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The record is free on Vinspired for everyone. Some programme features are paid for by the organisations that use them, so that the platform never again depends on one funder. Here is why, in plain words.

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Still here. On purpose.

Vinspired began inside a national charity in 2006, closed with it in 2018, and was kept alive by people who could not let it go. The same engineer has kept it running since 2016. We rebuilt it in 2023. This page is the whole story, the reason there is now a price, and the promises that will not change whatever happens next.

Last reviewed 20 August 2026

Twenty years, in six lines.

If you only read one box, read this one.

2006 to 2018
vInspired, a national charity, helped 1.4 million young people volunteer. It closed in November 2018 when its funding ran out.
2019 to 2023
Former staff, and then another charity, kept the platform online, with Eser as the engineer who kept vinspired.com running.
2023
We took it on as a small private company and rebuilt it from scratch.
2023 to 2026
Everything has been free while we rebuilt. The company has earned nothing and paid nobody.
From autumn 2026
The record stays free for everyone. Organisations that run their own programme on Vinspired pay a flat annual amount. Schools join an annual partnership that includes our time.
What never changes
Volunteers and young people never pay. No price per head. Nothing deleted for non payment. Your data leaves with you.

Twenty years, with sources.

We tell this with dates and links because a platform that asks you to trust its verification should be easy to verify.

  1. 2004

    A national idea

    The Russell Commission recommends a national framework for youth volunteering in England.

  2. May 2006

    v is born

    An independent charity called v launches with more than £100 million of public money behind it. In January 2011 it is renamed vinspired.

  3. 2009

    The platform

    vinspired.com launches: a place for 14 to 25 year olds to find volunteering with charities across the UK.

  4. 2016

    Eser joins as lead engineer

    Eser joins vInspired as a lead engineer. He had done a lot of volunteering himself and believed, then as now, that the people who run non-profits are the real change makers. Over the next two years the team ships projects that matter, including the vCard, the rewards card for young volunteers launched in 2018. What became a ten year commitment to Vinspired and to the UK's non-profits starts here.

  5. November 2018

    The charity closes

    After years of falling government funding, vInspired announces closure. By then the platform had helped 1.4 million young people support more than 8,000 charities. For a while it looked as if the record of what they had done would disappear with it.

  6. 2019

    Kept alive by the people who built it

    Bob Barbour, the charity's former head of digital, buys the platform from the liquidators, with Eser's support, and launches a £30,000 public appeal to keep it online. The appeal raises a fraction of that. The platform stays online for two years anyway: Bob and Matt Haworth of Reason Digital carry it, and Eser is the engineer responsible for keeping vinspired.com running.

  7. October 2021

    A new home

    Speakers for Schools, the education charity founded by Robert Peston, acquires vinspired.com, the V awards (its volunteering certificates) and the brand, to sit beside its work experience and talks programmes. Eser stays on as the consultant engineer responsible for keeping vinspired.com running.

  8. June 2023

    The second life

    When Speakers for Schools decides not to continue with Vinspired, Eser steps in again. He proposes to carry it on under the simplest legal structure that can hold it, shares the plan with Speakers for Schools, and with their agreement the platform is transferred to Vinspired Digital Ltd, incorporated in London on 26 June 2023. He rebuilds it from the ground up. New code, new design, the same mission, and one rule learned from the first life: never depend on a single funder again.

  9. 2023 to 2026

    Rebuilt, and kept free

    The new platform goes live in September 2023: opportunities and applications, verified hours, certificates and badges, groups, events, sign up sheets, a mobile app and a studio for sharing stories. In 2025 Demet joins, as a volunteer, to lead our work with schools. Schools begin pilots for the 2026/27 year. Everything is free while we rebuild, and the company earns nothing.

  10. Autumn 2026

    Paying for the second life

    We introduce the first prices: a flat annual amount for organisations that run their own programme on Vinspired, and an annual partnership for schools. The record stays free for everyone. The rest of this page explains why, and what we promise.

"vInspired.com has helped more than a million young people volunteer since it was launched and I'd like to see it help a million more."

Bob Barbour, launching the appeal to keep the platform online, 2019

The programmes the charity ran, from vCashpoint to Team v to the National Awards, each have a page of their own on the heritage pages.

What the first closure taught us.

  1. One funder is one decision away from closing

    vInspired was paid for almost entirely by one government department, more than £50 million a year at its height. When the money moved, a charity with over a million users could not survive. Demand was never the problem. Revenue was.

  2. If the record depends on the institution, it dies with it

    The young people who volunteered in 2012 built something real. When a platform closes, the people who volunteered lose the proof along with it. We build for the day Vinspired is not here: exports you can take any day, and credentials we are building to be checkable without our servers.

  3. Small is a strength if you say so out loud

    The first Vinspired needed a large organisation to run. The second runs on two people, careful engineering and software that does the paperwork. That is why a modest number of paying organisations is enough to keep it alive, and why we do not have to grow fast to survive.

Why there is a price now.

If you have used Vinspired for free, a price is a change, and you deserve the reason, not a banner.

We are not here to get rich. We are here to make sure this does not close again.

For three years the company has earned nothing. Eser has paid for it by doing other engineering work, and our evenings and weekends have gone into it. We believe the record of what young people give should not disappear a second time. That is a fine way to start and a poor way to last. A platform that holds people's records has a duty to still exist in ten years, and existing costs money.

What the money pays for.

Servers, backups and security. Safeguarding and data protection work, which on a platform used by schools is never finished. Support from a person who knows the product. The hours we spend setting a school up and the evidence export we produce for it each term. And, in time, fair pay for the two people who run it. That is the whole ambition of the price: not a margin, a future.

Who pays, and who never does.

The record is free: any person can log, verify and keep their volunteering, and any organisation or school can confirm it and issue standard Vinspired awards, with no limit on volunteers or students. An organisation or a school pays when it runs its own programme on Vinspired (rosters, sign up sheets, events with registration, certificates in its own name, the evidence export) and wants our time with it. Volunteers and young people never pay. That sentence is built into the product, not just written on this page.

What we refuse to do.

We will not price per volunteer, per pupil, per hour or per certificate: more people volunteering is the point, and the invoice will never rise because it happened. We will not sell monthly software plans: a partnership is one annual agreement with the price in writing. We will not sell verification: the safeguarding checks behind it are free on every level, and paying never skips a step. We will not delete anything for non payment: an organisation that stops paying moves back to the free level with every record intact. We will not sell data or show advertising.

How we set a price.

We looked at what schools and charities already pay for single purpose tools and set ours below the point where a business manager usually has to collect quotes. Organisations that help us prove the model early get founding terms in writing, with the full price beside them, so nobody is surprised at renewal. Every price we charge will be published on one page, with the reason next to it, as soon as it is set.

If the price is wrong for you, tell us.

We would rather hear it than lose you. Write and say what you can afford and what you need. We have more room to help a school or a charity that talks to us than one that quietly leaves.

Tell us what you think See the plans and prices

And if you simply want Vinspired to exist, that is what supporters are for. Read about supporting

Seven things that will not change.

  1. Volunteers never pay to use Vinspired.

    Not to join, not to log hours, not for a certificate, not later. Supporting us is separate, and always optional.

  2. The record level is free for every organisation and school, permanently.

    With no cap on volunteers or students.

  3. No price per head.

    Nothing is priced per volunteer, per pupil, per hour or per certificate.

  4. Nothing is deleted for non payment.

    Stop paying and you move to the free level with every record intact.

  5. Your data leaves with you.

    Exports are free, and we are building records that can be checked without our servers.

  6. Prices come with reasons.

    Every price is published on one page with the reason beside it, and existing partners hear from us in writing before anything changes for them.

  7. We stay small on purpose, and reachable.

    Two people run Vinspired. Email us and one of them replies within two working days.

Last reviewed 20 August 2026. If we ever break one of these, tell us.

Early adopter schools: your agreed terms stand to the end of the 2026/27 school year, and we will not open a conversation about money before then.

Where we are heading.

By 2029 we want three things to be true. A young person's volunteering record is useful beyond one school or one programme. It follows them to college, university, an apprenticeship or a job, and anyone they choose to show it to can check it without asking us. Schools and trusts use Vinspired across the whole year, from participation to evidence to recognition, and those partnerships pay the people who run it. And Vinspired is trusted, across the country, as the place where contribution is made visible, without ever again depending on one funder.

We will get there school by school and charity by charity, at the pace our standards allow. We would rather be small and still here than large and gone.

Who you are dealing with.

Eser Poyraz, founder of Vinspired

Eser Poyraz

Founder and engineer

When I first came to the UK I had no network, no UK work history and no clear route into work. What I had was time and a need to belong. I volunteered with several charities, and volunteering gave me language, confidence, references and, eventually, a way into paid work. It also gave me a conviction I have never lost: the people who run non-profits are the real change makers, and they deserve better tools.

In 2016 I joined vInspired as a lead engineer, looking after a service that had helped 1.4 million young people volunteer. I watched the charity close, and I stayed with the platform through every owner since. I know from my own life that volunteering can change the direction of a life, and that the people who would gain most from it are often the least likely to have it recognised. That is why I took Vinspired on in 2023, and why I still write most of its code.

  • Bachelor's degree
  • Software engineer since 2010
  • London
Demet Parlak, Head of Schools at Vinspired

Demet Parlak

Head of Schools

Demet holds a PhD and taught at universities before Vinspired. She joined in 2025, as a volunteer, because she believes the young people who give their time deserve a record that counts and the staff who run it deserve their evenings back.

She leads our work with schools: the first conversation, the demo, the pilot and the renewal, and she reads the support inbox. If you are a school, she is who you will meet.

  • PhD
  • Taught at universities
  • London

And our family

Vinspired is also a family project. Our family has given up more evenings and weekends to it than they signed up for, and tested more half finished screens than anyone should. We do not name them here, but they are part of why it exists.

And the software

Two people cannot run national infrastructure alone, so we built software that does the paperwork: research, drafts, reminders, reports. It means the hours we do have go to you, on a call or in your inbox, rather than into admin. A person still reads every message and makes every decision that matters.

Asked plainly, answered plainly.

Didn't Vinspired close?

The charity did, in November 2018. The platform did not: former staff kept it online from 2019, Speakers for Schools ran it from 2021, and through all of it the same engineer, Eser, kept vinspired.com running. Vinspired Digital Ltd took it on in 2023 and rebuilt it. The story above has the sources.

Is Vinspired a charity?

No. Vinspired Digital Ltd is a small private company registered in England, company number 14962671, owned and run by the people on this page. We chose a company on purpose: dependence on grants is what closed the first Vinspired. We run it as a mission and pay for it like a business.

Who owns Vinspired?

Eser Poyraz, through Vinspired Digital Ltd. Companies House holds the public record.

Why is there a price when it used to be free?

Because a platform that holds people's records has to be able to pay for itself, and the first Vinspired could not. The record stays free. Organisations that run their own programme on Vinspired pay a flat annual amount, and schools join an annual partnership that includes our time. The full reason is above.

Do volunteers or students ever pay?

Never. Not to join, log hours, get a certificate or keep their record.

Will you charge per pupil or per volunteer?

No. Prices are flat and set for the year. More participation never raises an invoice.

We are one of the early adopter schools. Does anything change for us?

No. Your agreed terms stand to the end of the 2026/27 school year. We will not open a conversation about money before your agreement says so, and when we do it will be in writing, with the reasons.

We already use sign up sheets or events on early adopter terms. What happens?

Nothing changes until you hear from us in writing. When we do write, you choose between the Programme level and the free level, and you keep every record either way.

What happens to our data if we stop paying, or if Vinspired closes?

If you stop paying, your account moves to the free level and nothing is deleted. If Vinspired ever closed, you could export your data first, and the credentials we are building are designed to verify without our servers. We designed for the thing that happened to the first Vinspired.

Where can I see the prices?

On our pricing page. Every level and what it includes is there now, and each price appears as it is set, with the reason next to it. Schools can book a short conversation with Demet from there.

Where does the money go?

Servers, security, safeguarding and data protection, support, the hours we spend with schools, and in time pay for the two people who run Vinspired.

How do I know you will still be here in five years?

You cannot know, and we will not pretend otherwise. What we can show is that this platform has survived its charity closing, two changes of owner and a complete rebuild, because people kept choosing to keep it alive. We have built it so that the most important thing, your record, does not depend on us being here. And we are building a business that needs a modest number of partners to stay alive, rather than one large funder.

Three small things.

If something on this site is wrong or overstated, tell us and we will fix it; a platform that asks you to trust its verification has to be easy to correct. If Vinspired helps you, tell one other organisation. And if you run a school and want to see what a partnership looks like, book twenty minutes with Demet. If you run a charity, keep using it. It is free, and it will stay free.

Tell us something Book twenty minutes Register your organisation, free

Sources

Civil Society, 23 and 26 November 2018 (the charity's closure) · Civil Society, 21 June 2019 (the appeal, and 1.4 million young people supporting over 8,000 charities) · Third Sector and Civil Society, 21 October 2021 (the acquisition by Speakers for Schools) · Companies House, VINSPIRED DIGITAL LTD, company number 14962671.