What happens when charity begins in the homeless population?
Temporary equal opportunity, that’s what. On June 18, ten of Street Sense’s vendors were commissioned to work for several hours for the promotion of a new nonprofit volunteer company called Voolla. The name combines “volunteers” with “moolah”, and speaks to the nonprofit’s goal of “turning volunteer skills into money for charity”. Stephanie Downs, the chief volunteer, launched Voolla last November. She turned to Street Sense vendors to help promote the company because, as she says, she is “a regular supporter of Street Sense and wanted to hire vendors for this particular event due to vendors’ hard work ethic”. She further stated that “each vendor followed up, each confirmed the event’s date and after the event I felt all the vendors were fantastic and it was an amazing experience.”
On Voolla’s online market place, clients can hire the services of volunteering professionals. The amount the volunteer would normally charge the client is given as a tax-exempt donation to a charity agreed upon by both client and volunteer. The volunteer and the client may also agree to spilt their donation fifty-fifty with two charities. In either case, ninety percent of the donation goes to the charity, with the remaining ten percent allotted to credit card fees (three percent) and company costs (seven percent).
The original idea was sparked when a friend of Downs needed a full-scale brochure designed for his business. Downs, having a marketing background, wanted to help her friend without charging him. He suggested that she donate the money to a charity organization instead, and thus Voolla was born.
The 120 organizations which accept donations from Voolla support a wide spectrum of causes, everything from organizations that fight poverty to charities that help children, animals and Alzheimer’s patients. And the range of volunteer skill sets is equally wide– there are hundreds of profiles incorporating everything from architecture and scientific consulting to ice skating and graphic design.
Currently, the organization operates nationwide but it has the potential to go global. In Voolla’s expanding world however, helping the local community remains a guiding principle, says Downs.
“Charity should always start at home and with more then seven thousand homeless individuals in Washington D.C., this is the best place in getting started in making the right policies for the homeless.”
When organizations like these come to the poorest of the poor and give them a second chance it can’t help but be a win-win situation. And for the Street Sense vendors who were commissioned to promote Voolla, that’s actually what it was. Thank you, Voolla.
More information is available at Voolla.org
