A new local start-up, Flash Volunteer, is on a quest to connect “Seattle-area residents to volunteer opportunities, volunteers to neighborhoods, and nonprofits to volunteers,” through a web-based social networking tool.

Founder and Executive Director Brad Wilke said the project is “focused on increasing volunteerism here in Seattle.”‘

Interested? Here’s how it works: Volunteers register with the site based on the neighborhood they live and/or work in, then Flash Volunteer “pushes” relevant opportunities to the participant’s personal homepage – providing what Brad describes as “a personal volunteer management tool with a hyperlocal focus that promotes sustained user involvement in their community.”

Brad writes,

We provide online management tools for neighborhood-focused volunteer opportunities, empowering Seattleites to participate more fully in regular, sustainable volunteer service. We are an all-volunteer organization that has bootstrapped the site to the point where it is now…

Upon signing up for an event, Flash Volunteer creates a social network for participants, allowing them to interact with the event manager and connect with other participants. Following the event, participants are able to post pictures and add other volunteers to their “Flash Team”, encouraging participation at future events and helping create stronger off-line communities, neighborhood by neighborhood.

Flash Volunteer is a low-cost, high-impact platform for community engagement that is currently building a model for cities around the country to replicate and expand upon. Eventually, we hope to provide each citizen the tools they need to build stronger neighborhoods and improve their quality of life through regular community service.

Brad also said that the organization, although just getting started, has big plans and will be using new media technology as a launching pad. In September Flash Volunteer will be releasing an iPhone application, “which will provide a real-time snapshot of volunteer opportunities based on the user’s GPS location, allowing for drop-in attendance at events like park clean-ups and other group activities,” he said.

I went to the Queen Anne page and so far there are five registered volunteers, myself included. Our sister site, My Ballard, has reported that volunteers are beginning to join on their page as well. Given the rise in community-based organizations that provide hyperlocal services, this site might just take off.