Are we all dating sites at heart?

A panel I moderated yesterday at this week’s Aging in America Conference included the unstoppable Mary Furlong (whose own What’s Next Boomer Summit is held this Friday in Chicago) and Sarah Christian, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Volunteer Match.

Sarah has helped rebuild Volunteer Match’s website and business to serve volunteers 50+, 75% of whom are women.

Sarah described the challenges of training non-profits to present their volunteer needs in a way that appeal to volunteers, including the 20% of her site’s users (or 700,000 active volunteers!) who are women 50+. She said that some non-profits think it’s enough to say “Volunteers Wanted” without recognizing that volunteers (and especially Vibrant Woman volunteers) don’t just want to “volunteer” in a generic way; they want to connect with non-profits that speak to them in a personal way.

Something Sarah said reminded me of a presentation I once heard from the writer Dan Heath, who described how most users of dating sites often failed to recognize that when they introduced themselves to strangers they needed to single out something unique and different for women (or men) to connect with. Heath made fun of the thousands of Match.com descriptions with headers no more specific than “Hi.”

“Volunteers Wanted.”

“Hi.”

Something clicked, and I realized that VolunteerMatch.org may not be so different from Match.com.

Then I realized that maybe none of us is so different from Match.com.

What do we know that users of VibrantNation.com seek online? They seek a connection to other women like them, women who they know share their interests, passions and needs. And what do users of VolunteerMatch.com seek online? They seek a non-profit that resonates with their interests, passions and needs. Finally, what do users of Match.com seek? They seek potential partners who share their interests, passions and needs.

We are all Match.com, or should be.

We know that women, and Vibrant Women in particular, value connectedness above almost all other benefits. But how often do we remember it as we are trying to make that connection with her ourselves? How often do we remember to make ourselves, our non-profit, our website, or our brand, stand out in this way?

Not often enough.

Maybe the reason popular dating sites (and if you’re interested, the two sites we know Vibrant Women like most are eHarmony.com and Match.com, for different reasons) do well is that they boil their business down to the basics of all human desire and need: the desire to connect with someone who explains why that connection is worth making, and the need for the feeling (however you want to describe it) that results.