It’s good to 'Do Some Good'!

A review of the Orange mobile Do Some Good volunteering app

When I first heard about Orange's plan to launch a smart phone volunteering app I was excited. Given the mobile network’s success with the RockCorps initiatve to get young people volunteering, I was confident that their involvement in the growing world of micro volunteering could only be a good thing.

The concept of micro volunteering – small bite sized social actions that can be done online or via a mobile – has been gathering pace these past few years. With pioneers like the wonderful Help From Home project, itself run by volunteers, organisations are starting to look at how micro actions can fit within their work. But not everyone is convinced. There are still a lot of charities that see this form of ‘slactivism’ as having little or no value in the wider scheme of things.

And that’s where I think Orange’s ‘Do Some Good’ application could really make a difference. By harnessing the sheer numbers of people that regularly use their smart phones, there is a massive potential to mobilise millions to come together behind a number of key actions and causes. So when the mobile network launched it yesterday I was one of the first to download it and give it a go.

What’s it like?

Currently restricted to the iPhone (but due to roll out to Blackberry and Android very soon) the app itself is a doddle to use. Nice clear interface which lets you browse all the volunteering activities, called ‘actions’, available or filter them by cause, organisation or action type. The causes are grouped into culture/education, environment, global issues, health and our community – broad enough to appeal to a wide range of interests. You can also show which are the most popular actions – based on how many people complete them – or by when they were added to the app.

Each action shows a brief description and how many people have taken part so far. I took part in the Samaritans Well Being survey - a simple action completing a short questionnaire - which is attempting to get a better understanding of the country’s happiness index which will in turn help them to develop their services. Unsurprisingly this is the most popular action so far, as it appeals to the broadest range of people and it’s simple to do. Along with the other actions, it lists the purpose and the desired outcome behind it and also provides links to the Samaritans website for get more help or information.

The app also has links to other information about volunteering via the Do Some Good website along with more information about RockCorps.

Will people get involved?

Time will tell. To incentivise the app Orange have opened up the age range of their RockCorps project by offering tickets to music gigs for anyone that completes four hours of mobile volunteering. Given that each activity requires around 5 minutes t complete and that there are only 13 activities so far available, the opportunity to get a ticket is pretty hard so far unless you do things more than once, which understandably is not possible on some, such as the surveys. Although I welcome this incentive I did find the RockCorps branding a tad confusing as it’s not clear how this relates to the app - there isn't any immediate explanation showing the link up.

And that’s the biggest drawback so far. The range of actions is too limited. Of course this is a work in progress and Orange are committed to adding new actions all the time, but as well as being limited, some of the actions so far listed are just not very engaging. For example ‘I Do Ideas’ seems a bit pointless as it asks people to submit ideas to 'make their community a better place' Is this really a useful activity? I’m not so sure, unless it's clear that your idea will be listened to and that something will happen as a result. App users will need to see that their actions actually have some impact, however small, so that they feel they have actually helped to achieve some good and I Do Ideas does not really have that feel good factor to me.

Micro volunteering by its nature is often confined to research and compiling information but it has potential to be so much more. You do get a hint of it here with actions to translate stuff and to report incidents of bullying. I think this is going to be the main challenge for Orange going forward, finding useful stuff that actually makes a bit of difference. Given the charity sector’s reluctance so far to engage with micro volunteering they may well have their work cut out so might need to invest some time in encouraging more agencies to think creatively about how they can develop micro actions - perhaps promoting this useful guide would be a good start.

But despite this let’s not lose site of the bigger picture. The opportunity here is to promote volunteering to a whole new audience that might not otherwise engage and this is where I do think Do Some Good will really have an impact. With this in mind I do think that Orange may have missed a trick by not enabling app users to browse other things to do via the app. The journey to access this information is currently too cumbersome and requires going to their website which sort of defeats the object really given the whole mobile experience Orange have created. I know that do-it has data formats available for Sky TV’s red button service so it would not be too tricky to add something here and could make a big difference to the users experience, with the micro action giving them a taste of other stuff they could be doing.

In time I reckon Do Some Good has huge potential to shift attitudes to volunteering by making it more accessible and by giving people a real sense that what they are doing really does have some impact.

Conclusion

Overall it’s a cute little app, well branded, easy to use and absolutely of the moment given the growth of smart phone usage in the UK. Hats off to Orange for the being the first to make it happen and for this, the ease of use of the app along with its massive potential I give it 8/10.

So what are you waiting for? Go Do Some Good!

How to Do Some Good