Calling for Help: CoreWeb embarks on its journey to engage with cause-related organizations

The really cool thing about working for a company whose focus is on helping cause-related organizations is the way it makes me feel when I get home from work.  Really.  My roommates tell me about the hours they've spent staring at Excel spreadsheets, number-crunching for the benefit of large pharmaceutical companies, or the record number of sales reports they were able to spit out from their printers that morning and my response is, "Did you know that for just $20 you can buy a flock of chicks for a needy family in Cameroon, and that once each of those hens reaches maturity it can produce up to 200 eggs a year for that family?!"  Almost always, what I've learned during my workday sparks some lively conversation.

Arriving at CoreWeb almost two months ago now, I have been tasked with aiding in the outreach to these non-profit organizations.  Over the past few months CoreWeb has scoured more than fifty cause-related websites from all corners of the globe, researching community building strategy—both online and in the "real world"—and has composed a detailed review of each organization's site.  Even before this review process began there was years of thinking, research, analyzing, questioning and rethinking by the CoreWeb team.  Fortunately for me, my timing was perfect; I've arrived for the fun part!  And in just a matter of days I will be picking up my phone and introducing myself to these organizations that I have become so familiar with in the hopes of engaging a few in discussion, and thereby, laying the first few bricks of the Community.CoreWeb.com foundation.

As I write this I am clicking between windows, populating our Customer Relationship Management database, Highrise (aka: big, online address book), adding in names, numbers, emails, photos and notes for contacts at the various organizations.  What was once a stark, corporate blue and black page, is beginning to come to life with the people who we have already engaged with and those who we hope to reach.  In preparation for embarking on this outreach journey I have geared up, trying to get a good sense of what these organizations are all about.  This can be rewarding, but at times downright overwhelming.  With so many suffering people, animals, trees and living beings in need of a voice, where to begin?  My inbox is stuffed with reports from the International Crises Group, I've filled out volunteer forms for the Animal Rescue League of Boston and have started raising money for various charities on my Facebook page through SocialVibe and yet, when you spend all day researching and discussing these organizations, it feels like it's just not nearly enough. 

With all of this research and theory in place, I am anxiously anticipating feedback from the non-profit world.  Applying the theoretical in a practical manner for the first time and seeing the results is always exciting.  It reminds me of when I used my French for the very first time in a department store in Paris, after studying the language in a classroom for nine years, and being utterly shocked that it actually worked in the "real world".  It was such a high.  Hopefully, I, along with the CoreWeb team, will experience this same excitement as we put our theory to the test and start to build a vibrant community of cause-related organizations that we have begun to care deeply about.