Start-up Introduces Volunteer Passport

Amidst the hundreds of panels, debates, workshops and presentations offered last week at the Volunteering Forum at the Nokia Concert Hall, visitors may have missed the presentation of a small, but significant workshop by the start-up upsteem.com, introducing an electronic volunteer passport, enabling people to record and present their volunteer experiences to potential employers.

upsteem.com brings together employers from the public and third sector organizations and companies with volunteers through a social media intranet solution, enabling volunteers and organizations to find each-other easily. The electronic volunteer passport recognizes the volunteer work and can be used in the future together with the volunteer CV, when applying for positions in the future projects.

upsteem is by far not the first enterprise in Estonia to offer volunteering mediation. Volunteer exchanges of different sorts have popped up all across country, with various different profiles. The oldest one, vabatahtlikud.ee, provides an old-school exchange for volunteer services for companies and organizations in need of help. On the other hand, the "Luck Bank" at onnepank.ee trades small favors and services across the country, and help.ee organizes charitable giving.

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