Connected Volunteering

Very late on this one, but better late than never. Another good initiative from Obama administration - http://www.serve.gov/ This certainly underlines the huge potential for using the internet for making it much easier for people to do good. Someone suggested to me at a recent event the idea of a website that offered real-time volunteering - what I mean is if you find yourself with a spare hour or two, you could go to a website and find a local organisation that could use a hand for an hour or two. Obviously turning this into a reality would not be easy, but without the internet this sort of idea would be totally utopian! I also think there are great opportunities for small local volunteering - i.e. a housebound-person who wants a letter posted or needs their medicine collected etc. A lot of people might not sign up to do this long term, but on a one-off basis they might be prepared to give it a go if the set up was really easy and convenient. And who knows having done it once they might be ready to do it more often...