Empower youth to become leaders for NGOs in need

There are several thousands of NGos in India. Started by passionate founders , many struggle to find support for tasks that will create more engagement in their work from the public at large . On the other hand, there are a lot of people with time, passion and skills who , given the right opportunities will be able to contribute to the organisations purpose. The challenge that NGos face is the bandwidth to find and engage such volunteers . Young people have both the potential to find and engage others while building on their own leadership skills

We will connect youth to social causes to inspire greater empathy while they serve and support NGos with tasks that will both reduce costs for the NGO and enable greater efficiency

Derrick, one such youth volunteer stuck at home during Covid took to volunteering by utilizing his skills to make reports and manage interns to upskilling the tribal women from an NGO and the result was that the women acquired a source of income by making 1 lakh masks.. Read Derrick’s full story here.

At iVolunteer, we are curating a volunteer leadership program to connect hundreds of youth to their true passion by supporting NGOs which can benefit from such a force of young blood in their team.

The target is as follows:

• Recruit and engage 100 volunteer leaders passionate about education, environment, gender equality, community welfare and animal welfare for a year
• Each volunteer leader will lead the volunteer management for 5 NGOs
• By the end of the year, each NGO would have activated 100 more volunteers, thus engaging 50000 volunteers in a year.

The impact created will be as follows:

• Multiplied number of youth engaging in active citizenship and civic initiatives
• The human cost of NGOs reduces leading to more funding for the cause and programs
• Increased awareness about the NGOs functions and impact

The fund will be utilized to :

• Recruit and train volunteers to groom them into committed and skilled leaders
• Support them in the operational support offered to NGOs
• Ongoing mentoring and handholding to volunteer leaders 
• Immersive exposures to understand ground realities of India (twice a year)

Founder's Message

Shalabh Sahai, Co-founder and Director of iVolunteer shares, “I firmly believe that we create the society we want to live in. No nation can truly progress until its youth take the onus of making it a better place for all its inhabitants.

“While I grew up in a middle class family with a good education and little connection with the struggles of the underprivileged, it was during my post graduation when I got an opportunity to witness the critical support that NGOs provide to millions across issues like lack of education, malnutrition, poverty, climate change, abandoned children and senior citizens. Yet, their common citizens didn’t know how they could support their work. 

iVolunteer was India’s first service  created to help people find opportunities to volunteer and support NGOs using time and skills. Now each year, 30,000+ individuals volunteer with our support with a choice of cause, time commitment, location and nature of engagement. 

But it’s a tiny number for India. How do we support a million people to volunteer? It would need a cohort of Volunteer Leaders. With thousands of motivated volunteer leaders working closely with thousands of credible NGOs, we can usher in a volunteering movement in India. The time is ripe with youth who are keen to take charge and bring about a social change. The proposed pilot is a step in this direction.