TimeDrive lets young professionals donate their skills to local charitable groups

KELOWNA – Proving millennials are not all about themselves, TimeDrive 2015 goes tonight. It's an event which connects young professionals with non-profit organizations in need of their skills or services.

“The younger demographic, from early 20s to late 30s is generally who we appeal to,” says organizer Victor Narynskyyi, a member of Gennext which is sponsoring the event, now in its third year.

He describes Gennext as the “young professionals wing” of the United Way and says its members aren’t necessarily motivated by the same things their parents are.

“The big difference is they are looking to make a meaningful contribution and they want to see how their contributions make an effect as opposed to just generally contributing without knowing where the contributions might fit in,” Narynskyyi says.

He can’t estimate how many tickets have been sold to tonight’s mixer at the Laurel Packinghouse but says the first two events showed gross ticket sales aren't the metric for success.

“Kelowna is very much a last-minute town. Currently our reach with social media and our newsletter is around 500,” he says. “But instead of focusing on higher numbers, we’re looking to get quality people, who will actually get involved. More people attended our first TimeDrive event but the second one generated more volunteer hours."

Narynskyyi says about 20 non-profit organizations have applied to be connected with volunteers, offering between 40 to 50 positions. The skill sets range from marketing and strategic planning to accounting and information technology.

In an interesting twist this year, Narynskyyi says they are offering a few positions which have nothing to do with professional services.

“From the feedback we received, we found that some of our members wanted to volunteer where they could sort of turn their brain off from what they normally do.”

Tonight’s TimeDrive event begins at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, May 14, and tickets can be purchased online.

To contact the reporter for this story, email John McDonald at jmcdonald@infonews.ca or call 250-808-0143. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.