The Dating Site That Wants You to Delete Your Account [Q&A]
iHeartVolunteers is a labor of love. Literally and figuratively.
Shelly gets to work in a rare moment of quiet at home
Like most dating sites, iHeartVolunteers aims to help people find love, but this site is for a particular type of seeker - volunteers. The organization (discreetly) vets volunteering experience, to connect people who hold values such as compassion, helping others and community close to their hearts. The setup at iHeartVolunteers is a bit different from your typical startup. Co-founders Shelly and Chris Zenner have two young girls, and Chris works full-time at a local Veterans Affairs Clinic - so the budding organization is run largely early in the morning, during naptime and in the evenings.
So, why do the Zenners want you to delete your account? Shelly explains below in this week’s 10 Good Questions.
1. What is your organization’s mission?
People who volunteer share interests and core values such as compassion, a sense of adventure, flexibility and most importantly the desire to help improve the lives of people and the communities in which they live. iHeartVolunteers is an exclusive dating service to help these people connect.
2. What makes you guys different from the rest?
Our dating site is for volunteers, we discretely verify our members volunteer service, we encourage our members to continue volunteering, we help promote nonprofit organizations and we give back 10% of our profits to our members' volunteer organizations. What makes us most unique is that we are one of the only niche dating sites that verifies the niche.
3. What three words describe your organization?
Connecting, Volunteerism, Changemakers.
Co-founder Chris Zenner volunteering for Habitat for Humanity
4. What inspires you?
The opportunity to help bring good doers together and hearing success stories from our members.
5. Who's your favorite good doer figure?
Martin Luther King, Jr.
6. What is the best part about your job?
Collaborating with individuals from nonprofits and seeing all of the impressive people signing up for our site.
7. How do you measure success within your organization?
This may sound strange, but we want our members to delete their accounts. We measure success by the number of deleted users who say, "I'm in a relationship with someone from the iHeartVolunteers community.” We also measure success by the amount of resources we can give back in order to help improve communities around the world.
A "deleted user" notification from a member who is getting married to another iHeartVolunteers member. They're getting married on Valentines Day 2016 in Dallas, TX.
8. Facebook or Twitter?
Both, but with a slight lean towards Twitter.
9. What do you want Goodnet users to know about your organization?
Although our vision is to become the leader in connecting volunteer couples around the world, our personal/company goal is to give back in a BIG way. By supporting nonprofits, bringing good people together and contributing financially to our members volunteer organizations.
10. How can people get involved?
For single volunteers we're currently offering a free three-month subscription. All they have to do is sign up on iHeartVolunteers and try it out for free! We're also interested in hearing from nonprofit professionals to see how we can collaborate. We are finding that there are a lot of opportunities to help each other out!
