It’s time we replaced our decrepit infrastructure with intelligent systems built for real-world impact.

In the early 2000s, when search engines were still finding their footing, there was DMOZ — the Open Directory Project — a lovingly hand-curated index of websites maintained by volunteer editors. At the time, it made sense. Search was primitive. The internet was small. But we all know how that ended. Google and other intelligent systems made DMOZ obsolete because the world had outgrown it.

So why, in 2025, are we still relying on DMOZ-era thinking when it comes to volunteering?

For years, the U.S. government — mostly through programs like AmeriCorps — has funded a patchwork of "volunteer centers" and digital directories that now resemble the web's earliest mistakes. These legacy platforms still operate like digital classifieds, not intelligent systems. They're doomed to be outdated and far from comprehensive. They burden both the nonprofits and potential volunteers. 

We don’t search the internet with directories anymore. We don’t open the TV Guide to see what’s on television or order goods from the Sears Catalog. So why do we expect volunteers to navigate the equivalent of both?

Directory Decay: A Quantitative Wake-Up Call

Let’s put this in numbers. When Samaritan Scout indexed opportunities in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, VolunteerMatch (which ‘powers’ Americorps and was recently folded into Idealist) listed only 10. We surfaced over 80, many from small, impactful organizations that had no time or capacity to manage third-party listings.

In Summit, New Jersey, VolunteerMatch/Idealist listed 0 opportunities in town and only 4 more in the surrounding area. Samaritan Scout, on the other hand, uncovered 22 within city limits and 78 within a 4–5 mile radius.

In Madison, Wisconsin, VolunteerMatch/Idealist listed a combined 61 opportunities. Sixteen were irrelevant to local service or not even volunteering. Samaritan Scout found over 200 locally relevant listings — actual, do-something-now roles, updated directly from nonprofit websites.

In Moab, Utah, we found 20 roles. Directory platforms? Just 3.

These are not outlier examples. They’re a systemic failure. And volunteers feel it. They search once, see nothing useful, and give up. Meanwhile, nonprofits silently miss out on skilled hands and open hearts.

Directory Logic Is the Problem — Not the Nonprofits

It’s tempting to blame nonprofit organizations for underwhelming volunteer pages or underused listings. But here’s the truth: most don’t have the time, technical staff, or training to manage a half-dozen login-based volunteer platforms. It is challenging enough -- given limited resources and the general reluctance of funders to support this type of "overhead" and operations -- to define volunteer work and then train and manage them!

Current infrastructure demands that nonprofits:

• Write and format their opportunities

• Learn platform-specific tagging conventions

• Log in regularly to “refresh” stale posts

• Respond to incomplete volunteer interest forms

• Duplicate efforts across multiple platforms

• PAY to achieve ‘featured’ prominent display on ‘search’ results

All while doing their actual work.

What they get in return is often meager: poor-quality traffic, no-shows, and, often, a bill.

A Smarter Way Forward

What we need isn’t just a sleeker website. We need a conceptual overhaul. Volunteering is dynamic, relational, and time-sensitive. We should treat it like what it is: a real-world system requiring modern infrastructure.

That means:

• Web-crawling technology that automatically surfaces current listings from nonprofit sites (like we use at Samaritan Scout)

• Context-aware search that can interpret skillsets, availability, and location

• Elimination of the "middleman login" process that deters both volunteers and organizations

• A mobile-first design that reflects how we access information as teens, young adults, professionals, and active retirees (in short, everyone!)

• AI creation of pithy summaries and metadata to support volunteers in search/filter/discovery, and to save time for nonprofit employees

• Intelligent matching of people to opportunities and organizations

• Community-building and intuitive communication tools

Imagine asking teens to find volunteer gigs by searching a spreadsheet or downloading a PDF. That's what most existing infrastructure amounts to.

What Should Replace the Old Guard?

Think of it like this: If DMOZ was the early web’s answer to “what’s out there,” then Scout is Google. But built for service.

A good infrastructure should:

• Be as invisible as it is powerful

• Respect nonprofit bandwidth

• Respect the intelligence and time of volunteers

• Automate appropriately, intelligently

• Learn and improve as users interact with it

• Provide usable insights (like where volunteers are needed most)

• Be mobile-first and integrate texting!

It should not:

• Require 200+ volunteer centers to manually update listings

• Assume that "one size fits all" when it comes to volunteer roles and community engagement

• Exist purely to satisfy bureaucratic funding cycles or legacy grants

Call to Philanthropy and Government

This is where I want to be clear: nonprofits alone shouldn’t be tasked with solving this. Government, philanthropy, and the tech sector must rethink how they support civic infrastructure.

Spending another $10 million to digitize a filing cabinet is not innovation. It’s nostalgia disguised as strategy.

We've seen major players like Points of Light invest heavily in legacy platforms that show declining engagement year over year. Instead of rewarding friction, we need to fund solutions that meet people where they are and actually work.

The Ask

To policymakers: Rethink how volunteer infrastructure gets funded.

To philanthropy: Fund innovation, not just replication.

To nonprofits: If you're frustrated with volunteers, check your system. At Samaritan Scout, we flipped the model. We crawl your website. No duplicate listings. No extra admin. Just your voice, your way.

To tech builders: Build tools that work for humans, not just administrators.

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Volunteering isn't a static task — it's a relationship, a practice, a culture. It deserves better tools. Let's tear down the directories and rebuild systems that help people connect, act, and serve.