Jacob Colker

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2009

Jacob Colker

The Extraordinaries

San Francisco, California , United States

Education & Youth Leadership

The Bold Idea:

The Bold Idea: Revolutionize how community organizations utilize volunteer resources and engage a new generation of volunteers through meaningful “micro volunteer” opportunities by leveraging the latest technological advancements, such as smartphones.

The Millennial generation in the United States is over 75 million strong. In multiple studies, this generation has indicated a strong interest in community service, revealing a significant pool of potential volunteer talent. However, a 2005 Department of Labor study found that 73 percent of Americans do not volunteer, nearly half indicating they do not volunteer because they do not have time.

The Extraordinaries team will work with scientists, doctors, journalists, nonprofits, associations, community organizations, and government agencies to design volunteer opportunities, breaking complex projects into small tasks that can be accomplished by a large number of people in a small amount of time. They then create a software tool that enables volunteers to complete specific tasks using smart phones and work with their clients to market the opportunities and recruit volunteers.

Biography:

An experienced campaign operative and technologist, Jacob Colker has spent his career managing volunteers and driving change. Jacob was one of the first field directors in the country to use Facebook to recruit volunteers and win a statewide election in 2006. Globally, Jacob managed volunteer-driven advocacy campaigns for The International Campaign for Tibet, coordinating with teams in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Mexico, and Australia.

Moment of Obligation: What experiences led to the desire to start your own organization?
I've spent my life managing advocacy campaigns and volunteer programs. I've seen first hand the struggles that people go through to find time in their lives to do social good, and I myself have been quite frustrated with the inefficiencies of current engagement practices. Tired of standing by the way side and looking the other way at all the missed opportunities, I decided to do something about it. So I started experimenting with social media as a tool for engaging volunteers. In 2006, I was the first field director in the country to use Facebook to recruit volunteers for a successful statewide election (Peter Franchot, Comptroller of Maryland). Over the following years, I refined my approach and constantly experimented with new technologies. It was when I met my business partner and Extraordinaries Co-Founder Ben Rigby, that things really took off. Ben is an expert in mobile technology, and had successfully registered thousands of young people to vote in 2006 using text messages. With Ben's background in mobile, and my background in community engagement, The Extraordinaries was born.

Gall to Think Big: What has given you the ability to dream big and take on deeply entrenched social and difficult problems? (Such as experiences, skills, events, etc.)
I consider myself lucky to have two incredibly inspiring parents. My mom grew up in Communist Poland and spent ten years trying to escape -- finally securing her freedom by paying off a doctor to invent a kidney disease in order to come to U.S. for treatment. When she arrived in Chicago she didn't speak English. For many years she struggled with language, gender, and citizenship barriers. Working two to three minimum wage jobs, saving penny by penny, she pulled herself out of poverty for the second time in her life, and started a business. My dad is a social change agent in his own right, working with disadvantaged youth, organizations, community development initiatives, and more. He has always been very active in the community. My parents have never let me forget where our family came from, and I attribute much of my passion and drive to the values they have passed onto me.

New and Untested: What's innovative about your new idea for social change?
While crowdsourcing has been used for corporations to develop products, no one has used this approach in the context of mainstream volunteering. Our challenge is to change the old thinking about what a volunteer experience should be. In the rat race of sixty-hour workweeks, errands, kids, and more, most busy people don’t have time to engage in traditional volunteering. We can help! Extraordinary social good *can* occur through micro-parsed utilization of a population's spare human energy. Smartphone technology can drastically improve efficiency of volunteering – we just have to start thinking differently about how people utilize their spare time and skills for social good. Our approach is simple, elegantly done, and unique. No other organization has found a comparable way to reduce the time cost, broaden access to opportunities, and use smartphones to facilitate the process. We feel that a task must be "do-able" in several minutes. It must fit in the daily schedule of a busy person without much hassle. And ideally, a person can access those tasks on-demand, at anytime, from anywhere.

Seeing Possibilities: What are the most important qualities to be a successful social entrepreneur?

• Sense of humor
• Patience
• Confidence
• Flexibility
• Adaptability

Which musical artists/albums get you going and keep you inspired?
When I've have had a fifteen-hour day and need to find the strength for a few more hours, I listen to Linkin' Park for energy. When I'm feeling inspired, I'll listen to Thomas Newman (the film score composer), his stuff makes you want to change the world. And when I'm crunching on deadlines, it's usually my home town Chicago Blues, or good ole' rock and roll.

What books do you recommend (pleasure, work and anything in between)?

• Crowdsourcing -- Jeff Howe
• Here Comes Everybody -- Clay Shirky
• The Tipping Point -- Malcolm Gladwell
• The Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Law -- Bagley and Dauchy
• Creating a World Without Poverty -- Dr. Mohammed Yunus
• Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines -- The Onion

Which websites do you visit often (work and/or personal)?

• news.google.com
• twitter.com
• facebook.com
• theonion.com

What advice or quote do you keep close to your heart as a social change leader?
"Few will have the greatness to bend history alone; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all these acts will be written the history of a generation..." – R.F. Kennedy, 1966, Cape Town, South Africa.