2020- A GREAT YEAR FOR VOLUNTEERING

There is always something good that comes out of the worst of situations . 2020 was a terrible year for the world in many ways. People lost their jobs, their loved ones, nations grappled with economic insecurity and distress. And hopefully everything is on the mend. I sat down to reflect upon the year gone by and while acknowledging all of the above also realised that some really good stuff happened …and it is so important to recognise the same to sustain it. Here is my list

1. The inherent goodness in people surfaced and how…anyone who could reach out to help someone did- they donated, gave time , shared material, a kind word.
2. We started off the pandemic with nervousness about our organisation- what will happen to our programmes, how can we facilitate volunteering in the lockdown? The team sat and in 2 days innovated. It brought out the smartest of our thinking and we created 21 easy online volunteering opportunities. This saw a 300% jump in the traffic to our platform.
3. Non profits that would normally struggle to engage online volunteers or just volunteers in general quickly learnt how to and in weeks had begun to receive and engage all types of assistance – online.
4. Many of us learnt new ways of working- I learnt how to use salesforce better 🙂 , friends in many garssroots NGOs learnt how to share screen on zoom and explain their needs to volunteers 🙂
5. We reached out to organisations across India beyond our 7 locations , now that we did not really need physical presence to facilitate volunteering.
6. We shared more about what we do with friends and family amidst the chaos of vying for internet at home – many of them decided to jump on to the band wagon and volunteer albeit for the first time.
7. We explored collaborating more seriously with other organisations in the space to see if we could make a bigger difference together – hosted global conferences
8. We figured potentially new target audiences for volunteering and worked hard to create a students and youth volunteering segment
9. We learnt better to work with each other , set aside our differences and working with the strengths we have
10. We learnt to appreciate what we do better , feel gratitude for the opportunity we had and the potential to continue making a bigger difference than ever before as an organisation.

WELCOME 2021 AND WE ARE READY FOR YOU!