Within the recent outline of economic crisis, overall coordination, efficiency and reliability of social institutions becomes a pressing goal as the number of people in need of help (from homeless assistance to medical or educational aid) boosts to unprecedented values.

Facing this issue, the “V Spot” project proposes to understand the flow of limited and scarce resources involved in the path to social well-being and, through a dynamic, original and free online platform, contribute to a more efficient allocation of such valuable assets.

Indeed, with the enlargement of its sphere of action, it is crucial that each social institution is coordinated in a way that all social projects are delivered consistently and without wasting resources.

To lead to this will be the role of the virtual platform we aim to create – V spot.

By increasing overall efficiency, the project would have a strong positive social impact, as it involves a considerable change in the way social institutions function between each other. Although difficult to measure, this fact may become clear as the number of people without assistance decreases and the productivity of the institutions increases.

In this context, some of the most relevant KPI’s may be:

- Number of people affected already receiving help, per area of social action

- Number of people affected lacking help, per area of social action

- Number of volunteers registered

- Number of Institutions registered

- Number of “likes” on Facebook

- % Volunteer/Institution Satisfaction

- % Increase in action-scope of institutions registered

- Value of Volunteer work (average)

- Value of donations

- Number of Sponsor/Partnerships

V Spot is a non-profit collaboration site that offers a set of components and services which enable users to communicate, share information, and work together to achieve their common goals, providing social value more efficiently.

In fact, by connecting each institution’s monthly plans and long term strategies in a large interactive map of Lisbon, V Spot creates great value as it facilitates and streamlines the interactions between these different groups. The map will show the areas and schedules of incidence correspondent to each institution registered in the site so that overlaps and shortages are avoided.

At this point, it is also important to clarify and distinct the business model for both targets of the project: Volunteers (Individual and Corporate) and Institutions.

V Spot proposes to reach and captivate the different social organizations not only through word-to-mouth, but also by making free presentations of the project initiative and concept within the actual institutions of Lisbon (at request). Once appealed to, the interested organization will easily register to the website.

The Individual Volunteers may simply register online and choose the option of either working regularly or occasionally, to a specific organization or to the one in most need of volunteers that particular month. Another valuable service would be for V Spot to provide the link between any companies interested in doing a regular or occasional social work and the Institutions in greater need of it (e.g. Microsoft employees spend a day refurbishing a school with Just a Change). Indeed, many of the smaller organizations have noble doings but little visibility – this would change with V Spot.

Concerning funding and fees, the website will be fully free of charge although having the option of user donations. Moreover, in order to make the process sustainable, corporate partnerships, sponsorships and occasional online advertising will be attended for.

By bringing institutions and volunteers together, it will be possible to manage and improve the efficient relation among all social institutions existing in Lisbon through flexible and easily customizable network-tools.

Although all of the organizations and volunteers in this context work towards the same goal (hence the commas), the following may be seen as our “competitors”:

Firstly, our direct competition is the Entreajuda association which is a Portuguese private and social institution with a clear job of supporting all other social institutions at a management and organizational level in order to improve their efficiency in helping people in need. However, we dare to think that the organizational problem should be addressed differently. Then, quite recently, there is a new competitor called My social Project, a Facebook application which is only aimed at people that want to do volunteering work. So, despite of being a direct competitor, it fails to address the efficiency issues that our project proposes to.

* No one can do it better. (organization, efficiency of the platform)

* To all of us. (the service will help everyone)

* Just one click. Why not? (fast, practical)

* What you needed but didn’t have until now. (innovation, new)

* Take a look at the Big Picture (clarity, interactive map showing all relevant activities and schedules)

1. Strengths

- The service will improve the efficiency of all social institutions

- User-friendly and clear

- More people and areas of the city will be helped

- Innovative/Dynamic Network

2. Weaknesses

- As it requires a software system, it may be seen by some parties as an obstacle, especially for elderly people and non-technology lovers.

- If our platform does not communicate well the message and the importance of it, it can lose the required interest and attention from the desired institutions.

3. Opportunities

- Company Participation

- Creation of new community projects among different challenges seen in the social area taking advantage of the previous inefficiency problems

- Financial crisis.

4 Threats

- The new competitor My Social Project can enter into our core Business

- Organizations may not want to cooperate since they have to change the place where they are used to operate