Volunteer Economy

Background on TechMission

• ‘TechMission Withstands and Helps in the Economic Downturn’ December 2008 Newsletter :TechMission helps address this great need by connecting volunteers and low-cost personnel to provide millions of dollars of renewable resources to nonprofits.

• ‘TechMission Annual Report’ 2007-08 Year in Review: In the past year, we doubled the number of full-time interns we are providing to youth ministries, and our website traffic and number of volunteers matched increased by about 300%.

• 'One Body of Christ on Facebook'  The "One Body of Christ Experiment (All Christians on Facebook)" group, a TechMission brainchild started in March 2008, has been praised for its ability to bring Christians together.

 Volunteer Stories

• ‘Valuable Volunteer Opportunities: ChristianVolunteering.org is an Attractive Answer to the Economic Downturn’ Cypress Times 05 April 2009: ChristianVolunteering.org is just a click away, and received a 300% increase in traffic since the end of 2008, a website which easily matches thousands of volunteers with urban ministries and short term urban missions opportunities across the globe

• 'Read Stories of Volunteers' ChristianVolunteering.org April 2009: Read this and other exciting stories of volunteers just like you doing really wonderful things in their communities.

Other Stories on the Economy

• ‘Ranks of Unemployed Workers Fuel a Surge in Volunteerism’ Boston Globe 19 Mar 2009: Nonprofit groups around the country are reporting record-setting volunteer interest, helped in part by high unemployment that has given people more free time and resume gaps to fill. Charity groups also attribute the rise to President Obama's call to community service and a general sense of wanting to help others through tough economic times.

• ‘Despite Economy, Charitable Donors, Volunteers Keep Giving’ Gallup 19 Dec 2008

• ‘House Passes Sweeping National Service Expansion’ CNN 31 Mar 2009: Among other things, the bill would more than triple the number of positions in the AmeriCorps program, from 75,000 to 250,000, by 2017. The increase could have a huge ripple effect in national volunteerism rates. Last year, 75,000 AmeriCorps members recruited and supervised 2.2 million community volunteers.

• ‘Shaky Economy Forces Americans to Rediscover Community’ CNN 27 Mar 2009: Americans have long prided themselves on being a self-reliant, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of people.But there's another part of the nation's character that's as old as farmers looking out for their neighbor's home on the frontier that seems to be spreading across the country, some say.