Our Mission
Bringing volunteering into the 21st century
The goal of Volunteernearme has always been to be a game-changer in the volunteering world. We aim to improve volunteering as a whole by getting people excited to volunteer and keeping them excited about that work.
Volunteernearme is a platform envisioned as the future of new volunteering. It moves beyond simply listing opportunities to create an engaging, social, and supportive ecosystem. Instead of merely viewing volunteering as an activity, we are moving to make it a life experience.
Platform Features
A social feed to follow friends, groups, and organisations
Activity loggers to showcase dedication and track contributions
Badges awarded for reaching hour milestones
Groups and Member-only spaces for tighter-knit communities
For Organisers
Opportunity management, booking, and event creation
Group management tools
Dedicated opportunity channels with tools like document uploading, rotas/schedules, custom entry criteria, and announcements
Our Guiding Principles
Volunteernearme was built upon these ideals and through chasing these goals, we aim to bring volunteering into the future.
A Free Platform for All, Always
- A core principle is that groups doing good should funnel their limited resources into physical action, not digital services.
- We will not compete for funding with charitable or third-sector groups. This is possible by developing efficient code protocols that keep our hosting costs minimal.
Access for All
- We believe grassroots organisations, individuals, and large charities all play an equally important role.
Flexibility, Modularity, and Consistent Development
- We provide the tools necessary for organisations to create their ideal volunteer management system.
- Organisers can choose how they want to manage volunteers, including setting specific criteria, events, and schedules. Channels feature custom application questions to support unique selection processes.
- Volunteernearme prides itself on active development, always listening to user ideas for new features.
Bringing Volunteering to the 21st Century
In the UK, volunteering has struggled to retain engagement across all ages. Our platform directly addresses some of the root causes with a focus on modern engagement:
Encouraging a Social Experience
We aim to normalise sharing and being proud (even boasting!) of your team's weekly achievements. The platform's feed and posting features are designed to help this.
Engaging from a Distance
As ad-hoc volunteering becomes more common, our platform allows users to feel part of a team through posts and channel forums, even when they cannot always be physically present.
Logging Hours and Tracking Progress
Volunteering is something to be proud of, share, and boast about. By utilising "social credits for good", users can earn badges for hour goals and custom badges from organisations for internal milestones, all viewable on their profile.
Encouraging Flexible Volunteering Patterns
This is the crux of modern volunteering. While dedicated groups may volunteer weekly, most people live busy lives and can only "pop in" now and then. Volunteernearme is building a platform that makes it easier for groups to allow flexible volunteering and for users to find those opportunities.
Our History
Volunteernearme started initially as 'The Volunteer Map Project'. A website aimed at mapping as many opportunities in the UK. This was because we recognised that volunteering is an inherently spatial activity and locality mattered. We recognised that a quality and detailed map had not been created and aimed to fill that void.
As The Volunteer Map Project expanded, we realised that simply making a map of opportunities was not enough to reflect the project's expanded scope, so we renamed it to Volunteernearme. Neither are the most creative names, but we figure the content of the platform itself is more important than the name!