Framework Foundation's Timeraiser event
By Louise Chatterton Luchuk
August 31, 2009
OAKVILLE, ON // Anil Patel's experience as a recent university graduate is pretty typical. What's not so typical is what he did next...
Back in 2002, Patel and his friends had just graduated from university and were new to the workforce. They were trying to make an impression and worked long hours while maintaining busy social schedules. They also wanted to get involved in the community, but it was frustrating trying to find meaningful, relevant volunteer opportunities for their demographic. That's when an idea came to them. What about an event that was part volunteer fair, part cocktail party, part silent auction? And what if the silent auction involved supporting emerging Canadian artists who didn't have to donate their art but were paid full market value through the generosity of corporate supporters?
Six months of research, six months of consultation, and almost one year of planning later and Framework Foundation had its nonprofit status, charitable designation, and was ready to launch its first-ever Timeraiser event in 2004. The grassroots initiative has flourished into an annual event that operates in six cities across Canada (Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto, and Hamilton). While Patel and friends were all volunteers initially, a year into the process Patel made the decision to focus full time on the organization and became its executive director.
"Speed dating for volunteerism"
On the night of a Timeraiser event, dozens of organizations come together - from small arts and culture organizations to medium-sized social service agencies to large environmental groups - and meet with skilled and energetic potential volunteers. Well in advance of the event, however, Timeraiser staff have worked with these organizations to make sure they can offer some really meaningful opportunities to this demographic of 20 to 30-year-olds starting out in their careers. Timeraiser recognizes that each agency will be at a different level of capacity with regard to volunteer engagement and, for that reason, they work closely with local capacity builders. For instance, in Vancouver, they rely on Volunteer Vancouver to host a 1.5 hour volunteer engagement session that includes a needs assessment, practical tools and training about what to expect on the night of the Timeraiser, and information on how to be ready to take on a highly skilled volunteer.
Timeraiser attendees arrive at the event and go from booth to booth and meet with agency representatives and try to match their skills with an organization's needs. "In one night, agencies can have up to 50 quality conversations with a tough to reach demographic," explains Patel. "It's like speed dating for volunteerism." Once a match is made, the silent auction part of the event begins and the Timeraiser attendee is eligible to bid on artwork created by emerging Canadian artists. The twist is that bidding is not with money but with volunteer time. The successful bidder has 12 months to finish his or her pledge of volunteer time with the agency and then can bring the artwork home.
It doesn't end there, though, explains Patel: "Framework Foundation's other core programs are about broadening people's understanding of how they can make the contribution of their time, their money, talents and network to causes that are important to them over the course of their life. If you are familiar with the concept of the environmental footprint - which is obviously about trying to make it as small as possible – the Civic Footprint is the exact opposite. It's about taking a long-term approach to making that civic footprint as big as possible. The entry point is Timeraiser and the continuum happens through Civic Footprint, but we needed to build Timeraiser first."
Collaborative and open
The work of Patel's organization is more sophisticated now than when it was first conceptualized. A challenge Patel and his organization face is that there's no real template to be an effective, networked nonprofit in the digital age. So, as they find themselves getting involved in more advanced capacity building work, they have had to build material themselves to meet needs. "We document all our capacity building work online so anyone can access it," remarks Patel. "That's another core value of Timeraiser. We want to make sure we run Timeraiser, and any other programs we offer, in an open source way. We're not looking for a competitive advantage. We want to be as collaborative as possible."
A snapshot of... |
Who: Framework Foundation
Mandate/Mission: Promote volunteerism among Canadians in their 20s to 30s.
Help volunteer agencies find the skilled people their organizations need.
Improve the experience of bringing people to causes and causes to people.
Location: Toronto, ON
When established: 2004
Number of staff: 5
Number of volunteers: 200
Awards won: Business for the Arts Award: In June the Globe and Mail Business for the Arts Award recognized Framework with Award of Distinction for their partnership with Molson in the category of "Best Arts/Entrepreneur Partnership."
Find Framework Foundation on:
Twitter
Facebook (Civic Footprint has a separate Facebook page)
YouTube
Framework Blog
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That's the rationale behind their Technology and Operations portal, which provides all of their online communications strategies, organizational practices, and a list of the tools they use. Considering the demographic that Timeraiser focuses on, you'd also expect that social networking is an important part of their strategy, and their entire social networking strategy is posted on this portal for others to access.
It's not just about what they've built, but why, that Patel wants to promote. "The traditional organizational structure is hierarchical but the world doesn't look like that anymore. We want to talk about how we present our programs and how we run them. We want to participate in the larger discussion, the one outside of the traditional organizational model where the board makes decisions with staff and that trickles out to recipients of programs and services. We want to talk about how organizations can turn from being focused on what they do - which is at the exclusion of what other like-minded organizations are doing. How can we perhaps work with them in a more thoughtful way to do more with less with greater impact?"
Timeraiser's vision is to make it the most memorable, engaging, and impactful civic engagement program in the country. Their hope is that, in a few years, thousands of Canadians will be able to trace their engagement in their community back to the Timeraiser. Simultaneously, Patel's organization is also modeling a new, more collaborative and open way of operating an organization.
Louise Chatterton Luchuk provides research and resources for organizations that want to strategically move forward. She is a freelance writer and consultant who combines her love of writing with experience at the regional, provincial and national levels of voluntary/nonprofit organizations. You can reach Louise at info@luchuk.com.
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