sura's blog

Volunteer and Organization Matching

Submitted by sura on Wed, 02/20/2008 - 18:46.

As the Outreach Coordinator for Grassroots.org, I am in charge of matching volunteers and organizations. I send both parties a questionnaire so that I can find an organization whose needs best match a volunteer's ability. Usually this works out. Most often, our clients are just desperate for a designer and don't ask for too much.

Today something amazing happened--I matched a Swahili-speaking designer with a Swahili-speaking Executive Director! The organization is WHEW (Women Healing and Empowering Women) in Houston, Texas.

WHEW aims to address interconnected challenges women face such as former incarceration, homelessness, and domestic violence, and they are starting local but going global. WHEW sent back their questionnaire a couple of days ago, along with some information about their organization. Busi Peters from WHEW let me know she was eagerly awaiting someone who could transform their word, pdf and jpg files into an eye-catching site!

Well, today I received a completed questionnaire from one of the recent volunteers who found us on on volunteermatch.org Baraka Manasses Kuria, a recent Computer Science graduate from Nairobi, Kenya, was hoping to find a nonprofit in need and help them gain some web presence while simultaniously building up a design portfolio.

While both the organization and volunteer looked like typical requestors I see everyday, there was something great about them. WHEW was looking for (not expecting!) a designer who spoke Swahili. Luckily Baraka is fluent! Needless to say, I was very excited to match them and I have great expectations for what is to come from this relationship. Watch for updates here: whew-now.org

Many of our volunteers are from every corner of the globe, representing a wealth of interests, talents, languages and goals. I love it when I am able to match them to nonprofit organizations with similar needs. It doesn't happen everyday but when it does, it's great!!!


New Beginnings

Submitted by sura on Thu, 01/03/2008 - 11:54.

So to start this New Year right I began it with a new job. I am officially the Outreach Coordinator for Grassroots.org! While a New Year’s Weekend full of friends, fireworks and a surprise James Brown impersonator are pretty tough competition, my January 2nd was nothing short of amazing.


I spent the day at our office in New York, also known as Katie’s humble abode, “meeting” everyone online and jumping right into the client service request queue I now know as “RT.”


My new job has a lot of responsibility, and my to-do list is rather daunting, but I couldn’t be more excited for the year to come. I am so happy to be a part of this incredible (and very unique) team!


By way of introduction, I’d like to re-cap the year behind me. Starting in sunny Southern California...January of 2007 was the beginning of my final semester at USC. January 1st was the 93rd annual Rose Bowl witch we (USC) won like it was nobody’s business.


Before I knew it, it was June and I was graduating with a B.S. in Business Administration. I joined the Obama campaign...thinking this was the direction my life was headed. In less than a month I was off the campaign—realizing politics is something I feel strongly about personally, but can’t really be a part of professionally.


Back on the pursuit for the rest of my life, I reached out to an Aunt 3,000 miles away. She offered me a place to stay in New York City. Could I pass this up? No, absolutely not. This was clearly the opportunity I was waiting for. So October 1st I left L.A. and touched down at JFK. On October 3rd I began my first day of work as the Special Events Coordinator for the Mount Sinai Pediatrics Department (no time for jet lag in this city!). I was hired to serve in this temporary function for 3 upcoming, very pressing, charity functions. After 12 weeks there my time would be up and so would the year....


And now I’m here at a company that does great things for small non-profit organizations. Truly grassroots! I have always believed in my ability to help create positive change in the world and I couldn’t think of a better place to start than right here.