Jamie Ward-Smith runs a charity called ivo, which he developed several years ago. ivo promotes the use of social technologies to enable volunteering and social action through a social network called ivo.org (which connects volunteer managers and anyone else interested in volunteerism from across the world) and through Do-it.org (the UK's largest volunteering service organizing that connects 250,000 people every month with over 1 million volunteering opportunities posted by the nation's network of Volunteer Centres). Do-it has been running for 14 years and was the first online service of its kind in the UK. ivo manages Do-it.
Ward-Smith has worked in volunteerism for over 15 years, starting out running a Volunteer Centre in London, which became renowned for its innovative approaches to recruitment and building the capacity of local volunteer involving projects, many of which were staffed entirely by volunteers. After running the VC for five years (which Ward-Smith calls “in many respects the best time of my career”), he went to work for an online charity called Youthnet where, amongst other things, he was involved in setting up Do-it.org in 2000. At that time, Do-it was a game changer for volunteering in the UK, making it so simple to get involved in the community, thanks mainly to the Volunteer Centre network who populated the database and have since continued to promote it.
Ward-Smith has since worked in national government. He was responsible for bringing the Volunteer Centre network in England under one brand and for starting up a national youth volunteering charity called vInspired, which is still going strong today. Before setting up ivo, Ward-Smith ran a social enterprise that provided training and consultancy services for nonprofits and companies to help them engage with volunteers and communities.
