SnapImpact is a Boulder-based community project that created the first iPhone volunteering app. All for Good is an aggregator of volunteer information. Together, we’re working to make doing good easier.

We’ve come a long way but we’ve still got miles to go and need your help.

SnapCamp: A weekend-long adventure to help improve the way non-profits communicate their needs and the way people discover and respond to them. (It’s just good, geeky, roll-up-your-sleeves fun.)

We’re building the next generation of All for Good, and we need you.

SnapCamp
5 p.m. February 19 – 5 p.m. February 21
1375 Walnut Street, Boulder, CO 80302
RSVP: http://snapcamp.eventbrite.com

Who do we want? You don’t have to be an expert to participate, as long as you’re committed to making doing good easy.

How can you help*?

• Developers: Code up a storm. No experience necessary.
• Front-end developers and designers (UI/UX and CSS): Make the site sexy and effective.
• Marketing gurus: Defy the generic with your brilliance and ideas.
• Ops execs: Help organize and scale the operation.
• Non-profits: Give us feedback in real time.

*The time you commit this weekend could be tax deductible.

Following a Friday night kick-off that’s just for fun, we’ll get down to work Saturday morning, slinging code and ideas until the sun goes down, when we’ll kick back, sleep it off, and dig back in again Sunday. Regular breaks will be provided for food, fun and games. (Tip: Come for as much time as you can.)

Agenda

Friday, February 19th

5:00 pm Introductions

Meet at The Bunker (1375 Walnut, Boulder) for introductions and agenda review. Walk to The Mediterranean restaurant for group happy hour and dinner. We’ll close out the evening at Bitter Bar.

Saturday, February 20th

9:00 am Breakfast/Overview Sessions
An orientation to the work to be done, broken into groups:

• Developers: How will we improve the architecture?
• Marketing/PR: How can we get the application into as many hands as possible?
• Design/UI: How can we make the site look and feel good?

10:00 am Breakout Work Sessions
12:00 pm Lunch
1:00 pm Breakout Work Sessions
5:00 pm Team Reports
6:00 pm Dinner
7:00 pm Evening Sessions (TBD)

Sunday, February 21st

9:00 am Breakfast/Saturday Recap
9:30 am Breakout Work Sessions
12:00 pm  Working Lunch
1:30 pm New Product Demo
2:30 pm Wrap/Report
3:00 pm Celebrate!

The crew working on the iVolunteer iPhone app have been hard at work!

We originally wanted to show this demo video during our presentation to the Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup, but had a bit of laptop trouble and had to switch things out at the last minute.

It was definitely worth the wait. Kudos to the iPhone team!

Check out the video (btw, it looks awesome in full screen mode) and leave us a note in the comments to let us know what you think.

But I was actually half lying. It is cool, kinda. But I thought it would be a lot cooler to let everyone decide how it turns out. Like everyone everyone. You know – on the planet. Being totally honest, some of us thought that just keeping it to a bunch of people that showed up on a Tuesday in a building in Boulder smacked of place-ism (and volunteerism). So, because this whole innertubes or webernets (or whatever the kids are calling it) deal is like one big, happy family of zeros and ones, we wanted to give any of our cyber siblings out there a chance to change the world. And it’s so freakin’ easy. We need you to click three times. That’s it.

And did we mention it’s fun? It’s not even fun like when your parents told you you were going to the Hot Air Balloon Festival, leading you to believe you were going to get to ride on a hot air balloon, only to later realize that you would merely be watching as the more privileged people got to fly away while you stood there holding a hot chocolate in the freezing cold – at 4:30 am (I guess we never forget some things). No, it’s actually fun, because it involves critiquing stuff. And who doesn’t like to judge? Voicing your opinion is one of the most fun things you can do, and it’s totally free (unlike dates)!

So what is it exactly? Well, the iVolunteer unit has selected (after careful, meticulous research and composition that took us an entire Saturday) FOUR different logos and brand identities for the iVolunteer program that will help us spread the love of community service as though it were contagious. We need you, fair internet, to guide us in your infinite wisdom toward the proper decision. Here’s how it works: Each logo/brand set has been neatly packaged for speedy consumption (unlike this intro), and includes a primary logo, secondary logo(s), and one example of what an ad might look like to get a feel for the brand (for those among us who take yoga and drink herbal tea). Interpret them however you wish (click the image to see a bigger version), and then go to the survey link at the end of this post to submit your vote. Don’t like what you see? Maybe you can do better. If you would like to take a stab, send your competing submissions to josh AT tuggl DOT com, and they wil be added into the mix immediately. We will not be offended. Without further ado, here are your choices:

IDENTITY A

Like this one? This is Identity A (Original Logo)! Go to the bottom to vote!

IDENTITY B

Like this one? This is Identity B (iBot)! Go to the bottom to vote!

IDENTITY C

Like this one? This is Identity C (Phone Signal)! Go to the bottom to vote!

IDENTITY D

Like this one? This is Identity D (Scribbly)! Go to the bottom to vote!

I know what you’re thinking: Those su-uuuuu-ck. Don’t forget, you can submit your own, but the later you do, the fewer votes you have time to get. So get on it! Or, alternatively, you can be lazy and just vote on one like I’m about to do at the SURVEY SITE: Click me! Click me!

Feel free to leave a comment on the survey site about how much we suck, but be prepared to couple it with how we can suck less.

Thanks, everybody in the whole world! Have a great week, and be sure to check back in a few weeks when we’ll be announcing the winner, or you can just subscribe to this blog’s super-awesome, satisfaction-guaranteed RSS feed to make sure you know when it comes up.

-Josh Clauss, on behalf of the iVolunteer Marketing Mod Squad

Hearing that there seem to be some parallels between Startup Weekend and the iVolunteer project got me asking myself some questions:

Why does iVolunteer feel like Startup Weekend?

What can we swipe learn from the Startup Weekend process?

To get insight on the second question, I’m going to go the source and talk with Andrew Hyde, Startup Weekend’s founder and iVolunteer team member. (Check out his post on iVolunteer here: http://andrewhyde.net/ivolunteer-meets-with-a-bang/) I’ll write up my thoughts on that interview soon.

For now, here are my thoughts on the first question: Why does iVolunteer feel like Startup Weekend?

It’s about community.

To steal from David Cohen’s excellent Startup Weened Top 10 post, “Future co-founders will meet, experts will emerge, people will catch the startup bug. This is good for you, and it’s good for your town.” That’s what people have been saying they got from our first Meetup and I can only see that expanding as folks get down to the nitty gritty of getting iVolunteer off the ground.

It’s not about the Benjamins.

Although the air may feel entrepreneurially-enriched, participating in a Startup Weekend isn’t likely to make you wealthy. Neither will working on a guerrilla nonprofit startup. Realizing that nobody is going to make any money with this is actually pretty refreshing. Or, Nicole Glaros put it so aptly, “we don’t need no stinkin’ business model.”

“You decide your level of involvement.”

Structurally, the two endeavors have some common elements. I guess there’s a bit of Project Mayhem built into both. The projects are somewhat loosely defined at the start, then people self-organize into groups who then take on functional areas and tasks they find interesting. Nobody is in charge and people are free to take on as much or as little as they like.

This Tuesday (Feb 3rd), the iVolunteer crew will be giving an update at the Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup. Show your support for the project and see the awesome startup community first hand. Note that our next working session will be on Tuesday (Feb 10th) at Rally Software. More details to come.