Community

People are volunteering in record numbers in the face of COVID-19

Alfred I. Johnson is Co-founder and CEO of Mobilize, the events management and volunteer recruitment platform that connects mission-driven organizations and their supporters. Prior to Mobilize, Alfred was Head of Sales & People at Clara Lending, a venture-backed technology company later acquired by SoFi. From 2009-2012, Alfred served in the Obama Administration as Special Assistant to the White House Chief of Staff, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets at the US Treasury Department, and Special Assistant on the Treasury's Financial Crisis Response Team. Alfred began his career as a Regional Field Director for Barack Obama in 2008. He holds a B.A. from Stanford University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Alfred Johnson 2

Alfred Johnson 2

2 Min Read

COVID has changed every aspect of our lives. People have lost their jobs by the millions and the structure of our society has been fundamentally altered. The acute threat of a virus has forced us to physically separate, but it has also contributed to a surge in volunteer activity. People want to make a difference — they want to help each other in this moment of need.

At Mobilize, we’ve seen almost a 4x increase in volunteering since March. Our platform is used by mission-driven organization to connect and engage their supporters.

We’ve also seen a surge of interest among volunteers to directly assist organizations on the front-lines of COVID relief. To meet this need, we launched www.volunteerfromyourcouch.com — a website that specifically curates events from organizations doing critical work to support vulnerable communities through this time (See FastCompany).

So far this year, volunteers have signed up for nearly 6 million actions using Mobilize. While these volunteers have contributed enormous value to the organizations they support, they’ve benefited too. A 2012 study in the journal Health Psychology found that regular volunteer work correlated with living longer!

You can signup to help thousands of organizations by visiting mobilize.us. If you operate an organization and want to join our network, get started today.