From an IRMA fieldwork experience in a village to building a platform that connects thousands of volunteers with hundreds of nonprofits every year, Shalabh Sahai’s journey shows how structured volunteering can turn individual intent into lasting social impact.
Early Roots
Shalabh Sahai’s journey into the social sector began at the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), where he pursued management studies between 1998 and 2000. Coming from a background with little prior exposure to social work, his time at IRMA introduced him to rural development, cooperatives, nonprofit organisations and the idea of using management principles to address social challenges.
The institute’s mission of serving the nation through the rural, cooperative and non-profit sector particularly resonated with him. During a six-week fieldwork assignment in a village around 1999, Sahai encountered a disconnect between the language of management concepts and the realities faced by people on the ground. Moreover, At a time when the country was experiencing the first dot-com boom and facing the Y2K challenge, the non-profit sector seemed to be working in a silo with little connect with the emerging IT sector or the human capital that was powering India’s post-liberalisation economic boom in the 90s.
The experience prompted him to think about how Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) could be leveraged to connect professional skills with grassroots needs. That experience became the starting point for what would eventually become iVolunteer.
Building A Volunteering Platform
In 2001, Sahai and his co-founders launched iVolunteer as a matchmaking platform connecting citizens with nonprofit organisations. The idea was simple but relatively new for the sector: create a structured bridge between people willing to contribute their time and organisations that needed support.
They soon discovered another challenge. At the time, internet access for many professionals was primarily through their workplaces, and traditional volunteering models were largely designed around students, retirees and homemakers. While the platform attracted great interest, it was primarily from the urban working professionals who had skills they could contribute but very little free time. NGOs would need support to adopt the emergence of new kind of volunteer interest and people who had mostly never volunteered earlier will need to be guided.
To make volunteering more accessible, iVolunteer Centres were established in seven major cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune. These centres developed a network of credible local nonprofits, trained organisations to work with new set of volunteers and helped mobilise volunteers in these cities. And through it iVolunteer grew from being a platform to a service dedicated to making volunteering happen.
Between 2002 and 2005, the organisation focused on making volunteering meaningful for both sides. Its first mission was to create 10,000 happy and rewarding volunteering experiences – the belief was simple: each happy and rewarding experience will catalyse more volunteering. Aiming to get to 10,000 volunteers in 5 years, the milestone was achieved within three years. Over next few years, the number climbed to engaging 25,000 volunteers every year.
iVolunteer stopped counting the number of volunteers it engaged. It shifted focus from simply counting volunteers to improving the quality of engagement.
Beyond Traditional Volunteering
As the organisation evolved, so did its understanding of what volunteering could mean. iVolunteer expanded into skills-based volunteering, enabling professionals to contribute expertise in areas such as technology, communications, marketing, human resources, finance and AI.
In 2004, it 1st completed a pilot on corporate volunteering. By 2006-7 all iVolunteer Centres were facilitating -, several years before the formal CSR Act of 2013 brought many more organisations into the space.
The organisation also expanded its work beyond cities. In 2003, it partnered with VSO, an international organisation with global operations, to facilitate Indian volunteers to serve in developing countries across Africa, Central Asia and Southeast Asia. The program iVolunteer Overseas became probably the only one sending indian volunteers to other developing countries. Soon, in 2005, India Fellow Youth was launched as probably the 1st such program where students from non-social work courses in Delhi and Mumbai Universities spent their summer vacations living and working with rural communities.
These experiences eventually contributed to the launch of India’s first rural fellowship programme in 2009, originally known as ICICI Fellows and now called India Fellow. Over the years, additional fellowship initiatives came along, including JSW Foundation Fellowship in 2021 (only such fellowship in CSR space) and SWAR Fellows with SIDBI focusing on rural livelihoods. These Fellowship, says Shalabh, provide host organisations with talented youth, pilot novel solutions, and nurture youth leadership sensitive to India’s social development challenges. An evidence of youth taking leadership is the India Fellow program itself – program alumni exclusively lead and manage the program for for more than 15 years – working on strategy, partnerships, fundraising, fellowship design and training, and day-t-day management.
Recognising Those Who Serve
During a deep review of 10 years of iVolunteer, Sahai also identified another gap: volunteers and the organisations enabling their work often received little formal recognition. This gap, he realised, was the big hurdle for wider adoption of volunteering in India –
In 2012, iVolunteer Awards were established to celebrate, reward and inspire volunteers and organisations supporting them. The national awards include categories such as Volunteer Hero, Youth Champion, Leader in Volunteer Engagement (NGOs), Leader in Employee Volunteering, and has recently introduced Leader in Institutional Volunteering. Applications are assessed through expert panels and public voting (more than 30,000 people vote!), creating a platform for volunteer leaders from across the country to be recognised.
Today, iVolunteer operates across multiple verticals, including urban volunteering, skills-based volunteering, corporate volunteering, fellowships, international exchanges and national recognition programmes. The organisation works with approximately 35,000 volunteers every year and lists around 700 credible nonprofit organisations on its platform.
Sahai now shares his experience as an acclaimed speaker, offering workshops and trainings at premiere B-Schools like SPJIMR and is often invited at leading global volunteering forums like Points Of Light Foundation and IAVE. iVolunteer is core member of Global Pro Bono Network. Sahai contributed as a Asia Pacific Expert Panel to the development of Global Index of Volunteer Engagement G.I.V.E framework introduced by the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) in 2026.
The Challenge Ahead
Despite the growth of volunteering, Sahai believes India still faces fundamental challenges in creating a strong volunteering ecosystem.
Volunteering is often misunderstood or confused with donations and religious activity. There is also no dedicated law or national or state volunteering policy, while its placement under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports can create the mistaken impression that volunteering is primarily for young people.
Another major obstacle is funding. Organisations often struggle to secure dedicated resources for volunteer managers and coordinators, even though these roles are essential to building sustainable volunteering programmes. High volunteer dropouts add another challenge, with people commonly committing to volunteer through online forms but failing to participate on ground.
Corporate Volunteering often has limited goal – number of volunteers and hours resulting most often on large scale group volunteering which often burdens the host organisation and delivers limited impact. Shalabh stay, as always, positive. Finding opportunity in each such challenge and hope in growing interest.
A Significant Year
For iVolunteer, 2026 marks an important milestone. The organisation is approaching its 25th anniversary, while the iVolunteer Awards are entering their 15th year. Applications for the current awards have closed, with public voting completed the Finalists will soon be declared. The awards ceremony is expected around December 5, coinciding with International Volunteers Day.
The year also carries wider significance, with 2026 designated by the UN Volunteers as the International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development. “The only lasting change is the change within people… and volunteering has the potential to achieve that…” – says Shalabh.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
Shalabh Sahai’s journey demonstrates that volunteering is not simply about asking people to give their time. It is about building the systems, connections and opportunities that allow people to contribute meaningfully.
From a village fieldwork experience at the turn of the millennium to a platform working with thousands of volunteers and hundreds of nonprofits, his work reflects a larger lesson: social impact becomes more sustainable when individual willingness is matched with the right infrastructure.
As India enters a new era of volunteering, technology and citizen participation, how can we build a culture where volunteering becomes a meaningful part of everyday life?
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Also Read: People of Purpose: Shalabh Sahai’s 25-Year Journey Building India’s Volunteering Ecosystem
