All For Good (AFG) is now part of Points of Light, and is strong and growing and continuing to serve the volunteer community with better and broader information and better tools. We remain focused on increasing the capacity of the sector to effectively utilize and manage volunteers.

Currently, each month our database has approximately 150,000 volunteer project listings (representing more than one million individual service opportunities) and we have a goal of growing that number to 500,000 projects by 2015. We enable people and organizations from all parts of the country looking for any kind of project to find the place where they can best be of service.

We do, however, miss Volunteer Match’s participation in our national database and fear that some of your project partners may not know that their projects are not included in searches now done on AFG and through our many API distribution partners. It is a shame that a not-for-profit posting a project only on Volunteer Match will not have their projects show up on these searches.

AFG has thousands of project partners, and to our recollection, Volunteer Match is the only content provider to have ever withdrawn its content. Please know that we would love to have Volunteer Match back in the coalition, or if not Volunteer Match directly, I hope your content partners know they can deliver their projects directly to AFG (in addition to Volunteer Match) so that their work can be more widely disseminated and recognized. We remain convinced that enabling one unified data source is for the good of “all.”

A few more facts you should know:

1. AFG gets about two million page views per month. We think this reflects millions of users per year accessing volunteer projects through AFG. Our numbers are growing, too.
2. AFG is increasingly seen as the go-to partner for new national volunteerism initiatives. Late last year, for example, AFG, in cooperation with the White House and our partners, Blue Star Families, American Red Cross, Service Nation and the Corporation for National and Community Service, launched a new military and veteran-focused website, joiningforces.allforgood.org, to support military service members and their families.
3. AFG is adding great blue chip distribution partners that rely on AFG’s API and nationwide database (just as it was originally envisioned by AFG’s founders). For example, AFG is now partnering with United Way Worldwide to help that great organization power its Live United volunteer search.
4. With the great backing of our financial supporters and now as part of Points of Light, AFG has expanded our technical platform to promote all kinds of volunteer opportunities from how-to-guides to virtual opportunities. Partners can now post and present national and statewide service opportunities as well as local projects.
5. We are focused on being a great partner to our content and distribution partners. In just the last months, we have launched enhanced dashboard reporting for all our partners and are soon to release tools that will ease both the posting of projects to AFG and the management of their volunteers utilizing AFG tools.

In short, AFG is strong and growing. We hope to call Volunteer Match a partner again soon.

Mark Bernstein

President, All For Good

Today’s post from Mark Bernstein originally appeared in Co.Exist on Thursday, February 2, 2012.

In business, we often use the language of competition or warfare to describe our company’s next move. Companies must “beat,” “destroy,” “out innovate,” and “vanquish” the next business to reach their own pinnacle of success. While the words change a bit, often this same paradigm of competition finds its way into the not-for-profit lexicon as well. Although we rhetorically support collaboration, we too frequently find ourselves thinking about the “competition” and how we can “win.”

On June 24, companies everywhere are encouraged to observe Bill and Warren Day. It’s a day when organizations can celebrate the projects that they have undertaken to help give back, as well as discuss new opportunities to help improve their local communities and the world as a whole.

The date isn’t a random one. It’s the anniversary of the day in 2006 when billionaire Warren Buffett announced that he would give his vast fortune to charity, with the bulk of the proceeds going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  Bill and Warren Day honors this spirit of giving back, and invites companies and individuals to pledge to celebrate the day at their place of business on June 24.

You can stay up-to-date on all things related to Bill and Warren Day by visiting the Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/BillandWarrenDay), and following on Twitter (@BillWarrenDay). Additionally, you can become an advocate and tell others, inside and outside of work, about this special day.

This June 24 celebrate the power of business as a force for change by recognizing the commitment made by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to create a better world. With our commitment to do the same.

When we launched All for Good in 2009, it was done with the specific intention of creating a free resource to facilitate broad volunteerism. We wanted to create an open source application that anyone on the web could use to enable more people to strengthen their communities through service. We are proud of our many distribution partners- government agencies, nonprofit groups, and private/public companies – that currently utilize the All for Good application.

To aggregate the widest range of volunteer opportunities, All For Good relies upon all kinds of content partners from small local not-for-profits to large aggregators of volunteer opportunities. While we are eager to build the richest content and the broadest distribution of All For Good’ s volunteer opportunities, it is not fair for some to use All for Good for private commercial advantage at the expense of other partner’ s existing business models.

It has been brought to our attention that some entities may be using All for Good primarily for commercial purposes, forcing users (either institutional or individual) to pay for the right to access the service. Such usage if allowed to continue would actually limit the reach of our content and potentially impair our data partners who generate many of our service opportunities.  It conflicts with our desire to build the field for the widest possible public benefit.

As a result, we have altered our API Terms of Service (TOS) to prohibit such use of All For Good. We have borrowed language from our friends at Creative Commons who have set the bar on determining protections and freedoms for authors, artists, educators and others who operate in a digital environment. Please review the new Terms of Service to make sure that your use of All For Good complies with these new protections.
To facilitate your review, the new added language is highlighted below in bold italics:

1.2 Use of the API . The API may be used in connection with a software application or website provided that the API is not used in any manner that is primarily intended or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation. In order to use the API, you must obtain an API key from this form, and Our Good Works may block requests with an invalid key.

We realize that this change might present a challenge for some organizations, especially those that have integrated All for Good into pay-for-use commercial products. We deeply regret this potential inconvenience. Looking ahead to the near future, we are hopeful that some technical improvements on the horizon might allow us to mitigate this problem.

In the next few days, we will be contacting groups that we believe may use All for Good in a manner inconsistent with these modified TOS. Please let us know if you find such a situation that requires our attention. Again, while we want to make All for Good as widely available as possible, we do not want to diminish the success of our data partners whose participation is essential to our continued growth. We hope that this change to the AFG TOS will facilitate our ability to serve the public interest by displaying the widest offering of service opportunities and doing so in the most open environment possible. ]]> http://blog.allforgood.org/2011/02/an-important-change-to-our-api-terms-of-service/feed/ 0 http://blog.allforgood.org/2011/01/here-it-comes-version-2-0/ http://blog.allforgood.org/2011/01/here-it-comes-version-2-0/#comments Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:45:59 +0000 jonathan http://blog.allforgood.org/?p=116 The All for Good (AFG) team is delighted to announce the release of some significant improvements to AFG  A large team of staff and volunteers have spent months listening to feedback and developing requirements.  Then, the crew worked to convert the needs of our users into a series of significant improvements in our application.   These will be obvious to users who search directly on AFG as well as those who use our API.

We are delighted to make these changes a reality. Particularly in time for the Martin Luther King Day of Service which takes place next week on Monday, January 17th.

These back-end changes should provide a better user experience to our partners who use All for Good to power search on their sites such as AARP’s Create The Good; blogs like CNewmark.com; Facebook pages. etc. It also will result in a better experience for users who visit our site directly or who land on AFG after starting a search on Serve.gov.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Improved performance and significantly higher search quality
• Better search and query filtering functionality which enable more accuracy for common searches like MLK Day, Hunger, and many others.
• Added the first round of advanced search capabilities, allowing visitors to better refine their search. For example, an interested volunteer can refine and narrow down the date and distance ranges they want to include in their search for volunteer opportunities.

All for Good is young, but as we looked out toward the future, we contemplated an alternative path.  Earlier in the year, my colleagues and I serving on the board decided to explore the possibilities of attaining scale via a partnership with an existing organization, even a possible merger.  The notion of consolidation to cement our gains and improve our efficiencies seemed like a worthwhile option.

In the business world, this happens all the time.  Some firms put themselves on the market when ownership wants an exit.  Some companies seek to gobble up smaller players with attractive assets.  In other cases, two firms might discover mutual benefit from a merger that enhances the capabilities of both organizations.

I personally have lived through these approaches.  As an executive at REALTOR.com (NASDAQ: MOVE), we enjoyed an IPO, then used the proceeds to acquire numerous companies.  As the co-founder of Ethos Brands, my business partner and I decided to sell our business, Ethos Water, to Starbucks Coffee Company (NASDAQ: SBUX) when the company offered a plan that promised to scale our social mission and expand our market reach.

Yet, this type of pragmatism often does not appear in the nonprofit field.  There are more than 1.4 million registered nonprofits in the US – surely some of them would benefit from consolidation.  In fact, some have suggested that its a good idea to put charities out of business. However, for a variety of reasons, investors (donors) and entrepreneurs (executives) typically frown on such mergers.

There are many reasons.  The industry often is led by passionate hearts, not logical minds.  A strong NIH factor seems ubiquitous.  Yet such parochialism inhibits the sector, wasting energies and preventing progress.  Groups interminably squabble over scarce resources and fail to create long-term change.  I think we need to get past this impasse.  Integration is essential and mergers inevitable if we hope to see efficiencies prevail in a field whose success is crucial to the restoration of many aspects of our society.

Thus, after several months of discussions, we are proud to share that Points of Light Institute (POLI) has announced that it plans to acquire All for Good.

This pending merger represents a huge win for AFG.  It also is a victory for the field.  POLI stands out as one of the most accomplished and imaginative nonprofit organizations in the country.  It will be a terrific platform to scale AFG into the next decade as well as the next century.

Points of Light is a long-time innovator that has demonstrated pragmatism in many areas.  It originated based on a turn of phrase articulated by Peggy Noonan, a gifted speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush, yet became one of the most enduring and laudable legacies of his presidency.  In a fascinating (albeit entirely coincidental) demonstration of nonpartisanship, Points of Light currently is led by CEO Michelle Nunn, daughter of Sam Nunn, the venerated Georgia Democrat who served in the US Senate for 24 years.  Under her watch, Points of Light has emerged as one of the leading organizations in the service world and the across the entire landscape of the nonprofit sector.

Points of Light already is among our largest data partners, providing tens of thousands of service opportunities to All for Good on a daily basis.  Their network of volunteer centers creates a wide installed base of real-world locations that can leverage our activities and strengthen their local communities.  Plus, Michelle is widely regarded as a leader in the nonprofit space.  Her personal and organizational commitment to building the field and strengthening the sector is well-documented.

The acquisition initially should not change much.  We expect the full process will be completed in early 2011.  As we move into the new year, our team will remain in place.  Our board will continue to guide the effort.  Our product will remain up and running with no interruption in service.  And we will remain relentless in our focus on supporting the remarkable coalition of data and distribution partners who make All for Good possible.

Indeed, Points of Light is committed to maintaining our collaborative model as an open source platform of volunteer opportunities, aggregating content from a wide range of partners and distributing these listings on our website as well as across the Internet via our free API.  By integrating All for Good into its portfolio of social enterprises, Points of Light should be well-positioned to scale All for Good’s mission, extend its distribution and drive operational efficiencies across the organization.  This will allow our team to focus on what we do best – code to improve our product and create value for the partners whose contributions make All for Good possible.

Nunn arguably knows more about mergers and acquisition than anyone in the nonprofit sector. She is a big organization executive who also has been an entrepreneur, originally co-founding HandsOn Network, then engineering the merger with Points of Light in 2007.  The resulting entity constituted the largest volunteer management network in the country.

Their offices around the countries serve as rallying points for people in their local communities.  The brand varies by city – HandsOn Atlanta; New York Cares; LA Works.  But the goal remains the same – using service as a means to cohere communities and address our common challenges.

Nunn has made acquisitions and alliances hallmark of her tenure as chief executive.  Points of Light has integrated groups such as Children 4 Children and The League.  The organization has carved out strategic partnerships with larger corporate players such as Disney, Home Depot and JP Morgan as well as worked with government agencies, such as its long-standing arrangement with the Corporation for National and Community Service to administer the National Conference on Service and Volunteering, the most important annual gathering in the field.

Points of Light also has explored innovation through technology.  They have crafted partnerships with Facebook Causes and Salesforce.com.  Lastly, Michelle personally has worked to serve the sector as recently demonstrated by her role as co-chair of the path-breaking Reimagining Service task force.

Innovation is a common strand in the DNA of both organizations.  All for Good originally was inspired by the remarkable pace of change that was sweeping across the technology world as well as by the call of an incoming president to engage more Americans in service.  At the time, I was serving on the Obama/Biden Presidential Transition Team.  We were exploring how we could marry the notions of increasing volunteerism with improving technologies.  We sought out the experts.  I distinctly recall a telephone conversation in late December 2008 with Internet pioneer Craig Newmark about how we might learn from his work and heed his call for a Craigslist for Service.

During the following year, we visited Silicon Valley, queried thought leaders, and researched failures and successes.  We learned from the veterans and listened to the innovators.  We came to respect those who came before us, particularly Network for Good and Social Actions.  We walk in their footsteps and honor their accomplishments.

Rather than build a big organization, we decided to build a product.  From its initial incarnation as a 20 percent project at Google known internally as Project Footprint to its June 2009 debut as All for Good (AFG), our product was based on an open data model and predicated on a small set of core values:

• We believed that everything counts. Therefore we wanted to acknowledge the many forms that service can take – from traditional volunteering activities to unconventional notions of connecting like-minded people through meet-ups or micro-volunteering or pro bono projects or even microfinance loans.

• We believed that everyone matters. Therefore we felt that we should utilize the principles of crowd-sourcing and social media to leverage the word of mouth affect that typically motivates people to engage in volunteer activities.

• We believed that open systems win. Therefore we wanted to utilize an open approach because this model typically inspires entrepreneurship and rewards ingenuity.  So we created All for Good as an open source platform that anyone could use and, frankly, extend, improve and innovate to benefit the public interest.

In the past two years, AFG has made some pretty large strides.  Though we started from scratch, we cultivated generous pro bono contributions of numerous businesses who wanted to support our mission, particularly Google whose contributions were invaluable.  We also engaged non-profit groups like the Craigslist Foundation who allowed us to preview AFG at their 2009 Bootcamp.  We benefited from the generous financial support of groups such as Gap, P&G and Target.

And we built marketing partnerships such as our recent Veterans Day effort with ServiceNation and MissionServe; our educational program with Waiting for Superman; and our support of the Home 4 The Holidays program with IAMS that is touching thousands of animal shelters across the US.

We also are particularly proud of our strategic alliance with AARP.  AARP is the largest membership organization in the country.  Their commitment to serving communities  was articulated by their founder, Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, back in 1957.  Last year, AARP utilized the AFG platform to power their breakthrough Create The Good initiative, creating a world class site that enables people of all ages and interests to find opportunities in their area. “Creators of Good” then started to submit opportunities directly to our site.  Today these total more than 7,000 and the number grows every day.  Finally, AARP offered grant support for our work.

With the help of AARP and all of our remarkable partners, we proceeded to build the largest database of volunteer opportunities in the field, aggregating listings from a wide range of sources.  Our active content includes nearly all of the major players in the field such as Truist, HandsOn Network, Idealist, Meetup, Samaritan, and others.  We also have showcased opportunities from our friends at VolunteerMatch and hope to do so again in the future.

Our content supports a wide range of services such as Serve.gov, the website of the Corporation for National and Community Service.  Along with Create the Good, robust websites such as iVolunteer, Repair the World and iParticipate were built on our platform.  You can cruise the App store and find applications that use All for Good to power mobile search such as Catalista. Thousands of individuals have downloaded the our gadget from the Google store.

All for Good has been a team effort.  Along with these groups, we are better as a result of a wide array of individuals who gave selflessly to All for Good.   Former Yahoo! Susan Nesbitt, current Googler Ginny Hunt, and Xooglers like Katie Stanton, Mark Heynen and Adam Sah all took an interest at an early stage.  Their labor helped to ramp a simple idea into a world class product.

Many others offered expertise as board members. Present and former directors include our board chairman, David Eisner, CEO of the National Constitution Center as well as a number of leading innovators the service field such as Darell Hammond, founder and CEO of KaBOOM!; Paul Schmitz, CEO of Public Allies; Bill Strathmann , CEO of Network for Good; and Ami Dar, founder and CEO of Idealist; thought leaders from the media landscape such as Craig Newmark and Arianna Huffington; and digital revolutionaries from Silicon Valley such as Reid Hoffman, founder and Chairman of LinkedIn; Randi Zuckerberg, marketing guru from Facebook; Ty Ahmad-Taylor, founder and CEO of FanFeedr; and Chris DiBona who runs all things open source at Google. All for Good is indebted to these individuals and to countless others for their invaluable assistance.

Looking ahead, the first few months of 2011 will be a busy time.  For starters, we will be launching the new version of our product with more features and significantly better functionality.  We will be supporting Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (Monday, January 17) as a nationwide day of service.  We will be gearing up for Earth Day 2011.  But we are grateful for the chance to undertake all these challenges in partnership with Points of Light and our partners whose steadfast support makes it all possible.

This all started when I wrote a post on the All for Good blog earlier this year.  At that time, I paraphrased an old African proverb and noted that it is true that, if you want to go fast, go alone.  But if you want to go far, go together.

We are excited to go together with Points of Light in 2011 and beyond.  There is much to do.  We hope you will join us.

In Service,

Jonathan

(jonathan@allforgood.org)

I attended a briefing this past week that still has me glowing with inspiration. It was a reminder of the miraculous potential of service and the raw power of music. Both can stir the imagination. Both can change lives.

Kiff Gallagher, a friend from our shared time on the 1992 Clinton/Gore campaign, came down to Los Angeles for the day. He was hosted by ServiceNation and William Morris Endeavor Entertainment. The agency provided him with a boardroom and an audience of 18 or so people, including leading voices from a range of LA institutions. There was representation from City Hall, the philanthropic offices of producer/activist Norman Lear, local businesses like Toyota and CAA, even the Kanye West Foundation.

To read the entire piece, click here to see The Sound of Service: Its Time to Bring MusicianCorps to LA on the Huffington Post.

It’s hard to believe that 12 months already have elapsed since we launched All for Good (AFG).

A lot has changed in the world. President Obama passed health care legislation. Copenhagen yielded important progress on climate change. Haiti brought out some of the best impulses of the American people and citizens from around the world. BP squandered our collective patience and pushed America well “beyond petroleum” and (hopefully) past the breaking point of our addiction to Big Oil.
Yet, despite all the challenges, something has changed . . .

To read the entire piece, click here to see Everything Counts: Growing Up at All for Good on the Huffington Post.

Any success has been the result of our remarkable network of partners.  We have benefited from supporters like Google, Facebook, Craigslist Foundation, Aha-Ink, DLA Piper, Target Foundation, and Gap Foundation who have lent financial and human resources to AFG. We have been lucky to work with data partners like VolunteerMatch, HandsOn, Truist, Samaritan Technologies, Network for Good, Idealist, Meetup and others whose content enables our service.  We are glad that many different groups are using our API, from the Obama Administration, AARP, Huffington Post, MTV, Catalista and many others.   And we are thankful to a wonderful board and an almost innumerable group of volunteers who continue to pitch in and help our project.

Looking ahead, we want to find new ways to continue to enable more Americans to serve.  We want our product to do more to support our users and their communities.  We believe that we best can achieve this goal by deepening our relationships with those organizations who create opportunities on the ground and those who strengthen the enabling environment.

So, AFG is officially is opening an RFI process to identify a “Strategic Partner” who can help us to build on our momentum and scale our work.  We seek a collaboration with an organization with a shared vision and similar values.  We hope to find an ally that wants to engage at a very deep level to facilitate our growth, a partner whose works we also can bolster with our assets and resources.

It would be ideal to team with a group that understands service and volunteering; that believes in open data and our open source philosophy; and that can offer complementary capabilities.  For example, we lack depth around fundraising, customer service and staffing.  However, we have some considerable strength in management, technology and related know-how.  Together, we should be greater than the sum of our parts.  So, the right partner will be the yin to our yang, the heath bar to our crunch, the peanut butter to our jelly.  You get the idea…

What does a partnership look like?  Frankly, we are not sure yet.  There are lots of possible forms.   We are open to ideas.  Why do we think that this is important?  Well, we certainly could continue down our present path and mature into an independent entity.  This might maximize our agency and optimize on some dimensions.  But to paraphrase the African proverb, “If you want to go faster, go alone.  But if you want to go farther, go together.”  (thanks @algore)

Interested?  Email us at RFI@allforgood.org.

Request for Information (RFI)

Background

All for Good (AFG) is a groundbreaking, collaborative initiative that was created to use technology to harness our most valuable natural resource – human capital.  Built by a coalition of high-tech companies and nonprofit organizations, AFG is an “open source,” non-profit platform.  It has been designed to allow potential interested volunteers to search and share service opportunities and empowers developers by giving them free access to a world-class technology and large database of listings that easily can be integrated into blogs, mobile applications and websites.

AFG is managed by Our Good Works (OGW), a nonprofit entity that was created to provide the governance and guidance to ensure the long-term success of AFG.  OGW has recruited a world-class board that brings together deep experience in media, technology and service.  The organization has cultivated a broad network of partnerships that includes some of the most well-known and successful players in the technology field and service realm.  By virtue of its open source model and nonprofit status, OGW operates in a low cost and highly scalable manner.  We provide content to many organizations, including the Obama Administration and many others.

Statement of Opportunity

OGW is looking for a Strategic Partner with whom we can collaborate to scale the operations of AFG and expand its reach. AFG provides core competencies in technology, partnerships, and knowledge and expertise in open source.   We are working to build a business model around the product that should drive sustainable revenue flows, enabling the product and organization to sustain itself through earned income supplemented by charitable donations.

As such monies are generated, AFG anticipates providing a revenue share with data partners.  This will ensure that such incremental capital supports the sector and builds the ecosystem.  This also could encompass an appropriate Strategic Partner.

In light of these developments, we are seeking a Strategic Partner with complementary capabilities and a dedication to accelerating the advancement of social change through service scaled on a widespread basis via open source and social media.

Qualifications

Qualified partners must possess the following characteristics:

• Proven track record and passion for technology
• Understanding of field of volunteerism and service
• Demonstrated dedication to innovation and social change
• Experience with Internet-based technology products (preferably open source) or a desire to learn
• Ability to provide resources (financial and personnel) to scale the project

Information Requested

Interested partners must submit a statement of interest with the following information:

• Organizational mission, vision, values
• Management team profiles (including board)
• Reasons for interest in partnering with All for Good
• Business model and financial snapshot (e.g. 990)
• Commitment to service and civic engagement
• Brief description of past experiences partnering with other organizations (could be ad hoc, joint venture, M&A)
• Relevant expertise with Internet-based technology projects, particularly knowledge of search and experience with open source development activities
• Resources available to dedicate to this project

Evaluation Criteria

Partners will be contacted based on an evaluation of their capabilities and creative ideas.  Emphasis will be placed on technical expertise and familiarity with open source and social media; understanding of service field and organizational commitment to civic engagement; proven ability to partner with diverse organizations; cultural fit with AFG (mission, vision, people, etc); resources and sustainability; and demonstrated aptitude for experimentation and innovation.

Process & Term

The RFI is expected to last until July 2, 2010.  During this time, we will be accepting proposals and endeavoring to respond in a timely manner.   We hope to make a decision on a potential Strategic Partnership by September 30, 2010.

Please submit your proposal (no page limit; prefer .DOC or .PPT format) or any questions about the RFI to RFI@allforgood.org.