Do Good

What's stopping you from doing good?

Have you ever thought about volunteering but never gotten around to it? You're not alone. While 70% of Singaporeans express a desire to volunteer when possible, only 30% were actively doing so as of 2023. This falls significantly short of our national goal of having 70% of citizens volunteer regularly.

Volunteering motivations and barriers

Volunteering is generally understood as a form of action that benefits the self, community and society. As such, the gap between intentions and taking action to volunteer is an issue our team wanted to understand further.

A study conducted by Singapore Management University (SMU) and National Council of Social Services (NCSS) found that the top 3 motivations for volunteering are:

1. The desire to improve things and help people
2. Supporting a cause / belief that they stand for
3. Making a difference

In a 2023 speech by PM Lawrence Wong on volunteering, the top 3 barriers of volunteering are:

1. Lack of time
2. Unable to find appealing opportunities
3. Misaligned expectations and unable to make a difference

“Some say they have yet to find the right organisations and volunteer opportunities which appeal to them. Many say they do not have enough time...they worry about how they can juggle volunteer commitments together with their family and work obligations.

And then a few do say, when they volunteer, they find that the experience falls short of their expectations...they find it difficult to see how their volunteering work helps to make a difference. So they end up feeling discouraged, and they give up.”

- PM Lawrence Wong

Objectives and product goals

Vision

Motivate community problem solvers to take action by helping them to find & connect problems with solutions on a safe & constructive platform.

Product goals

1. Improve quality of problem statement submissions, thereby providing clearer context for interested volunteers to act and solve problems

2. Encourage greater interest in volunteering by expanding different forms of giving such as advocacy (submitting problem statements), mentoring, subject matter expertise, building new projects / solutions etc

3. Build a community that is passionate about solving real problems and creating real impact

User personas

There are 3 groups of people that are likely to benefit from using our platform:

Our Research and approach

Step 1: Validating assumptions

Each team member has personal interest in volunteering and contributed in various capacities, and it would have been a lot easier to jump straight into building solutions based on our lived experiences.

Instead, we focused on conducting user interviews to validate our key assumptions with 7 individuals that belong to two different categories:

• People who are interested in volunteering and volunteer regularly

• People who are interested in volunteering but have yet to start volunteering
  

Step 2: User testing

We built two different webflows that focused on discovering and understanding problems in Singapore versus exploring tech for good opportunities. This was to determine if more people would be motivated to take action by learning more about problems, or about existing solutions available.

Through user testing, we learned that both flows had their advantages and integrating both flows onto a single site would better motivate people to take action.

• Problem statements - providing more context and data can help in validating assumptions and understanding the scale of each problem

• Solutions - connecting them back to the problem statements facilitate better understanding of the solution's impact

Step 3: Building and iterating

Tech Stack

Refining and consolidating problem statements

We have sourced ~1,600 problem statements from both public and government hackathons. Many of these problem statements are difficult to understand due to various reasons such as a lack of structure, being too vague and general etc. Without clear, specific problem statements, it is hard for people to understand the painpoints and issues, and be motivated to take action.

We use GPT 4o-mini to clarify and shape the problem statements into a clear and consistent format with a summary, context, categories, and suggested solutions.

We use vector embedding and cosine similarity to compare and consolidate statements that describe the same underlying problem.

After merging problem statements that are very similar and belong to the same category, we now have around 380 public problem statements made available for public viewing.

Our solution: Do Good

Public problem statement bank

Browse through the largest public problem statement bank sourced from citizen and government problem statement submissions with context and data provided. You are also welcome to advocate and submit problem statements that matter to you.

Discovering solutions for good

For each problem statement, find existing solutions and opportunities available to contribute. Each solution includes mentions of the skills required and time commitment to volunteer at your own pace.

Connecting with changemakers

Join a team, consult a mentor or speak to an expert.

Next steps and future vision

Product roadmap

End state

Do Good to become a catalyst for a better Singapore, where people who care about specific issues can easily learn more about how they can contribute in solving them with others.

Team members