志工媒合與預約平台之契機與社會影響力

Abstract

STANCE is a platform for helping. It starts with providing matching service by enabling users to easily search and book volunteering activities, based on their availability, location, and causes they support. Moving forward, it further incorporates other features that ensure security and paves the way to provide (and receive) different forms of help. It aims to provide what is hoped to be one of the largest and most trusted networks to connect the right people, right resources, and right opportunities to make it easy to help and be helped. Similar but less comprehensive platforms exist, and interested consumers always have the option of doing all the legwork offline/manually. However, this just shows how technology has not seemed to be much utilized to improve and develop the volunteering industry and the altruism space in general. Especially for today’s “on-demand” generation, people have gotten used to having wide array of options and being able to access them in an instant; yet, the way people try to find and do volunteer work has not significantly changed or improved over the last decade. Stance provides a better solution in guiding less knowledgeable or less experienced individuals or groups to find opportunities, and significantly cut down the often lengthy and often tedious steps it takes. More importantly, it uses the smaller and more achievable courses of action, tying them together to universal goals that follow from UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and ultimately brings all the small efforts to make a more impactful contribution to create big transformations globally. Aside from having a clear gap that is currently not being addressed, the market is also attractive due to the market size and societal trends that make this business more relevant. In the Philippines alone, an estimated 41 million people volunteer their time for an organization, not including other forms of helping. With the primary target market being in their 20s-30s (Millennials and Gen Z), we are looking at more than ⅓ of the of the Philippine population, and at least half of the population when including secondary target market (being those in their teens and those in their 40s). Target users of the platform focuses on casual volunteers, but generally includes anyone who is interested in doing good. Based on a self-initiated feasibility study in the form of survey, 79% of the respondents expressed interest in Stance. In addition to individual users, other key stakeholders include charitable organizations who provide the supply of volunteering opportunities and other potential partners that can also be users, such as corporate, education, or government institutions. Partnerships with high-value stakeholders will be utilized prior to the launching of the platform, such that it will not be opened to the public “empty.” Stance will initially leverage on key partners and key opinion leaders (i.e. influencers) to first launch 5-10 projects as case studies. This will ensure that early users will be highly engaged and these efforts are funneled to create a faster and more evident transformation in these communities. This will act as act as a jumping point to influence network effects and with the help of aggressive and disruptive Marketing support, will be help bring in the first “1,000 true fans” and establish brand awareness and credibility. In terms of operations, Stance will start with 10 employees mainly be composed of top management (who will also temporarily absorb a more supervisory role and serve as business heads) and team members under 5 initial departments (who will eventually progress as middle managers). Additional members and staff will be added later on, in order to have sufficient manpower to perform certain business functions in-house such as market research, graphic design and content production, IT infrastructure, to name a few. Stance will be bootstrapped and self-financed with a personal contribution of ₱1,000,000.00 for year 1 to get the platform started and another committed ₱1,000,000.00 from friends and family for Year 2. This, based on the calculated estimated profits and losses, will be sufficient in the start-up phase to help maintain positive cash flow and prevent debts in the company. Main revenue sources includes: payments made from booking transactions (beginning from the launch of the platform), from subscriptions (beginning from Year 2 or 3), advertising (also in Year 2 or 3), and finally in-app spending for accessory features (such as games, reports & data access, certification, etc.) For the most basic revenue source in the initial stages, users are given the option to pay an upfront ₱55.00 (half of which will also be given to the organization involved), pay a deposit of ₱100.00 but get back ₱80.00 when they show up for higher commitment (half of which will also be given to the organization involved), or be sponsored by other users who wish to do so. Subscriptions, which will be available later, will cost ₱550.00 per year (amounts to less than ₱50.00 per month) in exchange of the ability to book (and cancel) unlimitedly, access data and reports to monitor, other perks such as having a tree planted monthly on the user’s behalf and certain rewards tied into the point system in the platform. Seeking additional funding and grants from larger entities, international institutions, and the government will be actively worked on in parallel. Purchasing of land (or office space) and other potential activities outside the initial plans have not been included under any of the projected costs and identified assets, especially in the initial stages. Adjustments on budgeting and spending depending on resources and capital can and must be done along the way based on the progress and changes that happen.