Op-ed in Mass High Tech about ResourceMatcher.org

Gavin Murphy (of Annkissam) and I have been talking about the implementation of an idea that has been floating around the philanthropic community for a while, which is leveraging the web to create kind of a match making service where grass roots community projects who need people, equipment, expertise or money can be matched up with individuals and organizations who have indicated their willingness to offer those.

We recently were asked by Mass High Tech if we wanted to write an op-ed about the project, and it just came out today. The purpose of the article as much as anything is to find out if there is interest and support for doing such a project. Here's the last paragraph of the article:

"Does [resourcematcher.org] make sense to you? We are looking for partners who believe in the potential of this idea and are interested in working with us to make it a reality. If your organization would like to discuss ways in which to partner with us, please get in touch." (from Mass High Tech)

Separately, I also participated in a podcast where I described more details about the history and background of the project. You can find it at Blog Talk Radio, on the Social Actions section.

If you are interested in knowing more, or better still, helping us get this off the ground, please, get in touch or post a comment!

Comments

[Andy Dennie]

Hi Pito. This idea seems very natural - simply one more example of a web site facilitating connections between parties. I don't know if it would be interesting to you as a use case, but you may want to talk to somebody at Hospitality Homes. If you're not familiar with them, they help connect families and friends of patients seeking care at Boston-area medical centers with people who have a spare room in their homes and are willing to be hosts to them during their stay. They've been doing this for 25 years, and have provided over 146,000 guest nights to over 12,000 families, via over 600 host families, so I think they could represent a useful real-world, proven, successful example of this kind of resource matching service (even though they happen to have a very low-tech approach). Perhaps you could even partner with them and do a proof of concept implementation for that specific niche?

[Pito Salas]

Andy, thanks for the comment! do you know people at Hospitality homes that are in a position to evaluate this and that you could introduce me to?

[Andy Denie]

Actually, it's been about 5 years since I was an active "host" for them, so my connections are a bit stale. It's a tiny organization, though (administratively), so if you just go to http://hosp.org/staff.htm, you could probably get connected to the right person very quickly.