Volunteers unleashed

Climbing the creaky staircase to the hiding place of Anne Frank and her family in that famous house on a canal in Amsterdam has moved millions of visitors. On a summer backpacking trip in 1985, Michael Organ, BCom’88, was one such visitor. Facing the reality of that tragic family’s fate led to a promise made to himself that very night. The then 19-year-old Commerce student promised to make a difference with his life.

“I understood that I wasn't ready yet,” he recalls. “To make the biggest difference, I would need to learn much more, both at Queen’s and through later work experience.”

With degree in hand, he joined Toronto’s Ogilvy & Mather Advertising as an account executive for such brands as Dove™ soap, all™ dishwasher detergent and American Express™. Eleven months later, he co-founded College Financial Aid Service, a Washington-based direct marketing company. That company, rebranded as FastWeb.com, became part of the Monster.com empire. Michael spent the next two years travelling and studying art and acting at Columbia College Chicago before spending six years as a marketer for management and technical consulting giant Accenture.

But what about the promise Michael had made to himself, at age 19?

“I realized I still hadn’t made my difference yet,” he says. So he took a year’s leave of absence from Accenture to make good on his promise.

The result was Charity Guide, an innovative, online volunteer directory that bills itself as the way for busy people to make a difference at anytime, from anywhere. “We call our concept ‘Volunteering On Demand.’ It’s directed towards people like me whose unpredictable work schedule makes it difficult to plan much beyond lunch,” says Michael, now Charity Guide’s Executive Director.

Michael Is Also Currently Director Of Internet Advertising For Senator Barack Obama's Campaign For The Us Presidency.

He compiled the first 50 service projects that met what he called the ‘cancelled meeting test’ – every one of them could be accomplished in 15 minutes. The offering expanded to include opportunities to make a difference in a few hours, or on a ‘Volunteer Vacation’ such as the one Michael’s wife Jenna and mother Barbara took to help care for "failure to thrive" children in Romania.

To drive traffic to the website,Michael pioneered search engine advertising that linked Charity Guide’s volunteer opportunities to secondary search terms. Within six weeks, his website had more online traffic than the United Way’s.

In 2000, Michael leveraged his e-business pioneering experience as co-founder of Mosaic Data Solutions, an Internet and database marketing company that quickly became the third-busiest Internet commerce presence behind Amazon and eBay. He also served as Vice-President of Marketing for Accenture Procurement Solutions until the call of Charity Guide once again became too loud to ignore.

“Charity Guide sells volunteerism using the same techniques used to sell the AmEx™ card and Dove™ soap,” he explains. “What sets us apart is the fact that we’re applying the principles of marketing, consumer behaviour and e-business to a non-profit purpose.”

By 2005, Charity Guide was a registered U.S. charity with a Board of Directors. It now serves more than 1.5 million would-be volunteers annually.

Michael is practising what he preaches by lending his online marketing prowess to Senator Barack Obama’s bid for the US presidency as Director of Internet Advertising for the senator’s campaign. “This is an exceptional opportunity to pioneer Internet advertising for advocacy and politics,” he says.

Twenty years after the promise made in Amsterdam, Michael is finally confident that he’s making a difference. “My work on Charity Guide and promoting the causes I believe in have filled a real need in my life,” he says.

The legions of volunteers who have donated their time and efforts through Charity Guide likely echo his sentiments.