Where It All Began
In 2017, a simple but powerful question sparked a movement: why is it so hard to volunteer?
That question, born from real frustration and real experience, became the foundation of IVolunteer International. Founded in Georgia as a tech-nonprofit, the organization set out to do something that had never quite been done before: build technology and programs centered entirely on the individual volunteer, not the institution. The idea was straightforward but radical. Existing volunteer management platforms overwhelmingly served organizations — large nonprofits, NGOs, and institutions with the resources to afford enterprise software. Everyday people who simply wanted to give back were left to navigate a fragmented, inaccessible system. IVolunteer International was built to flip that narrative.
The barriers we identified were real and well-documented. People couldn’t find routine time to commit to weekly volunteer meetings. Membership fees, transportation costs, and organizational requirements made volunteering financially and logistically out of reach for many. There was no single, user-friendly, on-demand platform for finding opportunities. And perhaps most insidiously, volunteering had come to feel like a privilege — something reserved for those already embedded in the right circles. Globally, nationally, and locally, volunteerism was in steady decline. We believed that every single human being had the capacity and the desire to give back. Our job was to remove every barrier standing between that desire and action.
Our mission: make volunteering fun, easy, and equitable using technology. Our vision: create 8 billion volunteers in the world.
The Brand
IVolunteer International built a brand that reflected exactly what it stood for. The logo is a fluid, sketch-like figure of a human being drawn as a single continuous thread reaching outward, capturing the organization’s soul in a single image. The figure is dynamic and mid-motion, arms extended, as if in the very act of giving or connecting. The thread does not end with the figure. It continues outward, from person to person and community to community, representing the chain reaction that volunteerism creates when one person decides to show up. Red, the organization’s signature color, brought energy, urgency, and warmth to everything it touched. It was bold enough to demand attention and human enough to invite trust. The full color palette was chosen to embody the innate qualities that make volunteerism possible: empathy, perseverance, community, love, kindness, and altruism. The brand launched in full in 2020, alongside a redesigned website and formal brand guidelines, marking a turning point for an organization that had spent three years proving its concept and was now ready to grow it.
Eight Years of Impact
What followed those early days was eight years of relentless work with programs, technology, advocacy, and community-building that reached across Georgia, the United States, and the globe.
Connecting Volunteers to Their Communities
From the very beginning, IVolunteer International operated as a hub between volunteers and the causes that needed them. By the time the organization concluded its work, it had connected over 50,000 volunteers to more than 2,000 volunteer projects spanning 12 countries. In just the first three years, over 8,000 volunteers had been mobilized worldwide, and the organization’s outreach had exposed more than 200,000 people to the power of volunteerism. The economic value generated by this mobilization exceeded $1,000,000.
Projects ranged from immediate disaster response and community food drives to long-term educational and welfare initiatives. Volunteers showed up to clean coastlines and urban green spaces, tutor underserved youth, distribute supplies to unhoused communities, and support frontline workers during health crises. They staffed literacy programs, ran after-school mentorship sessions, assisted at animal shelters, and organized donation drives for refugee families. Environmental conservation efforts such as tree planting, river cleanups, community garden builds sat alongside social justice initiatives, public health campaigns, and senior companion programs. Skilled volunteers offered their expertise in legal aid clinics, digital literacy workshops, and mental health awareness events. Across every project, the common thread was the same: an individual person who wanted to do something good, connected to a cause that needed them.
Technology Built for People
From day one, IVolunteer International believed that technology was the key to democratizing volunteerism. While the organization’s programs were always impactful, its technology ambitions were equally bold.
The organization’s flagship product, IVolunteerNow, was years in the making. A location-based mobile application that identifies a user’s live location and connects them to volunteer opportunities happening right around them. After years of customer discovery, design partnership with East Taylor Creatives in Savannah, and a later development contract with SJ Innovation, a premier software company based in New York, IVolunteerNow finally launched in Georgia. The launch was celebrated at the Delta Innovation Hub alongside nonprofit leaders, university partners, and community members. IVolunteerNow was designed to be completely free for both volunteers and organizations. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play, users could sign up for causes they cared about, track their volunteer history, and share opportunities with friends and family. The app represented years of learning, iteration, and investment. It was only the beginning of a planned ecosystem.
IVolunteerGo, the companion enterprise software for nonprofits and community organizations, was in development to create a revenue-generating platform that would allow organizations to post projects, manage volunteers, and access analytics at scale. IVolunteerMap, a Georgia-wide database of volunteer mobility data, was designed to give researchers and public organizations an unprecedented view into how and where communities show up for one another. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when in-person volunteering became nearly impossible, IVolunteer International pivoted rapidly to launch GroceryAid — a zip-code matching platform connecting immunocompromised and high-risk residents in Georgia with volunteers willing to deliver groceries. Over 100 volunteers signed up within weeks. It was a testament to what a technology-first, people-centered organization could do when a community needed it most.
Global Recognition and Advocacy
IVolunteer International didn’t just operate locally, it advocated globally.
In 2019, the organization received Civil Society Association Status with the United Nations Department of Global Communications, joining a distinguished roster of 1,533 organizations from around the world working alongside the UN on communications, outreach, and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. This recognition gave the organization access to UN Headquarters in New York, participation in youth advocacy events, and a platform to amplify volunteerism as a global development strategy. For six consecutive years, IVolunteer International partnered with the Future We Want Model United Nations, coordinated through the Italian Diplomatic Academy, as the official volunteer provider, connecting and training young leaders from around the world to participate in a simulated United Nations assembly in New York City.
In 2022, the organization was selected by the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX) to participate in the inaugural Community Engagement Exchange (CEE), a bold civil society initiative created by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs. IVolunteer International was chosen as one of a handful of nonprofits to host a youth leader from the program, attending the national orientation in Detroit, Michigan. The CEE program was designed to equip young community leaders worldwide with the skills to sustain global civil society. The organization also participated in advocacy events and workshops through the UN DGC, Humanitarian Affairs Asia, and was featured various global and regional outlets.
Awards and Accolades
Recognition came steadily and from some of the most respected voices in the sector.
IVolunteer International earned the GuideStar Platinum Seal of Transparency multiple years running — the highest recognition offered by the world’s largest source of nonprofit information and was named a Top-Rated Nonprofit by GreatNonprofits in multiple years. The organization won the University of Georgia Kickstarter Fund earning seed funding to advance the IVolunteerNow ecosystem. In 2023, the organization emerged as one of three winners at the UGA Truist Foundation Community Pitch Event hosted at UGA’s Innovation District. The University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism awarded IVolunteer International the “Giving Voice to the Voiceless” grant in 2021 to support the Writers’ Council Fellowship. The Hilton Head Island Concours D’Elegance served as a long-standing grant supporter, eventually becoming an Elevate Society Donor. The organization was also named a finalist in the World Trade Center Association’s “Peace Through Trade” global competition in 2019.
Writers’ Council: Amplifying Youth Voices Worldwide
One of the organization’s most beloved programs was the Writers’ Council Fellowship, a cohort-based program that trained young activists from around the world to write about local issues, social movements, and causes they believed in. This was not a journalism program. It was an empowerment program. Since its founding in 2019, the Writers’ Council produced hundreds of articles covering human rights, environmental justice, youth engagement, and community change. In 2021 alone, the program published 89 articles and graduated 22 young leaders across two cohorts. In 2022, 47 articles were published from 16 fellows. Graduates hailed from every continent, with the majority coming from Africa, and strong representation from Asia, Europe, South America, and North America. Countries represented included Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Tunisia, Morocco, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Colombia, Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States, among many others.
Over 10,000 people read articles from Writers’ Council fellows – stories that may never have been told otherwise. You can view the names of our graduates towards the end of this article. Review the names of our graduates and their countries here.
BirthdayDeed and the IVolunteer Series
Two beloved initiatives rounded out the organization’s advocacy work. #BirthdayDeed, launched in 2018, invited people around the world to commit one day each year, their birthday, to an act of service. Over 500 people from multiple countries took the pledge. It was simple, joyful, and disarmingly effective at shifting the culture around what volunteering could look like. The IVolunteer Series, a virtual talk show launched in 2019, hosted change-makers and youth activists from around the world to share their stories and inspire communities to take action. The series gained particular momentum during the pandemic, when a hunger for connection and impact ran high.
The Community That Made It All Possible
None of this happened because of a single person, a single program, or a single grant. It happened because of a community.
IVolunteer International was guided across its journey by a board of directors whose belief in the mission never wavered. In the early years, Bob Lee, Donald Fountain, Lynn Hadwin, and Andy Lohn formed the founding board’s core, bringing decades of combined experience in entrepreneurship, law, community service, and civic leadership to an organization that was still finding its footing. Their steady guidance during the most formative years gave the organization the foundation it needed to grow. In later years, a new board leadership brought renewed energy and reach. Antwone Mohammed, Michelle Keating, Alison Alwes, Kelsey Brantley, Tina Fischlin, Nita Penn, and Tajae Francis joined the table, representing backgrounds spanning higher education, healthcare, communications, community development, and the private sector. Together, they reached across industries and geographies to bring their expertise, networks, and passion to a bold vision.
The staff of IVolunteer International was one of its greatest assets and one of its most remarkable stories. Spread across time zones and continents, the team operated as a fully virtual organization long before remote work became the norm, collaborating across borders to build something none of them could have built alone. They were young professionals, designers and developers, writers and organizers, strategists and storytellers, united by a shared conviction that the world needed more volunteers and that technology could help get them there. The staff brought creativity to problems that had no playbook, persistence through years of iteration and setback, and a standard of professionalism that belied the organization’s startup size. They built the brand, ran the programs, wrote the reports, managed the technology, cultivated the partnerships, and kept the mission alive year after year. What they produced was never proportional to the resources they had, and that gap, between what was available and what was accomplished, is perhaps the truest measure of who they were.
Partners, Donors, and Funders
The organization’s impact would not have been possible without the generosity of those who believed in it financially and institutionally. The Hilton Head Island Concours D’Elegance was among the organization’s most steadfast supporters, providing grants across multiple years. The University of Georgia — through its Kickstarter Fund, Grady College, and Innovation District — was a consistent institutional home for the organization’s growth. Technology partners including SJ Innovation, East Taylor Creatives, Cloudcone LLC, and Syndicate made the organization’s digital infrastructure possible in genuine solidarity with the mission. Rotary International, Red Cross, MAP International were among the champions, opening their meetings, their networks, and their resources to a young organization that had more passion than budget.
Closing: A Legacy That Lives On
IVolunteer International is closing its doors. But what it built, the ideas it advanced, the technology it created, the young leaders it trained, the volunteers it connected, and the communities it served does not close with it. Volunteerism is still in decline globally. The barriers we identified in 2017 are still real. The need for a world where anyone, anywhere, can show up for their community without friction or cost is still urgent. IVolunteer International spent eight years proving that solving this problem is possible and that technology, community, and sheer human determination are more than enough to take it on.
We are proud of what we built. We are grateful for everyone who built it with us. And we are confident that the seeds planted across eight years of work will grow long after this chapter ends.
Thank you for being a part of our journey.
Special Features
- Volunteerism to unite the world – TEDx talk about IVolunteer International [Video]
- Humanitarian Affairs Asia – Keynote speech about volunteerism [Video]
- Rotary-United Nations Day speech in New York [Video]
- Hosting United Nations Regional Sessions on Data and Technology [Video]
- U.N. International Youth Conference Talk [Video]
- Guidestar Platinum Seal Profile [Link]
- The Borgen Project feature [Link]
- Athens CEO feature of award [Link]
- Savannah CEO feature of World Trade Center peace award [Link]
- IVolunteerNow joins Golden press release [Link]
- World Trade Center Savannah peace award feature [Link]
- SJ Innovation technology partnership feature [Link]
- United Nations Civil Society Associative approval press release [Link]