We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amy Gardinier. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amy below.

Amy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I have a long history of volunteering and serving others, especially via the Boards for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Cary Ballet Company, and Young Life. My career has spanned from NC to Silicon Valley, a hub for technology and innovation. Mix that with my passion for inspiring others to give back (and my two daughters’ need to track their volunteer hours to get into college) — and my new startup Givefinity was born. One evening at the dinner table our oldest daughter was talking about having to track her volunteer hours for different clubs at school, like Key Club. Currently, the hours are tracked via pen and pencil, there are lost forms, and forgotten signatures and teachers have to enter all of the info manually. My husband, having a tech background questioned isn’t there an app for this and our idea was born. We not only want to help volunteers but also help volunteer coordinators by saving them time and easily see their impact.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Volunteering has always been important to our family. My husband, Kenton and I started serving with our two daughters when they were young. Sometimes that looked like making sandwiches for those experiencing homelessness or passing out blankets to people in need during the winter months. As our daughters grew older, they began to take the initiative to find ways to serve.

When our oldest daughter was in high school she became a part of Key Club which requires 20 hours of volunteering per semester. Each student is given a form to track their volunteer hours along with supervisors signatures for approval. Over dinner one night we talked about how some people lose their forms and we thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a mobile app to track your volunteer hours.”

Since teens spend a lot of time on their phones it seemed like the perfect fit! From the conception of the idea at our kitchen table in 2020 to today, we have built Givefinity.

Givefinity is a platform centralizing the tracking and management of volunteer activities. The Givefinity mobile app offers tracking, validation, and reporting, all from a volunteer’s mobile phone. Volunteers no longer need to keep track of a piece of paper or track down signatures after the volunteering took place. This solution is independent of any organization (e.g. school, for-profit, or non-profit) but enables volunteers to connect with multiple organizations simultaneously. Reports can be exported and shared. For high school students these reports can also be used when applying for colleges and scholarships to enable students to articulate the difference they are making.

Our Enterprise licensing plan, the Organization Dashboard, offers schools (and other organizations) the ability to easily assign requirements, view progress, communicate on volunteering opportunities, send reminders, and report on school achievements. This promotes operational efficiencies saving time and effort. It also helps the schools and organizations understand and market how their student body is impacting the community.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

We came up with the idea of Givefinity at the beginning of 2020, right before the world shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. While we had the gift of more time at home, the pandemic rocked our local schools and the education system. Students were not going to school anymore, let alone volunteering. It took resilience and patience to think through the best way to build Givefinity during Covid and when to launch it.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I think the most effective strategy for building a good reputation has been a combination of referrals and effective listening. It speaks volumes when someone puts in a good word for you but it takes focus and time to truly get to know who you’re trying to help. The more our understanding of their challenges and goals with volunteer tracking and reporting grew, it helped us pay particular attention to very specific things that would make volunteering easier for them. We took this approach both for the volunteers and the volunteer coordinators. They greatly appreciated being listened to and those discussions were reflected in the solution we built – Givefinity.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://givefinity.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/givefinity/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/givefinity
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/givefinity/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@givefinity