vInspired’s discount card to reward young people for social action
Howard Lake | 10 May 2018 | News
Youth volunteering charity vInspired has created a reward card to encourage more young people to engage in community action and learn valuable skills.
The Inspired Card gives young volunteers (aged 14-30) access to a wide range of discounts from retailers. It is part of the charity’s new Inspired Programme. With £500,000 in matched funding from the #iwill Fund, together with support from the Mayor of London, the programme aims to encourage more young people from diverse backgrounds to get involved in social action.
The initiative builds on vInspired’s status as the first ever European Youth Card Association partner in England. The card will offer discounts in England and across 36 European countries.
In the past eleven years vInspired has filled over 215,000 volunteering roles in charities and community organisations, and nearly 4.5 million hours of volunteering have been logged through its digital service.
Inspired Programme
The Inspired Programme will allow vInspired to better tailor its digital service to offer young people the volunteering activities that are right for them, based on their interests, location and the skills they want to develop. It also offers rewards embedded into the volunteering experience which contribute to personal growth and development, such as work experience or skills masterclasses.
Matthew Ryder, Deputy Mayor for Social Integration, Social Mobility and Community Engagement, explained why the scheme has his support.
He said: “This is one of the most exciting programmes we have launched so far. It has the capacity to completely revolutionise volunteering across London. Using a sophisticated rewards scheme and a data-driven approach, the partnership with vInspired will help even more young Londoners to take part in volunteering and social action projects that will support their local communities.”
Jessica Taplin at the launch of Inspired Card
vInspired’s CEO Jessica Taplin added: “Our first-of-its-kind scheme will give more volunteers from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to help the causes they’re passionate about, whilst also growing their own skills and experience. Taking note of how young people live their everyday lives, we’re embracing technology to create a brand new service that they are genuinely enthused by. It fits into their lifestyle, and allows our charity partners to access a new pool of volunteers who will make a real difference to society”.
Signing up to the Inspired Card is currently free, and “takes a matter of minutes”.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.