Skip to main content

Find something worth doing.
Impact starts with you.

Impactful is a free app for finding volunteering that fits round your life. Here is everything it does, from finding your first thing to starting your own and joining the organisation behind it.

Download the app
The Impactful organisation page in the app, with Join Organisation and Follow over the cover photo, the causes it works on, and links through to its info, its eleven opportunities and its seven resources.

Find what’s on near you

Discover activities, events and organisations making a difference in your area, matched to the causes you care about.

  • Filter by cause, and by who you want to help
  • Set your radius, from 1 km to 200, or open it up to everywhere
  • In person or from home, informal activities as well as organised events
  • Pick your window: today, this week, this weekend, the next 30 days, or your own dates
  • Search everything, or just organisations, or just activities
  • Follow an organisation and keep up with everything it publishes
The Discover tab in the Impactful app, filtered to five kilometres and to include activities without a location, with tabs for Feed, Organisations and Activities, showing the Impactful organisation card with Join Organisation and Follow controls above an activity card.

Do activities in your own time

Informal activities have no fixed date. You decide when to do them, which is the whole point: the things that never quite fit a Saturday morning still fit you.

  • Both I’m interested and I want to do this land in My Activities
  • Interested is a maybe: no date, nothing owed, upgrade whenever you like
  • Once you say yes, pledge to complete it by a date you pick
  • Change your mind and mark yourself not interested, any time
  • Step-by-step instructions to read ahead or keep open on the day
  • Some are in person, some you can do from home
An informal activity open in the Impactful app: Walking a Dog for Someone Who Cannot, published by Impactful, with its planned duration, what it involves, a step-by-step guide, what you will gain, and controls to say you are interested or that you want to do it.

Make your own activities

Pick the causes you care about and how much time you have got, anything from ten minutes to a week, and five ideas come back that you could actually run. Keep scrolling and more ideas arrive.

  • Add a line of your own steer, like outdoor only, or nothing involving fundraising
  • Every idea is built round the causes and the time you gave
  • Keep the ideas you like and they sync to your account, so a new phone does not lose them
  • For an idea that needs somewhere to happen, shortlist real places near you and go and ask them
  • Turn an idea into a real activity whenever you decide to do it
An idea turned into a real activity in the Impactful app: Library Book-Drop for Food Bank, created by the volunteer themselves, tagged Poverty, with the date it was created, a planned duration of four hours and a description of what it involves.

Sign up for events, or just turn up

Events have a date, a time and a place you can open straight in your maps app. Some require registration and some you just say you are coming to, and you can see which before you commit.

  • No sign-up needed? Say you will attend, and that is the whole thing
  • Where registration is required, you register in the app and answer whatever the organisation needs to ask
  • You see exactly which of your details get shared before anything is sent
  • Closing dates, capacity and members-only events are flagged before you start
  • Anything you say you are going to turns up in your calendar in the app
  • Not sure yet? Mark yourself interested either way
An event open in the Impactful app: Pop-Up Gig Night for Local Causes, an in-person event starting in thirty days, with its date and finish time, who published it, what it is about, a map of where to go, and a control to say you are no longer attending.

Let organisations come to you

Turn on Offer Your Help and organisations looking for someone can find you. Set it once and leave it: this is the half of the app that works while you are not using it.

  • Say which causes, who you want to help, roughly how many hours a week, and up to five areas you can get to
  • Offers arrive by push notification and land in your messages
  • Each one tells you why you matched and what the organisation is asking for
  • Showing interest commits you to nothing, and every offer has an expiry date on it
  • Organisations never see your full surname, your date of birth or your exact location
  • Stop offering whenever you want, or mute one organisation and keep the rest
An activity offer in the Impactful app: new activity offers from Impactful, with an expiry date, a note that these activities match your interests, why you matched (near your postcode area, education, animals) and a control to view the activity matches.

Follow an organisation, or join it

Following is one tap and keeps you close to what an organisation puts out. Joining makes you a member, and members get things followers do not.

  • Follow with one tap and the organisation lands in My Orgs
  • Sort My Orgs by what you follow, what you have joined and what you are still waiting on
  • Members get the activities marked Exclusive, which only members can open
  • Members hear from the organisation directly, and get told when it publishes something new
  • See when you joined each organisation, and leave whenever you want
An organisation page in the Impactful app with the Join Organisation control, the causes it works on, and what it publishes.

Frequently asked questions

No. Plenty of what is on Impactful takes fifteen minutes and no particular skill, and the app tells you what a thing involves before you commit to it.

As much or as little as you want. Some activities are a one-off afternoon, others are a weekly commitment, and every listing tells you what it involves before you commit to it. You can also narrow the feed to this weekend, or to dates you choose.

A lot of what gets published is remote or can be done from home. Filter for remote and you will only see things you can actually do.

Only if you turn on Offer Your Help, and only then: a first name, a photo if you choose to share one, the causes you picked, roughly how much time you have and the areas you said you can get to. Never your full surname, your date of birth or where you live. You can stop offering at any point, or block one organisation and carry on with the rest.

Following means you hear about what an organisation publishes. Joining makes you a member of it, which is what unlocks the activities marked Exclusive and lets the organisation message you directly.

No. The app is free on iOS and Android, there is no subscription, and there is nothing to unlock later.

Still stuck? Get in touch and we will answer it.

Interested? Try Impactful now.

Free on iOS and Android, and about two minutes to set up.

Download the appI run an organisation