Our challenge was to create a tool companies could use to raise funds in support the local Red Cross, while increasing awareness for regional volunteer work and inspiring the volunteer spirit in our target audience.

At thevolunteermarket.ca, employees from participating companies can post jobs they’d like done (desk cleaned up, coffee fetched, plants watered…) and how much they’ll donate to the Red Cross if the job is completed. Or they can volunteer their services in exchange for a set donation.

To promote the program, we asked five local artists to create posters in exchange for a donation to the Red Cross from us. These posters are put up in participating work places and around cities to spark ideas and to encourage participation.

The Volunteer Market was launched within a handful of organisations as a program test. Each organisation was equipped with training videos, promotional idea generating posters and a co-ordinator. To extend awareness and participation, posters were put up around the region and radio stations were engaged to get the general public involved.

Originally created for Atlantic Canada, the Volunteer Market went national in the first week with excited and active volunteers participating from coast to coast. The Red Cross launched the program with a handful of companies on a short-term basis in 2011 with great success and will run the Volunteer Market again on a much larger scale in 2012. For our efforts, we were awarded a rare Citation from the Canadian Red Cross.

“We only present citations as a way of saying ‘Thank You’ in exceptional circumstances and [their] enthusiasm for, and creation of, this project went above anything we had imagined,” said Christena Copeland of the Canadian Red Cross.