Improving All for Good: We Need Your Feedback!

It’s the holiday season – a moment of reflection as we look back on the year that passed and gaze forward at the year ahead.  All for Good remains a young startup in every respect.  Its hard to believe that our launch took place less than six months ago!  We are proud of what we have been able to achieve in a short period of time.  However, make no mistake, we still have lots of room for improvement.

To that end, we really need ideas, suggestions, thoughts, etc.  UserVoice has been a good forum to solicit ideas on new product features and functionality.  We review it on a regular basis, so please keep this feedback coming!   We hope that you will let us know how we can do better.

For time being, we are heads-down and planning ahead for a productive 2010.  We want to stick to our mission – to enable more people to serve – and to do so while supporting all our varied partners as much as possible.

One item that we want to undertake right away is to streamline the Terms of Service (TOS) for API partners.  Our partners at Volunteer Match brought to our attention the fact that our API appeared to require partners to “sublicense” our data.  Such a request would violate the terms of the specific version of the Creative Commons License (CCL) that governs our use of VolunteerMatch listings.  This claim prompted a deeper review of our API TOS further revealed that it contained some unnecessary language that we could shed without comprising the TOS itself.  Moreover, they also informed us that some API executions do not comply with the CCL requirements around attribution.

We are preparing to make some changes in early 2010.  Per the earlier point, we plan to eliminate the sublicense reference and delete other superfluous requirements such as the compliance with the  Google Base terms of service (this was a legacy issue that became obsolete after we integrated SOLR into our platform).  We also will be visiting with API partners to remind them of the need for CCL compliance.   As we plan to take these steps, we wanted to notify the public (you!) and open a channel of conversation.

Do you have other ideas about how we could improve All for Good and our API TOS?  If so, please let us know.  Feel free to add comments to this post.  You also could offer thoughts on UserVoice, especially if they are related to the core product.  Again, before we move ahead, we want to hear from you.

In closing, hope you are having a wonderful holiday season.  We wish you all the best for a productive and prosperous 2010.

Best,

Jonathan