iVolunteer Philippines (iVolunteer Inc)

We are JB Tan and Bel Padlan, co-founders of iVolunteer Philippines and The Good Store Philippines. Being volunteers for more than 20 years now, we believe in the impact of volunteerism to personal and community development. We dream of a better Philippines and it is easily achievable when every Filipino take part in nation building. We continue to maintain full-time careers in the field of Consumer Goods, Technology and Project Management modeling that everyone can make it a lifestyle to volunteer. 

During its conception during 2009, Bel led the founding team as the Executive Director while JB was the Director of Technology setting up the online platform where volunteers and non-profits will meet. In 2014, JB took over as Executive Director as the organization expand its reach and stabilize its operations while Bel focused on strengthening the partnership with non-profits and elevating their capability as the Director of Community Relations. 

We contribute to SDG #17 Partnership for The Goals by focusing on Volunteer Development as an accelerator for nation building. We believe that there is value to engaging volunteers towards personal growth empowering them to make an impact to the society.

In order to do this, we provide venue to get awareness and education to potential volunteers through campaigns, expos, company engagements and to take action through our website. We educate existing volunteers about different social issues through our community meet-ups. We prepare mature volunteers to solve bigger social issues and lead other volunteers through our social innovation incubation program. We capacitate also existing volunteer-engaging organizations such that they effectively engage and grow volunteers to become future advocacy leaders.

To reach every Filipino to volunteer, we plan to replicate these programs outside of Metro Manila by expanding to other key provinces in the Philippines.

The 2001 study of The Philippine National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency (PNVSCA) on the State of Volunteerism in the Philippines mapped 5 challenges experienced by the volunteer sector – - Finance, - Security, - Promotion of the Concept of Volunteerism, -Linkage between those who are interested - and those who need help, and - Coordination between the public and private sector. iVolunteer addresses 3 (#3, #4, #5) of the 5 gaps.

The 2018 World Giving Index by Charities Aid Foundation ranked the Philippines #89 overall  - 8th on time volunteering through formal institutions. However, there’s an opportunity to educate everyone on other forms of volunteering especially on doing acts of kindness to stranger (#102) or donating resources (#117).

From iVolunteer’s own study on volunteerism in 2014, the top 3 barriers for Filipinos to volunteer are Time/Schedule, Money and Access to Information. We believe that by empowering Filipinos to have variety of choices on the schedule and location of volunteer opportunities and making the information easily accessible to them, this will enable more people to volunteer.

We primarily contribute to Sustainable Development Goal #17 – Partnerships for the Goals while indirectly contribute to the rest as an output of the volunteers.

iVolunteer is currently the only non-profit organization in the Philippines that is focused on volunteer development. We design our programs around growing the volunteers as we believe that volunteerism has a multiplier impact - 1) the immediate output of the volunteer to the community; and 2) the personal transformation of volunteers to become more responsible and caring citizens preparing them to be future leaders of our country.

We are a meeting place between individual volunteers, private institutions and different advocacies through our online platforms such as our website and physical events such as Volunteer Community Meet-up, Volunteer Talks, GO! Volunteer Expo, BayaniRun. We provide an avenue for everyone to participate and help in nation building.

We stand by these values: 1) Integrity – “building an ecosystem of trust”; 2) Inclusivity – “with everyone included”; 3) Change Leadership – “focusing on solutions to problems”; 4) Professionalism – “as we do things with the highest standards”; 5) Nationalism – “to elevate the dignity of the Filipino nation”.

For younger volunteers, we provide education through online channels such as social media, our website, and complemented by our physical platforms such volunteer talks and expos where we discuss development opportunities and challenges. We recognize volunteers by featuring their story through our online and physical Hero Museums making volunteers more relatable and easier to emulate. For mature volunteers, we launched Social Innovation Challenge in 2019 incubating 7 innovators as they start new advocacy-driven initiatives that engage more volunteers. As of today, we have inspired 130,000 Filipinos to volunteer.

We enable 350 partner non-profits through volunteer recruitment, capacity building and networking. Our platforms enable them to share their causes and reach more Filipinos. Through volunteer engagement, we created an eco-park by planting 100,000 trees, granted 260 Christmas wishes of orphans, completed the 2016 & 2019 national elections parallel vote counting without delay, improved community tutoring quality by having 1-to-1 teacher-student ratio (from 10:1). Our Treasure Volunteering platform gathered Php500,000 worth of donations for the affected communities during Taal Volcano eruption and the COVID19 pandemic this 2020. The power of volunteerism has accelerated the growth of our partner NGOs either through increasing their reach or expanding their existing programs and services.

Long term commitment, for the youth, retired, females or privileged are some stigmas around volunteering. Through volunteer education, we bring back the power to help to the individuals regardless of their situation, capability or capacity.

We make volunteering accessible by providing options to contribute time, treasure or talent. We make it easy to take action through our website, www.ivolunteer.com.ph, wherein non-profits tackling different social issues abound.

This opens opportunities and fosters understanding between individuals and under served communities, including urban poor, elderly, indigenous people, and persons with disability; and, in turn, share resources, skills and bring each other hope. 

iVolunteer was started by JB Tan and Bel Padlan. Both of us started volunteering during our highschool years and were involved in socio-civic oriented organizations during our college years. We met in the workplace and found it difficult to continue volunteering with the lack of access to potential non-profits that needed help.

During the onset of typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy), we both wanted to volunteer for disaster relief operations however we found it difficult to contribute as the big disaster relief centers are already packed with volunteers. Later on we realized that there are smaller and less-known operations but we just didn’t know where to find them. Being in the field of Technology, we thought of making a simple website to help ourselves and other interested volunteers and provide everyone easy access to information on where to volunteer. We focused on partnering with grassroot organizations which lacked resources to get their advocacy known. Over the years, iVolunteer has evolved from being just a website to becoming a platform for volunteer education. 

As we both have been volunteering for several years now, we personally experienced the powerful impact of volunteering. We have grown so much since the start of our individual journeys and volunteering gave us the opportunity to develop our character and skills such as communication and interpersonal skills, leadership and other technical skills. As we engage on different volunteer opportunities and perform our volunteers tasks, it opened our awareness on the bigger social context and made us also more empathetic and choose to do more for the country.     

And because of all the personal and professional opportunities we experienced from volunteering, we want to continue the cycle of giving that was shared with us by providing an avenue for all potential volunteers to go through this growth experience and at the same time prepare more caring leaders and nation builders for sustained growth of the Philippines. 

Our most important value in iVolunteer is INTEGRITY and we protect our credibility with the highest regard for our communities (volunteers, NGOs, corporations, government) to trust us and eventually bridge the trust back in the development sector ecosystem.

Considering our own volunteer journey and being in several socio-civic oriented organizations where we led other volunteers, we emphatize with the feelings, needs and challenges of different types of volunteers.

In the 11 years of iVolunteer, we also constantly listen to the evolving needs of volunteers, non-profit organizations and the rest of the volunteer sector. We continuously innovate on new programs and solutions that will address emerging challenges and concerns.

Being part of the private sector working for 15 years enables us to bring professional practices to this sector and think outside of the box and elevate our services. We walk the talk by showcasing that having a professional career and volunteering can be inclusive; that people can contribute something to the society no matter how big or small.

More importantly, our diverse team of volunteer staffs in iVolunteer bring not only their skills and professional experiences but also their big hearts toward nation building.

One of core values is CHANGE LEADERSHIP and we go deep on the problem to find a relevant solution. We constantly evolve and innovate based on the needs of our communities. We started with a simple website idea to make information accessible; we moved to volunteer education as we hear feedback on volunteer professionalism; we added capability building for non-profits to drive sustainability on volunteer engagement and growth; and we continue to coach mature volunteers who are ready to lead the new generation of volunteers.

During this time of the COVID19 pandemic, we immediately shifted our focus from physical volunteering to online volunteering as we take volunteer welfare seriously. We coordinated with our partner NGOs to cancel physical events and look for ways to engage volunteers thru virtual activities. We also accelerated our Treasure Volunteering platform launch to be able to immediately support the needs of our non-profit organizations’ communities but still at the same time provide an opportunity for the volunteers to contribute and donate their resources.    

iVolunteer may have started with just Bel and JB but it did not take long for others to rally behind the organization’s mission.   From a humble idea to get the information, it has  grown to become a movement of 60 strong volunteer staff and 130,000 individuals  spreading kindness and promoting volunteerism.

It is never easy to run a volunteer organization as no one is compelled and compensated to do something. We engage our community’s hearts and minds by being sincere & authentic in what we do and find a win-win match between the organization’s goals and the individual’s.  It started with a vision that was compelling for individuals and relevant to the society, planned mid-term strategies to achieve our goals, celebrated milestones  and built a strong support group for our volunteer staff  and have constant dialogues with them through meetings, general assemblies and workshops.

 More importantly, as we believe that the sustainability of the organization is beyond the two of us we put focus on leadership development of our current internal volunteer pool who will continue the vision of iVolunteer. We have stories of individuals who never volunteered, came across iVolunteer in Google, and are now leaders in the organization.

iVolunteer Philippines is the only volunteer-centered organization in the Philippines which focuses on growing the volunteers. We create programs around the volunteer and allow them to be part of a community of volunteers that will encourage them to continue with this journey and eventually develop into community leaders. Some examples of include the first and largest organic GO! Volunteer Expo in the country where 20,000 Filipinos attended; injecting social cause into a fun run thru BayaniRun (Hero Run); incubating social innovators to become non-profit organizations thru Social Innovation Challenge; encouraged families and groups to volunteer across the Philippine archipelago reaching 100,000 Filipinos thru the Time Please campaign; made the shopping experience of mall goers more meaningful by granting 260 wishes from the communities thru our Operation Christmas Elf. In all of these projects, we find intersection points between the interest of our communities – volunteers, NGOs, corporations and government.    

The current number of people you are serving: 130,000 volunteers; 350 NGOs

The number you will be serving in 1 year: 170,000; 380 NGOs (considering the impact of pandemic)

The number you will be serving in 5 years: 1,000,000; 500 NGOs

Aside from continuing what we have already started focused on converting interested volunteers to start volunteering through volunteer education, we are shifting our strategy this year to online volunteering by enabling and educating our partner NGOs on how to engage and grow volunteers virtually. By doing so, we continue to provide volunteers opportunities to participate in nation building and practice safety and physical distancing. As a lot of initiatives & volunteer leaders are born out of current situation, we are bringing our Social Innovation Challenge to an online platform so we can continue to support these volunteers ambassadors and help them sustain their current projects and continue engaging volunteers.

Longer term, we are looking to engage 1,000,000 Filipinos across the country by diversifying our services to target different types of volunteers which includes:

• expanding to new locations by creating engagement in major key cities within the Philippines,
• expanding demographics within Metro Manila by creating micro-communities within schools and companies that will engage their network to volunteer; and
• expanding through a multiplier agents by create developing more volunteer ambassadors who will start their own projects and engage more volunteers to be part of their cause.

At the same time, we are creating services for our partner corporations that will drive financial sustainability for the organization’s goals and operations. 

There are several foundational elements that needs to be in place for us to sustain our expansion in the next 5 years:

• National and localized campaigns (both online and physical activations) to educate different audiences about volunteerism.
• Local Teams who will set-up the eco-system of communities (volunteer, non-profits, corporations), drive capacity building and localized campaigns.
• Capability building for the NGOs and micro-communities on how to properly engage and grow volunteers.
• Capacity building for the volunteer ambassadors for them to create sustainable initiatives that will engage more volunteers.
• Internal management systems including traveling, and monitoring of progress and results.
• Services enabling Corporate Social Responsibility programs that will help the financial sustainability of the organization’s operations.

Aside for raising funds to enable these activities, we are looking to partner with highly-skilled volunteers & institutions who can co-produce with us in creating campaigns, conduct the capacity building and run the eco-system of community locally.

Building the culture and values of the local teams, micro-communities and our partners are key to a strong volunteer eco-system. We prefer to conduct these capacity and capability building sessions physically to build deep relationships. If resources continue to be challenged and the pandemic extends, alternatively we can still continue to do most of them virtually with a stronger monitoring system to make sure we mitigate the risk on virtual engagement. 

We always believe in partnerships to have a sustainable operations.

• Non-profits – we partner with them on volunteer-engagement and providing volunteer opportunities. We want the contribution of the volunteer to be part of bigger and sustainable programs even if they volunteered for a single day
• Corporations – our partnership depends on the needs of the corporation but to share a few:
  • Globe Telecoms and Disney – we formed the Time Please campaign with them to encourage families and groups to volunteer which is very much in line with their thrust.
  • Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf – we partner with them on the Social Innovation Challenge we leveraged their venues for the mentorship sessions of our 7 Innovators
  • Jollibee Family Values Award – we partner with them in recruiting families who are volunteering and recognize them as role model families
• Government Agencies – we believe that we can help bring the trust of the individuals back to the government
  • Metro Manila Development Authority – we partner with them to transform a landfill to become an eco-park by planting 100,000 trees
  • Department of Social Welfare and Development – we partner with them especially during disasters to engage volunteer for disaster response

Our main product proposition is the idealism of volunteerism and that we will progress as a nation if we all start to volunteer. We have 3 main customers:

Customer or Beneficiary

Value Proposition

Needs & Services

Channels

Volunteer (primary)

Individual growth and opportunities

• Volunteer Education
• Opportunity to Take Action

Online Platforms such as Social Media, Website, Blog

Physical Platforms such as Start Your Adventure Session, GO! Volunteer Expo, BayaniRun, Youth 4 Volunteerism, Social Innovation Challenge

Non-profits

Enabling them with their goals and advocacy awareness

• Volunteer Recruitment
• Capacity Building
• Networking

Online Platforms such as Social Media and Website

Physical Platforms such as Volunteer Engagement Working, Partners Community Meet-up, GO! Volunteer Expo, BayaniRun

Corporation

Enabling them with their goals and brand awareness

• Employee Engagement thru Volunteer Education

Physical Platforms such as Corporate Volunteer Talks, Organized Volunteer Events

Currently our main revenue stream is our annual fun run which is BayaniRun (Hero Run) where a portion of the registration fee is supporting the sustainability of iVolunteer’s operations. We also sell some merchandise in support also of our branding activities.

Long term, we do see partnership with corporation as our main revenue stream while at the same time we help strengthen their CSR programs and engage their employees to volunteer. This includes consultancy on designing CSR programs based on their company’s goals and strengthen employee engagement, hosting company specific volunteer events and selling our platform to administer their employee volunteering programs. It will be hitting both our goals of reaching more people to volunteer while making the organization more sustainable. 

Source

Type

When

Amount (USD)

Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf

Logistics Sponsorship

July 2019 – February 2020

2,500

BayaniRun 2019

Internal Fundraising Event

October 2019

2,000

Merchandise Selling

Internal Fundraising

On-going

200

Total amount is USD 569,000 based on the 5 year sustained plan.

Related to the needs

Purpose & Goal

Amount (USD)

Nationwide and localized campaigns using social media and volunteer expo

Geographic Expansion

70,000

= 14,000 x 5 years

Volunteer Staff’s Allowance, Tools and Trainings

Geographic Expansion and Sustain Operations

294,000

= 8,400 x 7 staff x 5 years

Capacity Building for non-profits and micro-communities

Geographic and

Micro-communities Expansion

50,000

= 10,000 x 5 years

Capacity for Volunteer Ambassadors - Social Innovation Challenge

Volunteer Ambassadors Development

30,000

= 6,000 x 5 years

Management System -Travel and Monitoring Mechanisms

Geographic Expansion

25,000

= 5,000 x 5 years

Support for Corporate Social Responsibility Programs and Employee Volunteering Programs

Financial Sustainability

100,000

TOTAL

569,000

To properly benchmark on the full operations of iVolunteer, these were the original budget for 2020 without considering the changes in our operation and canceled programs because of the COVID19 pandemic.

Amount (USD)

Volunteer Education (Youth Forum, Volunteer Community Meet-up)

5,000

Volunteer Ambassador Development (Social Innovation Challenge)

5,000

Partnership and Capability Development (with non-profits and corporations)

5,000

Technology Upgrade and Operations (Treasure Volunteering Platform, Mobile App Development, Usability Improvements, Servers, Domains)

20,000

Fundraising Event Investment (BayaniRun Fun Run)

3,000

Internal Organization Capacity Building

3,000

Administration (Government Fees, Virtual Office)

2,000

TOTAL

43,000