Exalti is a platform connecting non-profits with companies and individuals, redefining purpose-driven engagement. Formally created just weeks ago, the startup is participating in this week's Web Summit in hopes of meeting potential investors.
The concept behind Exalti is that non-profit organisations can publish their requested for help on projects, while others can lend their time and expertise to assist them.
Based at the Technoport, Exalti was created just weeks ago by co-founders Nicolas Sanitas and Nicolas André, who will be attending for their first time this year’s virtual Web Summit (2-4 December), hoping to meet potential investors.
“Our ambition is to become the LinkedIn for engagement,” Sanitas told Delano in a recent interview. The Exalti platform allows anyone to register and indicate their location and skill sets which could be beneficial to non-profits.
Sanitas says the platform responds to a few trends, including the recent shift toward micro-volunteering. With people living busy lives, with commitments ranging from careers to family, individuals are becoming more interested in helping out in time blocks that better suit them. But micro-volunteering is something that’s increasingly important amongst youngsters, too, Sanitas says. “They want to be able to change, to help one cause one day, another the week after.”
And, despite the fact that Exalti began during the health pandemic, Sanitas says, “the crisis we are in shows us that, [from] our laptops, we can do missions for people, and that’s exactly where Exalti could help, to encourage you to volunteer digitally.”
Measurable impact, upskilling
In addition to creating value by giving companies on the platform access to easily audit and measure their impact, Sanitas says the platform can also serve as a way for human resources to incorporate upskilling through an engaging endeavour.
“Today human resources people say that this kind of mission could be a great improvement in the way [of doing] training for people, and they are okay to [say] that part of the time, perhaps 5-10% of time, given to classical training each year could be given to these types of causes, and it will lead to better engagement of the collaborator.” The platform could also facilitate in-kind matching of volunteer days from companies. To take an example, if a certain volunteer activity takes two days, or 16 hours, this could be split into 8 hours taken by an employee as holiday to volunteer, with the remainder 8 hours being offered by the company as a match--all easily visible through the platform.
Moreover, Sanitas believes this purpose-driven engagement can also be encouraging to employees, giving them a fresh state of mind, as some collaborators “are searching for an impact”, and may even be in the midst of a crisis in their jobs about their purpose. Such volunteering then could help them refocus and upskill, Sanitas adds.
The profitability model of Exalti relies on partner companies, and add-on opt-ins will be added as the platform develops. On the non-profit side, “the idea is to co-create the platform with them”, says Sanitas, and Exalti will be working with the Fondation Follerau, for example, to do just that.
While the platform is in prototype for now, its design and functionality will be tested with a limited set of partners before it gets its public launch, which the co-founders are aiming for by mid-2021.
