Rethinking Volunteering: How Raquel Kasham Daniel Is Using Technology to Rethink How We Serve

After years of working across Nigeria’s social-impact space, Raquel Kasham Daniel believes the country does not simply need more people to volunteer. It needs a better way for volunteering to work.

For years, Raquel Kasham Daniel has worked close enough to Nigeria’s social-impact ecosystem to see both sides of volunteering. She has seen organisations doing important work but struggling to find the people they need. She has seen young Nigerians eager to contribute but unsure where to find meaningful opportunities. And she has seen how fragmented the experience of volunteering can be.

It has left her with a question that now sits at the centre of her next chapter:

What would volunteering in Nigeria look like if the system around it actually worked?

For Daniel, the question is bigger than finding somewhere to volunteer. It is about how opportunities are created and discovered, how organisations connect with volunteers, how people find opportunities that are meaningful to them, how volunteers are supported once they say yes, and how the experience can contribute to their growth while also creating value for the communities they serve.

This is the thinking behind Voluserve, the initiative Daniel is preparing to launch as she takes on what she sees as a significant gap in Nigeria’s volunteering ecosystem.

But Voluserve did not emerge from a single idea or a desire to simply create another platform. It comes from years of working within the social-impact space and repeatedly encountering the same challenge from different angles.

Daniel’s work has taken her through different parts of Nigeria’s social-impact landscape. As the founder of Beyond the Classroom Foundation, she has spent years working with underserved communities and building programmes around education, girls’ development and social change. She has worked with nonprofits, communities, funders, partners and volunteers.

That experience has given her a particular view of the sector.

The problem is not that Nigerians do not care. There are people willing to give their time, knowledge and skills. There are organisations addressing serious problems and constantly needing support.

The challenge is what happens between willingness and action.

Finding opportunities can be difficult. Information is often scattered across social media, WhatsApp groups, personal networks and individual organisation websites. Organisations may have volunteer needs but lack the systems or resources to consistently find, engage and manage the right volunteers.

And for the volunteer, simply finding an opportunity does not necessarily mean finding the right opportunity.

Daniel believes that needs to change.

Part of what makes her approach different is the way she thinks about the value of volunteering. For Daniel, service should not be a one-way transaction in which a volunteer gives something and an organisation simply receives it.

There should be value on both sides.

A volunteer should be able to contribute meaningfully while also learning, developing skills, gaining experience, meeting people, exploring interests and discovering new possibilities.

That thinking sits at the heart of what she is setting out to create with Voluserve.

The ambition is not simply to make a list of volunteer opportunities. It is to rethink the experience around volunteering.

That distinction matters.

Because if volunteering is going to play a bigger role in youth development, talent development and social impact, then the infrastructure around it has to evolve too.

Nigeria has no shortage of young people with energy, ideas and a desire to make a difference. But willingness alone does not create impact.

People need pathways. They need information, access, opportunities to practise, communities, and ways to turn their experiences into growth.

Daniel sees volunteering as one of those pathways.

That is why her thinking moves beyond the traditional idea of volunteering as simply “giving back.” She sees service as a potential bridge between intention and experience.

Someone who wants to work in communications could gain practical experience by supporting a nonprofit’s campaign. Someone interested in technology could contribute their skills to a social-impact organisation. Someone exploring leadership could take responsibility for a community initiative.

Someone who has never considered themselves particularly useful could discover, through service, that they have something valuable to offer.

The impact, therefore, is not only what gets done for the community.

It is also who the volunteer becomes through serving.

For Daniel, Voluserve is part of a much bigger conversation about the role of service in Nigeria.

Her ambition is not simply to make it easier for people to find volunteer opportunities. It is to help create a culture in which service becomes a meaningful part of how people learn, contribute and develop.

That means making opportunities more accessible, helping organisations engage volunteers more effectively, creating better pathways into service, and making the experience valuable for the people who give their time.

It is a significant ambition.

But Daniel has spent enough time inside the social-impact ecosystem to understand that the problem cannot be solved simply by telling people to volunteer more.

The infrastructure has to support them. Organisations need better ways to connect with people. Opportunities need to be easier to discover.

Volunteers need experiences that are meaningful. And service needs to be recognised as something that can create value for everyone involved.

That is the shift Raquel Kasham Daniel is setting out to make.

Not simply more volunteering.

Better volunteering.

And, ultimately, a Nigeria where people can find meaningful ways to serve, organisations can find the people they need, and volunteering can become a stronger pathway to both social impact and human development.