Inspiration
We were inspired to build Notice volunteer when we realized how difficult it was for smaller service organizations to recruit volunteers, and for those volunteers to find opportunities that interest them. We are aiming this app towards a high school/college student demographic. There are some websites that provide a similar service, however Notice Volunteer's mobile app form makes the task of signing up for a volunteer opportunity faster, easier to find and use. We also wanted to build a platform that recommends tasks based on location. This builds a sense of intimacy between our users and their local communities. Since our app is meant for students, recommending tasks nearby could also be more convenient for them.
What it does
Notice simply and efficiently meets these organizations’ volunteer and donation scouting needs. Notice builds a culture of service by matching volunteers’ skills, time, and contributions to causes that they are passionate about. Notice helps volunteers find service opportunities and service organizations be noticed. Most importantly, Notice Volunteer gives young people the chance to explore and experience different areas of service and work, which our team knows will benefit them in the years to come.
How we built it
We build this app using React Native for frontend, Node.js and Postman for backend, and SQLite as our database.
Challenges we ran into
As Manasa, our primary developer, is completely self-taught, it was difficult for her to figure her way through such a meaty app. She had some difficulty finding the perfect resources to help put this together, However, we are incredibly proud of our progress so far with the app itself. As a team, we have also found it difficult to keep up with the production schedule we've planned out for this app since we are all still students trying to keep up with school work.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We have already started reaching out and meeting with different organizations who may be fitting customers for our app, and every one of them loved our work and agreed to give it a try upon deployment. This project started 8 months ago, with Manasa alone. Since then, our team has grown to four people, all who are passionate about putting out a great product!
What we learned
We learned that building an app of this scale is much more than just coding. We learned how to deal with customers, working with each other's schedules, and just how to turn a project like this into a fun bonding experience.
What's next for Notice Volunteer
Notice hopes to deploy at the end of May. After that we are hoping to enhance our current and add more features to the app based on customer feedback and activity. Some features are: 1. A Drafts Section for organizations, 2. A Volunteer hour tracking feature, 3. Making Event posting more efficient
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