One in five people want to volunteer[1] but don’t know where to start. Volunteero, a smart, simple app, has been able to change that. Today, they have announced that they’ve just surpassed facilitating 100k volunteers, thanks to winning a grant of £250k from Innovate UK. The Volunteero app is designed to connect people to causes they care about and help charities double their volunteer participation for greater social impact. The funding from Innovate UK, won with the help of Grantify, allowed the app to develop a new feature to make volunteer opportunities easy to find. It was key to reaching their extraordinary milestone.
The government’s latest Community Life Survey revealed a surprising paradox: while there’s an overwhelming appetite for volunteering in England, millions of would-be volunteers are left on the side-lines due to a lack of access to opportunities. This is a significant amount of untapped potential resources for struggling charities.
Volunteero.org was developed to solve the problem. The founders, Ashley Staines and Kedar Kasarekar, are on a mission to make volunteering simple and accessible. It does this by connecting people with real-time opportunities to volunteer in their area.
This game-changing app was brought to life with a £250,000 grant from Innovate UK back in 2020, which was secured with the help of funding experts Grantify. Thanks to the grant, Volunteero was able to fast-track one of its most powerful features: a simple, scrollable marketplace that helps people find real, local volunteering opportunities and give back to causes they care about.
Since launching in 2022, Volunteero has grown from supporting 50 charities to supporting over 200 with 100,000 volunteers using the app. This has provided organisations of all sizes with a platform to showcase roles and enabled more people to discover volunteering in their neighbourhoods.
Paula National Volunteer Service Manager from the National Youth Advocacy Service said “Volunteero was an investment in developing our volunteer experience into a gold-standard service. Acquiring the Volunteero system has revolutionised our operations and elevated the experience of our volunteers. Having all volunteering activities and communication consolidated in one place has been invaluable.”
Ash Staines, Co-Founder of Volunteero, comments:
“Volunteero bring a modern, user-friendly experience to what has historically been a fragmented system. Our goal is to make finding a volunteering opportunity as easy and intuitive as ordering an Uber — because giving back should feel that accessible. I’m very proud to have reached the 100k mark. We wouldn’t have done it without the grant, and I don’t believe we would have won the grant without the help and support of Grantify, who made the process quick and easy.”
Grantify is a service to help businesses access funding by breaking down the process into simple questions. The AI-powered online platform provides detailed guidance, model answers and expert support at every step of the process. Grantify has helped businesses win tens of millions worth of government grants for incredible tech projects.
Mat Westergreen-Thorne, Founder of Grantify, said: “We’re delighted that we were able to help Volunteero and congratulate them on their achievement. It is a great idea that is making a real difference to communities. “
[1] Source: UK Government Community Life Survey of 2023/24
