Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, offers his thoughts on Obama’s approach to promoting volunteerism. One point he makes is enhancing existing online tools for matching volunteers with organizations rather than trying to build something new. Volunteer Match is one example he cites.
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The New Service 
Oh, I’m so happy to hear him make that point. I hate to see fragmentation in these efforts. Yes, make Volunteer Match better, perhaps by modeling it more on Craigslist, but do not build a competing service.
Of course Idealist is another important existing partner in this space, with over 14,000 volunteer opportunities and 82,000 volunteers! I hope the best minds in tech offer their ideas for tying existing tools together into seamless environments to connect volunteer opportunities and volunteers.