Match
game: SCI-TECH SCENE | Linking nonprofits, skilled female volunteers
Sandra Guy, Chicago Suntimes
Saturday March 7, 2009
Daniel F. Bassill, president and CEO of Cabrini Connections, found
his perfect match — not a date, but a social worker looking
to volunteer as a tutor.
The matchup occurred at a Meet and Match event hosted by WomenOnCall.org,
Chicago’s first online network that matches women who want
to share their professional skills with non-profit groups that need
those skills. The network, founded three years ago by Margot Pritzker,
its president, finds its services in huge demand as the economy
sinks. Mrs. Pritzker is married to Thomas Pritzker, who heads the
family’s $15 billion business.
More than 300 non-profits — the largest showing yet of three
such events held annually — turned out at the speed-dating-style
Meet and Match event Feb. 11 at the Chicago Cultural Center.
Bassill, who started volunteering as a tutor 36 years ago when
he worked as an ad copywriter at Montgomery Ward, founded Cabrini
Connections 17 years ago to create a support network for children
who needed positive role models and advocates. Bassill, in true
networking style, encouraged his newfound volunteer, Pamela Cook,
to call on her professional network to join the cause.
Pritzker started WomenOnCall.org because of her own non-profit volunteer
experience.
“I realized there was a need to efficiently connect professional
women with the non-profit world,” she said.
“Virtual volunteering is the perfect way for busy women to
give of their time and expertise,” Pritzker said. “A volunteer
can do a lot in an hour. She can help write or review a grant proposal
at home or while sitting at the airport. A busy or retired or disabled
professional can read a strategic plan or write a report on a cold
winter day without leaving the house.”
Though tough economic times have forced several non-profits to
close their physical buildings and set up P.O. boxes, they still
serve desperate needs, and people are looking to give back, Pritzker
said.
Indeed, 60.8 million Americans donated 8.1 billion hours of volunteer
services in 2007, the most recent year for which data are available
from the Corporation for National and Community Service in Washington,
D.C.
Here’s how the WomenOnCall.org system works: Volunteers sign
in to WomenOnCall.org to become members, and list their interests
and skills.
The non-profits go online to search for a skill they need, say a
lawyer, and up pops a list of volunteer lawyers. The Web site automatically
verifies the non-profit groups’ 501(c)3 status.
The latest update to the WomenOnCall.org Web site enables would-be
volunteers to set up a page much like a Facebook page with the volunteer’s
photo, education and work history, and ability to email one-on-one
messages to an interested non-profit, said Brett Dugan, whose Web-site
design and applications development company, Jack Hiller, set up
and maintains the Web site.
“The detailed profile area, with the potential volunteer’s
biography, education levels and degrees as well as past volunteer
experience, is very robust. It really helps the non-profits make
a decision right off the bat who they want to work with,” Dugan
said.
Volunteers may search for opportunities to help on their own and
send the non-profit a message. Non-profits that spot the perfect
volunteer send that person an alert.
The non-profits may copy the alerts to the receiver’s email,
and Dugan is now working on an application that would send alerts
to a volunteer’s iPhone.
“We make the initial connection, and then the communication
moves off line,” Dugan said.
The women’s network at Neal Gerberg Eisenberg, a Chicago law
firm noted for its support of women, got excited about WomenOnCall.org
after Pritzker touted her network in a presentation. The law firm
sponsored the Meet and Match.
Angela Elbert, a partner at Neal Gerber Eisenberg, is volunteering
to plan a jobs summit for the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design) Council, while Stephanie Vasconcellos, another partner,
is helping find grants for Women-Eye, a Gold Coast non-profit that
helps female entrepreneurs start their own businesses.
Paige Finnegan, director of sustainable development for the LEED
Council, said she received a “tremendous outpouring” of
volunteers to help with the Green Collar Jobs Summit after she learned
to be precise and concise in her description of the work needed.
The Green Collar Jobs Summit will be held from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
March 27 at Kennedy-King College, 6301 S. Halsted.
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