Today marks the first day of National Volunteer Week 2021. This year’s theme is “Recognise, Connect and Reimagine.”

In line with theme, we have some very exciting news to share with you:

To get to this point we have recognised, connected and reimagined. We would like to take the opportunity to share with you what those words mean to us.

Recognise

We would like to acknowledge and recognise everyone who has got us to this point. Collaborate has been created for the community by the community, so we would like to mihi each and every one of you!

There are a few people and organisations we would like to specifically recognise today.

First, our hapori of volunteers and community organisations, there are over 3000 of you! Your mahi and feedback, has helped up shape Collaborate and brought on the exciting changes you will see in the new Collaborate today. As a volunteer-run team ourselves, hearing about the work you do, the commitment and aroha you give, and the change you bring about in your community is our inspiration. We hope you keep sharing these stories with us.

We would like to recognise and thank those who have helped us with the rebuild

A massive thank you to all of the organisations who have kindly donated to help fund the rebuild of this platform: Wellington City Council, Ballantynes, Tait Communications.

Thank you too, to Alex, Tom and the rest of the crew at wonderful new development team Xequals. You have gone above and beyond for us. Thank you for all of the time and aroha you have put into the new Collaborate. Thank you for making sure our communities voices were heard and helping this become a reality.

We would like to recognise and thank those who have helped us get to this point

In this time of transition, we would like to also acknowledge our old development firm Springload. You may or not know, that when we first released Collaborate, 14 of Springload’s staff volunteered their time across a long weekend and built, maintained and hosted the old platform all for free. We cannot thank you enough for everything you have done for us Springload. Our hapori would not be here without you. Ngā mihi nui.

We also would like to take a moment to recognise the Collaborate team (current & past). Over the years we have had over 20 volunteer team members at Collaborate. Each and every one of them has contributed massively to our kaupapa, purpose and where we are today. Across the time that Collaborate has developed we have seen our team members grow, graduate, get married, have babies, move to the other side of the world, start their own community organisations and businesses, give back to their community in so many different ways and much, much more. Thank you for being part of our journey. Ngā mihi Holly, Sophie, Ceara, Fathin, Camille, Alex, Sophie, Ash, Abbey, Nat, Rachel, Uli, Matt, Jaid, Mo, Alina, Sandy, Chantelle, Jaemen, Tyler, Verity, Olivia, Sam, Sophie, Grace & Poppy.

Connection

Connection is at the heart of what we do at Collaborate. When you break everything down, the app is just a platform to facilitate the amazing mahi volunteers and community organisations do every day.

Connection has also been a massive focus for our relaunch. Through our ongoing co-design process, we heard there were still a number of barriers to connecting: having to login through Facebook, pesky emails going into spam and organisations not being able to have their own accounts to name a few. So, we removed these barriers; making it easier for people to connect.

Reimagine

And this leaves us with reimagine. Thanks to your feedback, the Collaborate app has been reimagined. We have heard you: the positives and the things that have needed to tweak. We have listened to your wants and needs and have thought about what we can do to facilitate this.

There are some pretty big changes for both volunteers and organisations.