B2B stands for Business to Business. A B2B business specialises in dealing with business dealing with customers, not with customers directly.
In a recent post Siegfried asked how can we be sure the OVO is genuine. How do we know that the community is genuine?
My answer to that would be to position the OVO as a B2B, linking established and well known organisations to recognized communities.
For instance, last week, I was contacted by a friend working at the Bangkok Refugee Centre (BRC). She asked me to design a School Health programme for the refugee's children and to organise a training session for the teachers. In this situation, the BRC is run by the UNHCR, and the community of refugees is recognized as genuine.
As a volunteer I acted as a B2B would have. I provided a (free) service to a company that serves a community in need. Hence the "genuine" aspect was not an issue.
This may exclude some communities, but I don't think many will be excluded as there are many way for a community and its problems to be recognised. Also many are already working with recognized organisations.
If I follow this reasoning, the OVO would not work for the community but for an organisation who work for a community. We are closer here to the Idealist.org model.
As much as I enjoy Idealist.org, I found it too difficult to access both for the community and for the volunteers. Also most of the volunteering is not Online. But an OVO built on this model is possible.
~R