Reward Volunteers
Reward Volunteers is Chalo’s first app, built in partnership with Cabot Cheese Cooperative for the International Year of the Cooperative. Reward Volunteers is the first iPhone app that tracks and rewards volunteers and the organizations they serve.
Using Facebook Connect, volunteers log and share volunteer efforts, accruing “Reach” points, or chances to win prizes for themselves and the organizations they serve. Volunteer hours and activity post to Facebook and within the app, where volunteers can “like” and comment on each other’s activity. The more hours logged, and the more sharing (in the form comments, likes, and emails to friends,) the more Reach points accrued.
Prizes for individuals include cash, vacations to Vermont, an Alaskan cruise, Cabot Cheese baskets, and many more. Volunteer organizations earn Reach points for volunteer activity for their organization, increasing their chances to win cash donations from sponsors. Volunteer activity is often hard to quantify or done in isolation. Reward Volunteers makes it measurable, fun, and social.
Embed the widget on your site:
This will enable visitors to log hours right from your site — and will allow you to spotlight the causes and programs that matter most to your organization. The widget fits on the sidebar of your site; it’s a “medium rectangle” of 300×250 pixels. If your site uses a CMS such a WordPress, you can place the code inside of a text widget, and then place the text widget where you’d like it to appear. If your site doesn’t use a CMS you’ll simply need to paste the code into the HTML file of your site.
<iframe id="widget" src="http://api.rewardvolunteers.coop/widget/volunteer?
iframe_redirect_uri=YOUR_URL" width="300px" height="250px" scrolling="no">
</iframe>
Be sure to replace the words ‘YOUR_URL’ with the url of the page on which you are embedding the widget. For example, if you are embedding on www.mywebsite.com the code would be:
<iframe id="widget" src="http://api.rewardvolunteers.coop/widget/volunteer?
iframe_redirect_uri=http://www.mywebsite.com" width="300px" height="250px"
scrolling="no"></iframe>
Frequently Asked Questions:
Reward Volunteers is an iPhone and web app that tracks and rewards the efforts of volunteers and the organizations they serve. Using Facebook Connect, volunteers track their hours, tagging organizations, sharing photos, and posting their activity to Facebook. The more hours accrued and the more sharing that occurs, the more chances volunteers have to win prizes, and the more chances organizations have to win money.
RV will run from Feb 14th through July 7th 2012.
RV is created by Cabot Cheese Cooperative in collaboration with Chalo, Inc. Sponsoring companies and organizations have provided cash and prizes for winning
organizations and volunteers.
Anyone with a Facebook account. RV uses Facebook Connect to let people log hours from either the iPhone app or web widget, which will be on www.Rewardvolunteers.coop, www.chaloapps.com and many others sites.
Through the app, you select the organization’s profile that you are volunteering for, or write-in your activity. Then you select the length of time you’ve volunteered. An editable message will be automatically generated that you can post to Facebook, or email to friends. You can also take and share photos of your volunteering through the iPhone app.
Sign up at www.RewardVolunteers.coop and when the code is ready, we will send you an email with instructions. It will take a webmaster about 30 minutes to embed the widget on your site.
Each month, one Liberty Hill Farm Vacation as well as smaller prizes will be given away. The grand prizes are an Alaskan cruise, a Smuggler’s Notch vacation, and an additional Liberty Hill Farm Vacation. Monthly prizes include a Burton Snowboard, Cabot Cheese Gift baskets, and giveaways from many other Vermont companies.
Activity, in the form of logged hours, shared posts/photos, emails, and Facebook likes represents Reach. When RV selects monthly prize winners as well as the grand prize winners, participants with more reach have more chances to win, just like a raffle. Reach is calculated with a 4:1 ratio of hours compared to sharing. Prizes are selected once a month, starting on March 7, with grand prize winners drawn on July 7, 2012.
An email will be sent to the address used to login with Facebook Connect.
Organizations also accrue Reach based on the activity of users tagging and sharing about them. RV uses an automated, random selection process in a raffle-style drawing to select winning organizations. The more Reach organizations accrue the more "tickets" they have in the raffle, and the more likely they are to win cash donations from Reward Volunteers’ sponsors. Winning organizations will all be determined July 7th, 2012.
The RV web widget is a tool that puts the functionality of the RV app (in addition to a live map of volunteer activity) onto any website that embeds it. When a business or organization puts the widget on their site they are giving their site visitors an easy way to use RV, while showing their support for good causes.
Any business or organization. If a volunteer organization has it, they can also encourage on-site volunteers to log their time right when they volunteer. Businesses can use it and include supporting material to encourage customers to volunteer for certain causes, and volunteer organizations can promote their own.
RV is based on the Honor System, and people are generally trusted to be honest in their reporting of activity. Posts will not be monitored, and users do not need to get the volunteer organization to “sign off” on their activity. However, when someone is selected as a potential winner, a system of red-flagging will notify RV admin if they appear to be gaming the system. Also, RV reserves the right to confirm the potential winner’s record with the volunteer organization.
People in any country can use RV to log their volunteer time and share their progress, promoting the organizations they support, but only those volunteering for US non-profit organizations are eligible for prizes. Similarly, only US non-profits are eligible to win cash through RV.
No. The iPhone app will be free and available through iTunes. The widget embed code will be accessible for any webmaster to use on their site.
You do not need an iPhone to use RV. Though the iPhone app has added features, such as enabling photo sharing and personal Reach history, anyone can participate through the widget on www.RewardVolunteers.coop, www.chaloapps.com or on any other site the widget is embedded on.
You can track and share your efforts regardless, but in order for the organization to be eligible to win a $3,000 donation, they need to have a FB page, which is not difficult to create.
Think of Reach as “influence” or, literally, how many people you have “reached” with your efforts. When you volunteer or when you post on Facebook, get "Likes" and email people, you are reaching others. You get 4 Reach points for each hour you volunteer, and 1 for each post, each "Like" and each friend you email. Organizations get Reach when people volunteer for them and share about them.
Yes! All organizations with at least one hour of participation are eligible to win. RV is not a race, -- the organization with the most participation does not automatically win. Rather, it is based on chances, so even a small organization can leverage its volunteers and have a chance to win.
To be eligible to win a cash prize they must be a US 501(c)3 organization.
Yes and no. You can record your volunteer activity doing anything: helping a neighbor, engaging in disaster relief, etc. outside of an organization. However, if you are selected to win a prize and a lot of your activity is outside of an organization, you will be “Red Flagged” and might not be eligible to win.