New volunteer app for Orange

Apple sparks outrage over app to 'cure' homosexuality

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published 4 April 2011

Giving back made easy with Orange's new volunteer app

Orange has contined its commitment to volunteering in the UK by launching a new mobile app, in collaboration with twelve charities, which allows people to volunteer for good causes by using their mobile phone.

The ‘Do Some Good’ app, which is the first of its kind in the UK, includes twelve different charity actions that can take as little as five minutes to complete, allowing people to do a good deed in a matter of minutes.

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In our time pressured society many people often can't fit volunteering into their busy schedules. But now, people can give back at a time and place that suits them.

So if you’re waiting for the kettle to boil or standing at the bus stop, you can now put those wasted minutes to good use, by uploading a photo of a rundown green space for the Guerrilla Gardeners to consider renovating, or even by completing a questionnaire for the Samaritans.

In the last twelve months, 67% of people donated money to charity, but less than a quarter actually gave up their time.

Research undertaken last year by Orange, revealed that 25 per cent of people would give 5 minutes of their time to a good cause every day if they could do it via their phone.

This clever app intends to transform the way people give time to charitable causes, and is likely to change the face of volunteering in the UK.

‘The potential for this app is huge,’ said CEO at Everything Everywhere, Tom Alexander. 'If one million people give just five minutes of their time, it will amount to nearly a decade worth of volunteering time.'

PM David Cameron agrees: 'Do Some Good” is a great way of tapping into this huge pool of untapped volunteering energy.'

And if you needed an added incentive to take part, Orange is making those who complete 60 separate actions (that’s a total of 4 hours volunteering) eligible for music rewards from the Orange RockCorps Collective, including free gig tickets.

The revolutionary app is currently only available for the iPhone – it can be downloaded for free via the Apple app store – but it will launch on Blackberry, Nokia and Android phones over the summer.

In the meantime the Orange website offers other ways to take part, including real life volunteering opportunities.

Would you like to volunteer? Have you downloaded the app and 'given back' already? Let us know in the comments box below.

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Natalia is a health journalist with 14 years experience in the publishing industry. She has worked for a number of well known magazines and websites including Marie Claire, Woman&Home, Top Sante, Boots and The Telegraph. She likes to think she practices what she preaches when it comes to health and fitness. Her athletic prowess began early. A keen fencer for 13 years, she wielded an epée for Olympic Team GB during her teenage years. She likes to think she made sword-fighting cool before Game of Thrones came along! While working on her sporting performance with the team, she also participated in a lot of nutrition and psychology training, When it comes to time off, you’ll most likely find her up a mountain somewhere. It seems holidays have become a time for climbing several thousand feet, rather than chilling out. She’s now hiked eight of the major mountain ranges across four continents – including the Appalachians, the Smokies, the Sierra Nevadas (she spent her honeymoon hiking to the top of Half Dome), as well as hitting the summits of Snowdon, Pen-Y-Fan (Brecon Beacons), Table Mountain in South Africa, the Blue Mountains in Australia and the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. She’s also passionate about all things health, particularly vaccinations, and will happily jump on her soap box at any given opportunity to talk about their benefits to anyone who will listen!

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