving medium. With the hope that they had created a dynamic and interactive service that would compel community involvement across America, ImpactOnline, in 1998, launched VolunteerMatch.
VolunteerMatch created a virtual marketplace for social transactions through which nonprofits could incorporate the inherent broadcasting and communication advantages of the Internet to allow "demand" of society' s social needs to be met by a collective volunteer labor "supply." The service was offered free of charge to any volunteer or nonprofit that wanted to use it.
VolunteerMatch has been very successful, but the service was not immediately welcomed with open arms by nonprofits-and for a variety of reasons. Few understood the capabilities of the Internet or believed that the Internet could help them achieve their missions. And few believed that VolunteerMatch would be easy to use or that it was really free. However, ImpactOnline' s patience, persistence, and belief in the power of the service eventually convinced many nonprofits to give it a try.