KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 26 — "Traditional" volunteering often looks like physical labour: feeding the needy, rebuilding homes damaged by floods, bathing dogs at an animal shelter on weekend mornings.

But after years of being in volunteer work, Chun Wah Hoo felt that there can be more to it.

"Volunteering can be so much more meaningful with a greater, long-lasting impact. So why don’t we do that?” he thought.

Chun, who manages crowdfunding platform GivingHub, looked into ways to take volunteering in Malaysia to the next level. He came up with a program called "Level Up", which matches the needs of a charity to the skills a volunteer can contribute.

"What we want to do as a platform is to help people give more effectively. There are many ways to increase the effectiveness of giving.

"One is to match the resources to the needs, which is to match the needs of a charity or NGO with volunteers and their professional skills.

"We go to the NGOs to ask what it is they actually need help with. Where’s the gap? Then we can better match them with the skills they need,” Chun told Malay Mail recently.

Borrowing the principles of investing, Chun believes that volunteering should be seen as an investment of time and effort. Like all investors, one would seek something that yields the highest returns.

"If you help an NGO with their website or with branding, they’re going to be able to use it for years to come. The return is actually a lot more than if you just go for a quick volunteer session.

"While it might not solve corporate companies' problems and social corporate responsibility (CSR) needs, this will help the charities more. If we look at volunteering this way, the impact will be much bigger and last longer,” Chun said with a twinkle in his eye.

Skill-based volunteering sounds like a win-win situation, and it might just be.

Given that NGOs and non-profits don’t usually have deep pockets to bring experienced individuals in to solve their pain points, Chun sees a high demand for skill-based volunteers from these organisations.

On top of that, volunteers can give back to the community in a more meaningful and intentional way.

Chun was already toying with the idea of "Level Up", and almost as if the stars aligned, User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) designer Nur Khalidah Shamsul Anuar approached him, looking for more meaningful ways she can contribute.

"This style (of volunteering) may make the volunteers feel more satisfied and give more long-term impact as it’s not just a one-time thing or relies heavily on physical or financial effort.

"I was actually looking for this style of volunteering because I feel like so much more can be done besides traditional volunteering such as giving away food or money.

"It gives volunteers the freedom to do what they enjoy or have passion in doing rather than having to be a volunteer for the sake of volunteering,” Nur Khalidah, who has been helping on GivingHub’s website for the past month, said.

Every organisation or company needs a website, but it can cost a bomb.

"You need a web developer for the backend, a web designer for the visuals, and UX/UI to map out how the user journey will be. This is the part where it can get very expensive and this is where the value of this volunteer as a UX/UI designer is bringing in,” Chun said of the 30-year-old with five years of working experience.

He added that having human resource professionals come in to spend a few hours streamlining the NGO hiring process or marketers to run through social media ads could ease the workload of the organisations for a long time.

Skill-based volunteering isn’t a new concept, but Malaysia seems to be slow in adopting these changes.

Moreover, between "Level Up"’s target audience of working professionals of at least one year of experience and volunteers looking for more meaningful contributions, a worry lingers in Chun’s mind: "Are there enough volunteers out there who are looking for opportunities like this?

"We hope to reach a point where a steady stream of volunteers will come in, and then, the magic can happen.”

Find out more about GivingHub's "Level Up" program on its website.