Creating a digital volunteering ecosystem

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Volunteering could add £50B+ to the UK economy per year or around 3.5% of the annual UK GDP according to the Bank of England. This value could be significantly higher were key barriers to entry reduced or overcome. People wanting to volunteer have a poor experience and face numerous barriers to entry. The key barriers to entry are:1. Being unable to find the right role2. Lacking response from the charities3. Not having enough timeBecause of these barriers to entry and the fragmented nature of the market, charities struggle to acquire new volunteers and volunteers struggle to know where to start. We aim to solve the problems for volunteers and charities through one platform which will manage a volunteers journey all the way from finding an opportunity to the ongoing management of their volunteering.Volunteero is a digital volunteer management platform helping charities increase the impact of their volunteer engagement through technology. After launching in 2021 we have won grants and received national press for our innovative technology. We now support 35 charities and over 4000 volunteer users. Our project intends on developing a front end interface for people wanting to volunteer. Volunteers would be able to use Volunteero to find charities/opportunities that best suit their needs, see the types of activities/tasks available and apply all in one place. After this, all their volunteering would be managed through Volunteero. Essentially by creating this volunteering ecosystem that supports the end to end lifecycle of a volunteer, we can offer volunteers a level of flexibility and accessibility that was previously unattainable. In doing so we will increase the number of people who volunteer and the amount that volunteers can do.Our vision is to create a world where there are far fewer barriers to entry to volunteering. By doing so we expect to increase the rate of volunteering in the UK and beyond and as a result increase, the positive impact volunteering can have on society.