The Airbnb of Volunteering?

Ryan Johnson, Co-Founder, Bugle

I've spent most of my career helping nonprofits raise money and activating board members and volunteers.

However, I have not spent a lot of time thinking about the volunteer process. That changed when I spoke with Ryan Johnson, co-founder of Bugle.

The premise behind Bugle is surprisingly simple: volunteering shouldn't be harder than booking an Airbnb.

And yet, for many people, it is.

Volunteering Is Bigger Than Most People Realize

When Ryan and I started talking, he shared a statistic that caught my attention.

Nearly one in four Americans formally volunteers each year. That's tens of millions of people giving their time to causes they care about. Yet despite the size of the volunteer market, finding opportunities and organizing events remains remarkably manual.

You can order groceries, reserve a hotel room, schedule a ride, and buy concert tickets in seconds. But finding a volunteer opportunity that matches your schedule and interests often requires emails, phone calls, spreadsheets, and a little luck.

That disconnect is exactly what Bugle is trying to solve.

Forty Hours for One Volunteer Event

As Ryan and his team studied the nonprofit sector, they discovered something surprising. The average volunteer event involving more than 25 people and taking place off-site requires roughly 40 hours of planning and coordination.

Forty hours.

That's an entire work week spent organizing volunteers before anyone has actually volunteered. For organizations already stretched thin, that's a huge burden.

Ryan saw nonprofits relying on spreadsheets, emails, phone calls, and manual tracking systems that consumed valuable staff time.

His response was straightforward, what if volunteer management was actually easy?

That's where Bugle comes in.

The platform allows nonprofits to organize events, track participation, access analytics, and eventually generate AI-powered reports designed to help organizations better understand and communicate their impact. Many of the core features are available at no cost to nonprofits, a deliberate decision Bugle made after seeing how expensive many volunteer management solutions have become.

A Marketplace for Doing Good

One part of Ryan's vision really stood out to me. He wants volunteering to feel as accessible as renting an Airbnb.

Bugle is building toward a marketplace where individuals can search for volunteer opportunities, find causes they care about, and sign up with minimal friction. Instead of struggling to recruit volunteers one event at a time, opportunities become easier to discover and participate in.

As a parent, I immediately thought about something I see in my own community.

Many teenagers need volunteer hours for school, religious milestones, or community service projects. Their parents want them to get involved. The kids often want to help. The challenge isn't motivation. It's finding opportunities that fit their schedule.

Imagine being able to search available volunteer opportunities as easily as finding a restaurant or booking a hotel.

That seems obvious.

Yet it largely doesn't exist today.

The Shift Donors Are Asking For

Our conversation quickly moved beyond volunteering.

Ryan shared another statistic that caught my attention.

According to research he cited, 81% of donors are concerned about the impact of their charitable gifts. Not because they distrust nonprofits, but because they struggle to see exactly what their gift accomplished.

I've seen this shift firsthand.

Many older donors were comfortable making a gift and trusting the organization to use it wisely. Younger donors often want something different:

• Transparency

• Outcomes

• Stories

Most importantly, they want to know their gift mattered.

Bugle addresses this by connecting volunteer projects, fundraising, and impact reporting in one place.

A donor can support a specific project. Volunteers can participate in that same project. When the work is complete, everyone receives an impact update showing what happened because of their involvement.

I love that idea.

Aside from creating interesting reports, it closes the loop and provides nonprofits with images and numbers for impact reports.  

Turning Stories Into Stewardship

One of the themes that kept resurfacing throughout our conversation was stewardship.

Fundraisers spend a lot of time thinking about donor stewardship.

We probably spend less time thinking about volunteer stewardship. Ryan believes both matter.

His vision includes automated volunteer recognition, milestone badges, personalized acknowledgments, and other tools that help organizations celebrate the people giving their time.

That may sound simple, but it reflects a larger truth. People want to know they matter.

Whether someone gives $100, volunteers for five hours, or serves on a committee, they want to feel connected to the mission and appreciated for their contribution.

The organizations that do this well build stronger communities.

The Bigger Opportunity

What struck me most about Ryan wasn't the software.

It was the ambition.

Bugle's mission is to double volunteering in the United States by 2030. That's a bold goal. When you listen to Ryan describe the barriers that exist today, it's easy to understand why he thinks the opportunity is so large.

Sometimes the biggest social challenges aren't caused by a lack of willingness.

They're caused by friction.

We know people want to help and organizations need help. The challenge is making it easier for those two groups to find each other.

That's the problem Bugle is solving, turning good intentions into meaningful action.

To learn more about Bugle and its mission to make volunteering easier, visit: buglevolunteers.com

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I help nonprofits raise more money through education, coaching, and strategic planning. I also lead high-impact professional development, coaching programs, and retreats for companies of all sizes. If you're ready to strengthen your fundraising strategy, turn board members into advocates, or build a comprehensive legacy giving program, let's talk.