Impact Highlight: How Our Volunteer-Matching Platform is created by Skilled-Volunteers

The Challenge: Time Auction needed to build a new website, but doesn’t have the budget for UX/UI design, graphic design and copywriting, which are essential components for web development.

The Outcome: 3 skilled volunteers dedicated dozens of hours to create graphics, content and designs for over 60 webpages, delivering a user-friendly brand website and volunteer-matching platform for Time Auction’s new program.

The Challenge

“OK, there is no way we can do this on our own.”

That was our first thought when we realized, in order to launch a new website for our new skilled-volunteer matching program, we needed A LOT more functions and A LOT more features than we first anticipated.

There were aspects of the user journey that we needed to consider too. How do we ensure that each step was easy for users to understand? How can we maintain the Time Auction brand while doing that? What information do users need during specific steps? Are there better ways of communicating that? The list goes on.

Though we had donors who funded our web development, we didn’t have much left for the other components (UX/UI design, graphic design and content!) which were just as important.

When it comes to doing new things, our usual approach is to Google the how-to, and do it on our own. But with the tight deadline to start web development, it just seemed way too far-fetched to do it ourselves this time.

So we turned to our community to recruit volunteers with the skills we needed. Thankfully, through the community we grew throughout the years, we easily found some talented individuals willing to help!

The Volunteers

Sally — The UX/UI Designer who created 65 web page designs for our new website!

Sally is a UX designer with a background in landscape architecture. She’s really passionate about connecting her knowledge in both the physical and digital world to craft impactful user experiences.

After interviewing Sally and reviewing her portfolio, we immediately fell in love with her approach and style, then proceeded to invite her to our project. With our UX chart and design mood board in hand, Sally volunteered 60 hours in 2 months to: understand the various users’ needs, brainstorm the new UX/UI flow, design a new color theme for the website, and create the UI design for over 65 webpages for our new platform.

The result is a user-friendly website (that has just recently launched) where nonprofits can post skilled-volunteer projects, that volunteers can directly apply to based on their interests and skills. Sally’s expertise and insights in UX/UI design made a critical difference to our new platform, and it couldn’t have been possible without her mastermind and hard work!

“I had a wonderful experience volunteering as a UX/UI designer at Time Auction and working with the founding team. It was awesome that I got to help out with a charity and build on my creative skill set at the same time!” — Sally Li, UX/UI Designer

Nicole — The Graphic Designer who created all the graphics for our website!

Nicole is a Community Lead at a co-working space and is a passionate Graphic Designer and Illustrator. She learned that Time Auction needed a graphic designer from our newsletter and reached out. We loved her design style and were thrilled that she was interested to help!

After sharing our moodboard and branding guidelines, Nicole volunteered over 15 hours in 2 months, creating design drafts and iterating based on our feedback from our weekly Zoom calls.

The result is 12 beautiful graphics that complement the color theme and personality of our brand, while clearly communicating important information about our website’s various features and functions.

“I love illustrating and creating, being able to contribute to a good cause like Time Auction with my skills makes it more meaningful.” — Nicole Law, Designer

Kristeen — The Copywriter who reviewed all our content!

Kristeen is a Content Marketing Executive at an agency. She has been a frequent volunteer at Time Auction, contributing to review key pieces of written content and communication since 2017. She was more than thrilled to help us out once again when she heard we needed help!

Sifting through all the new website pages, Kristeen spent more than 15 hours in 2 months to review and edit all the written content — making sure that all the text was consistent, matched our brand personality and allowed users to understand what we needed them to do.

“It’s amazing being able to use my copywriting skills and marketing knowledge for such a great cause. Tapping into my strengths while volunteering really makes me feel the impact of my work.” — Kristeen Romero, Copywriter

The Outcome

The dedication and hard work of these kind-hearted people have contributed immensely to our new program and technology platform. In our one-month soft launch, we have already matched 133 volunteers to 54 positions, and onboarded 63 nonprofits and social enterprises on our platform.

The difference they made will impact our program for years to come, connecting many nonprofits and volunteers with the skill sets they need.

Get Involved

Want to help more nonprofits where you are needed most? Discover projects that match your interests, skills and capacity at timeauction.org/projects.

If you’re a nonprofit/charity/social enterprise looking for skilled volunteers, sign up as an Organization at timeauction.org/how_it_works.

About Time Auction

Time Auction is a charity that advocates volunteerism. We encourage volunteering with inspiring experiences, while connecting skilled-volunteers with NGOs.

All donations are tax-deductible as Time Auction is a Hong Kong registered charity with reference number 91/15276. Donate to support our cause here.