WeCycle - Volunteering Service for Charity

carolina pizatto girardi / sid 1331244
A proposal of a volunteering service
that raises money for charities
PROJECT 1
Innovation in Giving

brieﬁng
Design a product, service or tool that will encourage or enable
people to donate either their money or their time to good causes.
As established by RSA, the competition holder, the following would all
be viable responses:
a tool or system that enables more people to volunteer;
a micro-volunteering service design;
a well-communicated and ingenious way of collecting money;
a service or campaigning system that deploys time, talent and
connections in new ways.

“Service Design helps to innovate (create new) or improve (existing)
services to make them more useful, usable, desirable for clients,
and efficient as well as effective for organisations. It is a new
holistic, multi-discplinary, integrative ﬁeld.” − Stefan Moritz, 2005
The process within Service Design is composed by four steps:
exploration, creation, reﬂection and implementation. This project
considered just exploration and creation. Further development would
be necessary to put the idea in practice.

34 3410
OPEN
9.00 am 9.30 am
5.00 pm
5.30 pm
George works everyday. His routine is the same as many workers in town:
house - work - house. Eventually, George needs to do some shopping or
stop by the pharmacy, changing his schedule. Despite that, he rides to
work everyday. While working, George’s bicycle is locked in the street.
So, why not use it to generate money for charity?
concept

10
OPEN
George’s bicycle can be a proﬁtable
good for someone else while he is not
using it.
Charities are potential cooperators for
this situations as they can not afford the
costs of building bike docking stations.
However, they can provide a safety
environment in which volunteers can
lend their own bikes, and the money
gained from the rental of the bikes goes
straight to the Charity.

weCycle is a volunteering service that gains proﬁt for charity by allowing
people to rent other people’s bicycles while they are not being used.
This project was designed for a small city, cycle based, in which users would
rent bikes to quickly ride around but do not go any further.

The logotype was designed to reﬂect the cycle within the service
provided. Museo typeface had its corners rounded to give the brand a
soft and friendly shape while the color combination set a distinctive
look. Yellow represents conﬁdence and creativity. This color indicates
honor and loyalty as well as evokes pleasant and cheerful feelings. On
the other hand, blue symbolizes trust and efficiency. Strong shades of
blue can stimulate clear thoughts.
In this case, all these features above are important to be considered as
this service deals with people’s connections of trust.

Museo 300
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Museo 300
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
C 02 M 02 Y 55 K 00
R 253 G 238 B 143
C 01 M 01 Y 15 K 00
R 255 G 249 B 221
C 100 M 100 Y 29 K 18
R 41 G 38 B 102
C 35 M 15 Y 03 K 00
R 161 G 192 B 223

34 3410
OPEN
9.00 am 9.30 am
5.00 pm
5.30 pm
4.30 pm
9.30 am
10.00 am 5.00 pm
George locks his bicycle on the
weCycle docking station, rather than
on the pole. At the station, users can
check the availability of each bike.
Claire is visiting town just for a day and wants to do
some sightseeing on a bike. George’s bike is available
for the whole afternoon. Claire pays the hourly fee
with her credit card and borrows George’s bike. The
paid money goes to the Charity’s account.
After riding all day long, Claire returns
George’s bicycle to the same docking
station. George leaves his work, takes
his bicycle and goes home.

Volunteers need ﬁrst to register themselves at the weCycle website. In
this platform, they will be able to insert their details and update their
schedule. Also, the volunteer needs to ﬁll their bicycle details - such as
baskets, mud-guards and select a desirable fee for their bike’s rental.
After registration, each volunteer will receive a “Volunteer Kit” with the
following itens. These encourage volunteers to trust in weCycle service.
a GPS device to be installed in their bicycles;
a bike repair shop voucher;
an insurance card for their bicycles.
to become a volunteer and rent your bicycle
The renting process is easy. Users go to the docking station and check
the availability and prices of the bicycles that are there. Then they select
their bike of preference, pay hourly by credit/debit card, and ride until the
established time. Returns must be done at the same docking station.
to become a bicycle renter

bicycle rentersCUSTOMER
charity organization
sponsor insurance company
sponsor bike repair shop
design team
I.T. team
SERVICE PROVIDER
STAKEHOLDERS
SERVICE DESIGNER
touchpoint: every contact point
between a customer and the service provider
service evidence: a tangible artefact
related to a service process
service period: pre-service /
service / post-service
The following diagram shows who would take part in the proposed project
as well as their responsibilities within the service. Besides the charity and
the service design team, customers will need to be prospected and
stakeholders engaged. Initial ﬁnancial support would be requested.

While registering, each volunteer inserts how much did they pay for their
bicycles. However, this value is repassed to the insurance company. The
tariff is established based on what volunteers desire. There are 3 options of
fees: £2.00, £5.00 and £10.00 and it is up to the volunteer to select how
much he/she wants to charge for his/her bike, and therefore contributes to
charity.
how does the tariff work?
All the payments will be done by credit/debit cards. Therefore, the users
data will be recorded. In case anything happens with the volunteer
bicycle:
1. weCycle can track each bicycle, as all have GPS devices installed;
2. each volunteer gets bicycle insurance.
how to assure bicycle and volunteers safety?

Due to GPS device and bicycle insurance, these situations won’t be a big
deal. Also, weCycle is partnered with a bike repair shop. Furthermore, the
users details has been recorded in weCycle data base and extra charges
will be withdrawn directly from users account.
Obviously, different charges will be applied for late and stolen bicycles.
Costs around £15.00/h to fail returning on time or £150.00 if the bike is
not returned. These prices are still being considered.
However, all the facilities described above were designed speciﬁcally to
assure as fewer losts as possible to the volunteers.
what happen in cases of late, lost, stolen
or faulty bicycles?

This project believes that it is possible to generate money for
charity through people’s principles of honesty, transparancy and
fairness.
weCycle aims to get over the “I don’t have time for
volunteering” by generating proﬁt out of the allowance to rent
other people bicycle, while they are not using it.
“The best way to ﬁnd yourself is to lose yourself in the
service of others.” − Gandhi

The following book was used as research source for the ﬁeld of Service Design.
Schneider, J. and Stickdorn, M., 2011. This is Service Deisgn Thinking. USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
After the project’s concept was developed, the Barclays Cycle Hire, from London, was
used as a source of inspiration to explain how weCycle system would work.
London TfL, 2014. Barclays Cycle Hire. [online] Available at:
<http://www.tﬂ.gov.uk/modes/cycling/barclays-cycle-hire>
[Accessed 20 March 2014].
references

WeCycle - Volunteering Service for Charity

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