Without the help of volunteers most charities would cease to function.

Ten years ago, SEEK Volunteer created a website to make it easier for all Australian charities to find volunteers. However, since it’s inception, awareness of the site has remained low. We wanted more people to know about seekvolunteer.com.au and the potential impact it can have.

As volunteering is more an attitude, than a demographic we targeted potential volunteers everywhere, regardless of age or background. Our audience was anyone who would put their hand up to volunteer.

So we devised the strategy to promote volunteering by enlisting media owners, celebrities and individuals to do it for us. We asked them to literally volunteer themselves to promote volunteering.

Australian industry and individuals would be given the opportunity to become our media volunteers. They would take our message and volunteer to spread it through the media channels they owned and had access to - whether that space be a large scale supersite, a prime time TV spot, a blog post, tweet, profile picture.

We gave an entire nation access to one simple message via an online digital media kit.

This space was volunteered to promote volunteering.

It was purposely constructed so that it could be easily adapted to any space, anywhere. From the online media kit industry and individuals could take our message and volunteer to spread it through the communication channels they had access to.

It would mean an infinite amount of blank canvases all working together to promote the vital importance of volunteering. From national TV, radio and digital networks, to cinema, outdoor and magazine owners, to large corporations volunteering their own media or sponsorship space anyone could participate.

However, the real power of the idea came when it was put in the hands of the people. Thousands of individuals could instantly become media volunteers simply by volunteering their social media spaces.

In response, people registered to volunteer with charities through the website in unprecedented numbers.

Over $2m media value created from the initial investment of just US$70,000 (a return of 1:26)

Registration levels were sustained for months after the campaign launch. By December, a total of 24,211 new volunteers had registered with charities - 20,840 more than expected if the campaign had not happened (based on projected registrations).