U&I needs people to execute its aspiration and its ideas.

In fact any organization that is

scaling up faces concerns in finding people who can take up the responsibilities. However it

is also equally important for organizations like U&I to find people with passion in the same

field that U&I works in. In such places like minded passion is most essential.

People join U&I as volunteers and presently they are also hiring people to work for them on

the rolls. Having brought in volunteers and having engaged them into the activities, right

from 2011 U&I clearly has been able to find the right approach to get this act functioning.

When enquired the U&I team had this to say about how they find their volunteers. They get

their volunteers from multiple walks of life. Volunteers at U&I are recruited through online

test, screening calls, interviews, among the other options used for selection. Most of the

volunteers who join in spend 2.5 hours of their time a week with U&I. This contribution from

the volunteer normally runs for a phase of 9 months. This phase of 9 months is actually the

duration of an academic year. In fact a quick glance of their website also shows a message

which reads ‘2.5 hours of your time can change someone’s life’. Their campaign for raising

Human Capital for their initiative tells the prospective volunteer candidates and aspirants that

a collective 2.5 hours per week per person can be transformational, which truly is.

What was making us curious was how U&I motivates people to stay and work towards the

cause?

This question has great importance because when volunteers can lose their interest and step

back when placed in an activity for a period of 9 months. U&I was honest in revealing that

there were volunteer drop outs that happen. In fact it appears that they have had lesser

volunteer dropouts over the years as they progressed forward. In fact volunteers work in a

collaborative model and they work together. This aspect is a common trait that can be seen in

other volunteer driven organizations. However, at U&I they look at building leaders out of
volunteers and volunteers are mentored to take up leadership roles. This motivates a good

number of volunteers to continue functioning with U&I.

Volunteers also engage in other activities like handling and running workshops at colleges

and other educational institutions. For volunteers who wish to engage with activities from

their desk there are activities like social media campaigns. Such engagement activities give

the volunteers also an opportunity to learn while they volunteer. In fact even certificates are

rolled out to volunteers. For a few the certificate that gets issued at the end of the

volunteering activity is an incentive to continue through the tenure.

Fund Raising:

U&I needs funds to operate and meet its expenses. It raises its funds to different avenues.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) allocation from firms is one major channel through

which U&I raises its funds. Crowd Funding model is the other major source. U&I also runs

events line the Marathon and Leadership events as well to have funds raised. FCRI is another

channel through which it raises its funds. The CSR funds come in and are supposedly an

assured income. U&I told us that this channel of funding gets them close to INR 10 million

every year. Last year the crowd funding channel got them close to INR 8.5 million. This was

raised via competitions like which chapter can raise the highest crowd fund, Keto, asking

volunteers to donate and help, among the many other similar activities done to raise funds.

They also try to find funders by motivating them to fund a child’s education or medical care

in the form of donations. U&I truly believes that they love there fund more when it rhymes

with Mother Teresa’s saying which goes as such “It's not how much we give but how much

love we put into giving.”, and this saying can be found in the website of U&I in the donate

section.