This past Friday, RCSE had 18 members participate on the Zoom call. Everyone who listened in had the pleasure of hearing from Nipuna Ambanpola - a former GRSP student who was sponsored by the South and West clubs in 2015. Nipuna presented to the club about I Volunteer International which is a 501c3 tech non profit that he founded along with a few friends in 2017. Since then, I Volunteer International has connected over 6,000 volunteers to over 150+ projects in eight countries.
Nipuna and his friends believe volunteering is an act of goodwill. In 2017, they started gathering information as to why there aren't more volunteers. They found out that 70% of volunteering around the world happens informally and therefore wanted to create a website and an app that would connect volunteers to real time projects. They also learned what challenges are presented when it comes to volunteering. Some of those are the inability to provide continuous commitments, the inability to afford cost associated with volunteering, difficulty in finding opportunities in the local community, and the cost associated with recruiting and managing volunteers.
I Volunteer International is launching an app in August 2020 that will calculate opportunities in real time and will allow the user to realize their social impact. Their vision is to create 7 billion volunteers and to empower people to take action. I Volunteer International is a medium to connect volunteers to opportunities. They are not the host of the event. SCORE Savannah has been instrumental in helping I Volunteer International to become operational. Since operational costs are low, they want to pass that along to the organizations that utilize the app. Business accounts are free but if you want upgraded features, the business will have to pay an additional fee of $100 per year starting in 2022. To learn more about the app and this organization, please visit www.ivint.org.