New phone app to get more people volunteering

A revolutionary new mobile phone app will launch today, with the backing of Volunteering England, which promises to get more people than ever before volunteering their time and expertise to help others.

Orange will today unveil its ‘Do Some Good’ Volunteer Application, the first of its kind in the UK, which will encourage people to volunteer five minutes of their time, at a time and place that suits their lifestyle to help with everything from the prevention of bullying to turning derelict plots into community gardens.

Actions include:
CyberMentors on the move – to help authorities build an accurate picture and scale of bullying, users can log whether they or someone else is being bullied, reporting specific locations.

Places to Play Map – to locate and map playable places in the community for community groups, families and children with users able to take photos of places in their area to tag and share with others.

Guerrilla Gardening – to map derelict sites for green makeovers encouraging a greener UK.

Over time, the number of actions on the app will grow as the company works with new charities and social entrepreneurs to develop more.

To coincide with launch of the App, a new study has also been released today that shows that many of us are put off volunteering because of a perception that it will take too much time, with people currently more likely to donate money than volunteer.

Over two thirds of people say they have donated money to charity in the last year compared to less than a quarter who have volunteered their time for a good cause. The main barrier to volunteering is time according to 40% of those surveyed. However the study indicates that if volunteering was made easier for people they would do so, with over two thirds saying they would rather give up their time if they had to choose between donating £5 or giving up 5 minutes.

Andrea Rannard from Volunteering England and Jogesh Limbani from Orange will be taking part in a live webchate on Thursday 31st March at 2:30pm to offer the best advice to anxious mums and dads.

You can watch the webchat at: studiotalk.tv/show/interested-in-volunteering-but-not-sure-where-to-start

For more information visit: orange.co.uk