12th August 2008

*Thump*

Did you hear that?  What was that?  It was the sound of me working my butt off on MeaningfulVolunteer.com!

More than a year ago, I announced my Big Idea™.   Since then, I have sometimes slowly chipped away at it, and sometimes - like the last month or so - been working "like a Korean", as a friend put it.

So, here's where things are at.

The Website
Slaving away for ten years in the corporate world as an IT consultant does have it advantages.  For one thing, it allows me to have a professional web developer on staff and not have to pay him.  Which is great, 'cause I wouldn't be able to afford myself otherwise!

The website is coming along nicely.  You can create user accounts, apply for programs and - in the not-too-distant-future be able to pay your volunteer fees online. 

There are also news-tickers for each of the programs, a volunteer honour role and - if that wasn't enough - MeaningfulVolunteer.com is multi-lingual!

See that little Union Jack on the homepage?  Click on that to change the language to Korean.  If you see a lot of gobbly-gook, it's because you don't have the oh-so-much-more-elegant-than-English Korean writing system, installed.  Here's a screenshot so that you can see what you are missing.

This of course all goes back to what I was harping on about over here. 

I think the Asian volunteer markets - especially in Korea and Japan - are goldmines just waiting to be discovered.  MeaningfulVolunteer.com has been built as a multi-lingual site from the ground up with this is mind.

At the moment, Korean is the only language other than English available.  Due to my 7338 database skills however, adding other languages is trivial.

Of course, if you know a language (Tagalog perhaps?) and want to help with MeaningfulVolunteer.com then drop me a line, and I'll add it in.

One of the other cool features of the site is that all the content is editable online.  Here is a screenshot to show you what I mean. 

This is useful in lotsa ways.  Being able to edit the site at some low-bandwidth Internet cafe with just an Internet browser is a huge advantage.  It also makes the process of translating the site rather trivial.  My good friend - Lee Sang Mi - is helping me with the translation stuff and it is all done online!

Phew!  So, as you can probably tell, I've done a helluva lot of work on the site.  But a cursory glance at the state will tell you that I've still got a helluva lot to do.

Legal Stuff

I am currently in the process of registering MeaningfulVolunteer.com (or should that be MeaningfulVolunteer.org?  What do you think?)  as a charitable trust in New Zealand.

It's gonna cost me about $NZ1,500 to set it up, but I want to do this and I want to do this right, so it is going to be money well spent. 

I am also going to apply to be listed in "Schedule 32 of the Income Tax Act 2007 "  which will be granted to me as part of the "NZ government's humanitarian aid vote" and enable me to issue "a tax deductible receipt even though [I am] applying funds wholly or mainly outside NZ."

It is a "political process requiring an amendment to the Income Tax Act" and can take around two years and cost me another $NZ1,500-ish dollars.

The Red Cross and World Vision have this status in New Zealand.

Sounds quite cool and official, huh?  Almost like a real volunteer company... 

Business Plans and Budgets

Many years ago I went to a Small Business course for my fledging software company, Simple Software.  Alas, Simple Software was a complete disaster and employees made more money than I did!  Oops!

One thing that I did learn at the course though was the importance of a good business plan. 

The business plan is something else that I have been slaving away on for MeangingfulVolunteer.com.

It goes into quite a bit of detail in specific areas like:

• Marketing
  www.GoAbroad.com, google.com and FaceBook.com are going to my main direct advertisements. 
  
  There is also a lot of non-direct stuff like Facebook Groups, press releases, public talks, YouTube videos, university alumni groups...
  
  
• Budgets
  When I arrive in the Philippines in January 2009, I am going to have about $US27,000, which seems like a lot and stuff all at the same time.  A lot of that is just gonna get sucked up in set-up costs.
  
  My breakeven point is two volunteers a month.  This is running on a shoe-string budget.
  
  
• Weaknesses
  I may as well re-label the organization MeaningfulMalcolm.com as everything revolves around me!  This is a huge weakness.  When I hit the ground in the Philippines I am going to be constantly asking myself how I can be less involved.  The goal of every business owner is to make themselves redundant.

Partners
I have confirmed partners in both Nepal and the Philippines.  Woot.

Whacky Ideas
Being able to come up with whacky ideas that might just be crazy enough to work, is one of the fun things about forming your own organization.

• Internet
  All the RYE schools are going to have internet enabled computer labs. The benefits could be huge.  Just teaching people how to type opens up so many employment options. 
  
  We will be running courses in Windows, Word and the Internet. 
  
  I am thinking of having interested kids create their own page and then link them in MeaningfulVolunteer.com, and then give them their own email: johnny@meaningfulvolunteer.com.  Cool!
  
  Having all this capital in one building is going to pose some risks.  I don't think it will be too big a problem in Romblon, as there is basically nowhere you could sell the hardware anyway!
  
  
• Local staff, local call centers
  If you read any anti-aid book, you'll find that the authors rant and rave about how ineffective foreign aid has been.  One of the main criticisms is that for any particular project, you use foreign professionals. 
  
  Wanna school built?  Get a foreign architect to design it for you. 
  
  Wanna state-of-the-art sewage system?  Get a foreign shit expert to do it for you.
  
  Wanna modern transport system?   Get a foreign transport expert to do it for you.
  
  I think these criticisms are valid.  A much better way to do it is to train the locals to do it for themselves.  That way, if your school falls down, or the shit leaks out of your sewage system, or your transport system starts going haywire, then you're going to have local people with the skills to fix it. 
  
  You just need to look at all the carcasses of failed projects scattered around the world to see the sense in this.
  
  I think there is huge untapped potential in developing nations.  I think the people can do wonderful things with adequate training.  And I am going to put my money where my mouth is.
  
  The only staff member from a developed country is going to be (for the princely sum of $US250 a month, by the way!).  Everything other staff members - call center operators, logo designers, project managers, computer technicians - are going to be sourced from within the developing communities.
  
  

• Advertise competitors
  There are a lot of volunteer companies out there.  Most of them doing a crap job.
  
  I think MeaningfulVolunteer.com offers far better volunteer options.  I think it is obvious too.  So much so that I am going to advertise my competitors.  I am going to post such questions as:

  • Is the volunteer company really non-profit?
    

  • Are they really interested in meaningful volunteerism?  Or is it just volunteer tourism?
    

  • Are their techniques and methodologies freely available?  If not, why not?  Why would you hide you educational techniques from people?  Heaven forbid than that someone uses them to empower the downtrodden.

Doing more harm than good.
When I read Jeffrey Sachs, I get inspired.  I feel I am on the right path and am actually doing some good.

When I read William Easterly, Paul Theroux, or Malcolm Trevena, I feel as if I am just fucking things up.

But then I think.  And think again.  And read another book and another article.  And try and try and try to come up with meaningful projects for MeaningfulVolunteer.com.

This is a constant source of worry to me.  I obsess about having a meaningful impact on a community.

Hopefully, I'll hit the sweet spot. 

What the hell do I think I'm doing?
A volunteer company.  Really?

Sometimes I think I am bat shit crazy for attempting such a thing.  Maybe I am right.

But hey, it's fun in the meantime.  Even if this whole thing flops, I would have learned a helluva lot about development.

Go Live
Go Live is set for October 12th.  That's when everything needs to be done.

Why October 12th?  That's the date of a big craft fair in Korea that's attended by about 250,000 people.  I'll have my own little GrassRootsUganda.com  stand there and selling (hopefully) crap loads of necklaces.

I'll also have posters up for MeaningfulVolunteer.com, and be handing out MeaningfulVolunteer.com business cards and brochures to (I hope) 250,000 people.

This may technically get me kicked out of Korea for violating my visa conditions (I may only work for Benjamin Hagwon).  But hey, some things are more important than deportation.

Wish me luck!

Back to work...
So that is where MeaningfulVolunteer.com is at. 

But now, I have to go and work some more on MeaningfulVolunteer.com.  There is still so much to do...