Asha Hope Amanaki (AHA) is a small nonprofit startup that is dedicated to “serving the vulnerable and marginalized communities via education, socialization, health, medical and food access”. This often means that the communities being served are small, highly localized groups that may not have national attention or publicity. This can lead to a lack of public interest in helping and difficulty finding the right volunteers, especially when first starting out.

An important step in a non-profit’s journey to fulfilling its mission is to get people involved. Drawing in volunteers and ensuring that our organization has steady, motivated workers with a connection to our missions can be difficult. This is especially true of small and startup NPOs, who don’t have the funds or recognition to draw in large amounts of volunteers organically.

In AHA’s early days, our 501c3 status via the government hadn’t fully processed, being in a pending state for 8 months. While in that pending state, AHA still needed volunteers, but had a difficult time connecting with them. Ashwin came across GivePulse. GivePulse is a platform for small and local nonprofits to connect with volunteers and organize volunteer opportunities. They accepted AHA into the platform despite the pending 501c3 status. This helped connect AHA to a small but dedicated group of volunteers that have donated over 400 hours of work to the cause.

GivePulse helped AHA pull together a team of volunteers that helped assemble over 200 care kits for AHA’s Packing Winter Care Kits event! This kind of success in getting boots on the ground is essential for an impactful launch. AHA’s experience with the platform demonstrates that GivePulse has put together an enthusiastic network of individuals and teams that actually get out into the world and act. GivePulse gives small nonprofits the power to assemble motivated volunteers with a passion for doing good!

Not only did GivePulse accept AHA onto the platform, they even spent an hour on a call with Ashwin, enabling AHA to have their first virtual volunteer opportunity at GivePulse’s Virtual Volunteer Week. This smooth and friendly onboarding made a huge impact on AHA’s ability to get started with volunteers, and has continued to make a lasting impact on their ability to accomplish goals. It feels like you’re a part of an organization that really cares about your success when you’re listed on GivePulse, and the volunteers that use the platform are equally as caring.

With the momentum from GivePulse’s most recent event, we have received volunteers from local PNW universities PCC, PSU, Lewis and Clark, Washington State University, and Warner Pacific University. We’ve also had volunteers from across the US, including: UT Dallas, Normandale in St. Louis, University of Incarnate in Texas, Tulsa Community College, University of Arkansas, Minnesota State University, University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Weber State University. 

We hope to carry this incredible momentum and continue to partner with GivePulse for years to come!