Thank You!

Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and market it, then you have created a productive entrepreneur!!  True to this essence iVolunteer runs a program called GYAN,  or, Get Your Answers Now – short technical sessions on themes critical to NGOs for their capacity building, effective functioning, and growth. These sessions are conducted by pro-bono volunteers who blend their professional experience (mostly from the corporate world) to cater to the expressed needs of our participants.

Having received the opportunity to organize these sessions not only gave me a job but also interact closely with some of the best minds in the field. Till date, the Bangalore centre has organized 30 plus GYAN Sessions since 2013 with 15 plus pro-bono volunteers reaching over 200 participants (hope the maths is correct!). On seeing the energy exhibited by these volunteer trainers (taking a day off their weekend after 5 days of gruelling schedule at work) feels one with awe. It takes  a genuine interest, hard work and courage to face a team of NGO professionals and to give them the confidence they have come to the right place with their queries.

Due to constraints in space and time, I am profiling a few of our trainers who not only conducted one but multiple sessions over a period of 1-2 months this year.

Kaustubh Shete – Social Media Strategist at Langoor conducted three sessions on Social  Media Marketing. We had a hat trick of organizing three back to back successful sessions with Kaustubh on Social Media Marketing.

Total reach: 17 NGOs + 3 sessions = 23 participants.

Participant Speak: “As a NGO our social media coverage was very (low). I liked how simple it is and time effective to use the platform for awareness.”      

Ritupaurna Ghosh – Assistant Director at EY, conducted two sessions on Creativity in Content Development this year. Ritupaurna is one of our highly rated trainers and is a third time GYAN trainer. She conducted the first session in August 2014. We are planning for the third session in January-February 2017 with Ritupaurna.

Total reach: 6 NGOs + 2 sessions = 10 participants

Participant Speak: “It is more effective and useful for me to improve my communication.”

Rajan Narayanan – A business leader and a very active volunteer in the development sector. (Too humble a description for Rajan!!)

Rajan conceptualized and conducted a half-day session on ‘Online Tools to Work Smarter’ for a team of 8 NGO participants on 21st October. The session was well received and we are planning for a full day session with the Trainer.

Total reach: 4 NGOs + 1 session = 8 participants

Participant Speak: “It was informative and walked the participants through various forms and aspects of online management tools.”

Thank you Kaustubh, Ritupaurna and Rajan for making GYAN stronger this year with multiple sessions on the same theme!  This enabled reaching more NGOs who would benefit from such training sessions.

Seeking this opportunity to say thank you to all our volunteer trainers who have been the pillar of strength all these years! Alister D’Monte, Alok Agarwal, Apoorva Mishra, Athira Suresh, Bharathi Singh, Mark A. Braganza, Mayukh Choudhury, Nisha Purushotaman, Pankaj Dixit, Prarthana Unkalkar Kaul, Rajesh Menon, Ramesh Balasundaram, Ranjini Victor, Ravi Bothra, Shalini Gambhir, Suhas Srikant, Vanita Viswanath, Vijay Ladha. 

Last but not the least special mention – Aarti Madhusudan for pioneering GYAN program and Anuradha Gupta for all her gyan behind the GYAN.iVolunteer!

So if you are an NGO professional or a volunteer and need some answers related to your work please feel to reach us to Get Your Answers Now! 

(GYAN is a national program run by iVolunteer across all the major metro cities – Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bangalore. Please find more information about the program here: http://gyan.ivolunteer.in/)