ChristianVolunteering.org, the largest Christian online volunteer matching website, has shown a 300 percent increase in traffic in 2009 from a year ago. As people have difficulty finding a job, many of them are turning to volunteering to keep themselves busy. Other groups are showing similar growth: applications to AmeriCorps, a national service group, have tripled since last year; twice as many people participated in January's Martin Luther King Day of Service; and significant growth is expected for National Volunteer week, April 19-25th.
Andrew Sears, Executive Director of TechMission, the nonprofit that runs ChristianVolunteering.org, says, "Bad times make good neighbors. In these tough times, many Christians are following the call of Jesus to love their neighbor." ChristianVolunteering.org is free and works in a similar way to job matching sites like Monster.com except matching volunteers to volunteer opportunities.
TechMission websites have served over 650,000 unique visitors in 2009, and they expect to match over 10,000 volunteers this year, according to a press release. Last March, TechMission started a group on Facebook called the One Body of Christ Experiment, in an effort to bring together Christians and to get them serving their communities. Only a year later, the group is now one of the largest Christian groups on Facebook with over 846,000 members.
Other Christian organizations are also joining the drive to help others during hard economic times. A recent partnership with BibleGateway.com and ChristianVolunteering.org will place thousands of volunteers serving the poor this year. ChristianVolunteering.org's other partners serve over 35 million low-income individuals each year and include the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions, World Vision, Mission America, Christian Community Development Association, Here's Life Inner City (Campus Crusade), Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and YouthPartnersNet (formerly Compassion USA).
(from FotF's Pastor's Weekly Briefing)
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