Why the concept of Speed dating? We realised that most of the professionals, although they would like to volunteer, sometimes they are a little bit hesitant about doing the first step towards the NGO. Likewise, the NGO is not certain of how a corporate professional might seee their organisation and if there will be a real empathy towards their causes. So we created a format of an event where everyone can meet and test the Power of Probono volunteering for 2 hours without any commitment.
First, we are gathering some NGOs and we look for a small challenges; something which can be solved in 2 hours with the right skills. This time, we had Tarlabasi, CISST, Onar and Sürdürebilir Yasam Film Festival (see description of challenges below).
Once we know what is their challenge (fundraising with corporate, Project Management tools, strategy, website), we looked in our database for the professionals with the right skills to support them during these two hours.
We build teams of 4-5 Pro Bono volunteers, generally 2-3 experts, 1 generalist and 1 student and let them brainstorm for 2h. No commitment afterwards; if they liked each other, they can of course continue to support each other but if they did not like the experience, the NGO or the volunteer, they can just stop there.
Our results? Close to 60 hours of Pro Bono volunteering given to NGOs and...
Satisfaction rate of our Pro Bono volunteers
- 100% of our Pro Bono volunteers would like to come back to such a session
- 100% of our Pro Bono volunteers would encourage friends and colleagues to come to such a session
- 75% of our Pro Bono volunteers would be interested to organise a follow up session with the same group
- Thank you for the opportunity to use my professional experience in a different context which is for the greater good"
- Elini tasin altina Koy
- The feeling that what we’ve learned and done in our life can change the life of an NGO is an extraordinary one!
- Paylasabilecegim seyler olguguu görme cok mutluluk verici, tesekkurler
The Satisfaction rate of our NGOs:
- 100% is coming out of the session with a clear "to do" lists and 50% with the steps needed to achieve these "To do"
- 75% would like a follow up session as soon as possible; one would like a little bit more time to first implement some steps
- "It feels great to have/ see people with clear intention to support our NGO and productively proceed". YSF
- "It was very effective, would be perfect to continue with same group" ONAR
- "It is a great way to think/ learn outside the box" CISST
- "It has been very useful to hear an outside voice" Tarlabasi
Our NGOs and their challenges
- TARLABASI: Tarlabasi is looking to fundraise 40.000EUR. They have build two fundraising teams of volunteers. One of them is working on a presentation to corporate trying to put in emphasis the "what's in for me" for these corporate. They would love to make a presentation to a group of corporate representative before going live in order to get their feedback on it.
- CISST CEZA İNFAZ SİSTEMİNDE SİVİL TOPLUM DERNEĞİ: CISST is using mainly volunteers to work on projects. There is no "way of working" for these volunteers in terms of project management methodology. They are reading a lot of materials online but would like sharing experience with other NGOs (or corporate) on which methodology they are using
- Sürdürülebİlİr Yaşam Fİlm Festİvalİ: They have a website but they dont have back end access to the website which makes it very difficult to add "real time" update around the Festival time. They would like to build a new website enabling them admin rights. They are looking to brainstorm around which kind of website there are, which one is most appropriate for them and what kind of user specs they should make.
- Onar: Onar would like to identify among the targets they have today some clusters/groups defined firstly by their number and situation and secondly by their needs :1. What type of women do they reach today (demographics : age, origine, marital status, education/working, SPC, traditional vs modern...etc).2. For each group, define how they can learn about their real needs (or list their needs if the intel is already here).From these 2 points, they could define some clusters of women apparently in different situations but having the same needs.