Help is in the Crowd for Australian NFPs
4 October 2010 at 4:07 pm
Financial management company, Matrix on Board has launched NonProfit Q&A, a crowdsourced information hub to provide answers and advice for the Not for Profit sector.
The site is described as a community venue to ask questions about everything to do with running a Not for Profit organisation.
The free site allows a user to post a question about running a Not for Profit organisation which other site users and relevant experts can answer. Answers can be voted up or down, so that the most useful answer is determined by the crowd.
The website is an example of crowdsourcing – the process of outsourcing tasks to a large group of people or crowd.
Crowdsourcing has become increasingly popular as web 2.0 technologies allow mass collaboration on everything from software development through to Q&A’s such as this.
Matrix on Board’s Managing Director for Strategy and Market, Morri Young says they could see the potential of crowdsourcing answers for many of the day-to-day challenges facing Australian Not for Profits.
Young says there are probably a million questions out their and 2 million answers, and Matrix on Board which specialises in assisting Not for Profits wanted to connect the two with an easy to operate platform.
Young says the site is particulary useful resource for smaller Not for Profit organisations in remote areas.
He says it is also useful when people have questions and they don’t know where to ask them or how to proceed, such as a payroll or governance question.
He says answers won’t receive a entire strategic plan, but they will provide NFPs with guidance on how to proceed.
A collection of partners have signed up and offered to help answer questions including appiChar, Fundraising Institute of Australia, Your HR Manager, Management Support Online and PILCH Connect
The website also has 'live' help – if an expert is logged in on the site, it is visible to users who can post questions in real-time. When live help is available, users may get a response to a question immediately.
The site is moderated and questions and answers will be posted once they have passed a basic screening process.
Anyone with knowledge of the sector and NFP organisations can sign up to the site at www.nonprofitqanda.com.au
