We’ve heard of micro-loans — small (to us) amounts of money loaned to small entrepreneurs where the money is large.  According to the stories we hear it has been a resounding success in many parts of the world — enough to get Muhammad Yunus, one of the pioneers of the work, a Nobel Peace Prize. Now, a new idea:  micro-volunteering.  Can’t take a year or a summer off to help others, though your heart yearns to?  How about volunteering in small increments?

That’s the vision behind the Extraordinaries, one of a handful of services that are applying the concept of crowdsourcing – tapping into the masses to find solutions for complex problems – to philanthropic and charitable causes.

Through its online network, thousands of volunteers used their downtime to sift through media and amateur photographs of the Jan. 12 Haiti earthquake aftermath and compared them with images of missing people. The volunteers helped find 24 missing persons.

The San Francisco service’s goal is to provide nonprofits with much needed expertise mainly by connecting them with corporations interested in expanding their social responsibility programs. The organization, which started last year, is working with 250 nonprofits and 10 major corporations, including Kraft Foods, which started a pilot program with the Extraordinaries in July.

The online platform allows employees on a tight schedule to “micro-volunteer” and put their specific skills – marketing, IT, copywriting, etc. – to good use. For example, people fluent in other languages can help translate a 500-word document, or graphic designers can give their opinion or advice on the design of a nonprofit’s new logo.

SF Gate

Philoptima, for example, helps grantmakers and donors connect with a network of researchers, experts and nonprofits. InnoCentive, a for-profit forum where organizations can post challenges and offer cash prizes, teamed with the Rockefeller Foundation to give nonprofits access to the company’s network of independent “solvers” and cover the cost of prize money and the implementation of solutions.

Another platform, Ushahidi, has a different but also effective approach to harnessing the power of the crowd.

Created in 2008 to map outbreaks of violence after Kenya’s presidential election, Ushahidi – which means “testimony” in Swahili – has garnered praise for its applications in crisis situations. It serves as an information hub where people can submit text messages, photos, videos and online reports, which are automatically posted to an interactive map.

The platform has been used to log swine flu outbreaks, monitor corruption during the 2009 Indian general elections and map problems caused by the snowstorms that slammed Washington, D.C., earlier this year. Another map is in the works to log emergencies and food shortages caused by the recent floods in Pakistan that have killed more than 1,000 people and affected millions.