Supporting social entities without making any additional effort, without changing routines, and without using one's own money. Something seemingly utopian, but which the solidarity search engine Volte.earth has brought to reality. The project converts the mere habit of searching on the Internet into donations for NGOs, without implying any difficulty or extra task for the user. Without getting up from the chair, without changing devices, without looking away from the screen, generating impact simply by searching on the Internet.
Thus, the search engine allows its users to "generate impact day by day," according to the CEO of the startup, José Vilana. And how does it achieve this? By allocating to NGOs profits obtained automatically through sponsored links that appear in web searches. There is no need to click on them or consult them: their mere appearance among the search results already generates a small donation.
These are cents, which accumulate as the user performs their usual Internet searches. On average, a user generates one euro per month, which they can donate to the entity they choose. These seem like modest figures, but many small amounts make a lot. In the year and a half that the search engine has been operating, it has generated more than 18,000 euros for NGOs, a collection raised effortlessly by the nearly 10,000 users it currently has.
These more than 18,000 euros would have been generated in the same way by using any conventional search engine, with the difference that, in that case, they would have ended up in private companies. Volte.earth was born precisely to take advantage of these resources generated through sponsored links and direct them to entities.
Precisely the connection to NGOs was a point of connection between the four founders of the project. Jean Cristophe and Emile Petit, French father and son based in Barcelona for more than 15 years, combined their technological knowledge from their previous experience in digital marketing with their link to the NGO Velas por el Alzheimer.
It was then that the idea arose to use these Internet searches as a channel to raise funds for solidarity initiatives. His friend Hugo Becker, a French actor residing in Madrid, known especially for his role in Gossip Girl, joined the project. The team was completed with the subsequent incorporation of Vilana. The now general director was also a partner of an NGO: Cars for Smiles, focused on sick children, for whom it organizes events linked to the motor world, with the aim of generating exciting experiences for them.
The involvement with small NGOs of the founding team members led them to develop this solidarity search engine, which allows the user to select the NGOs they want to support. They can choose from among the 250 collaborating entities, or they can add a new one for which to raise funds.
The company has started operating from the incubator that the Swedish foundation Norrsken has recently opened in BarcelonetaUsers have a counter of what they accumulate for the entities, and a news section from the NGOs they support. The startup has an agreement with various traditional search engines, such as Google and Bing, through which Volte.earth receives part of the commission for sponsored links. Of this, 20% stays with the company, while 80% goes to NGOs. To use it, it is installed as a plugin in the case of using it on the computer, and as a app independent on mobile.
Volte.earth, which has included two more people in its team over the last few months, has focused during this first year and a half on the technological development of the search engine, and on attracting the NGOs with which it collaborates. "Now we are starting to hit the accelerator to go for users," highlights Vilana.
The startup pursues this goal from a new location: it has begun to operate from the incubator for impact initiatives that the Swedish foundation Norrsken has recently opened in Barceloneta. Vilana has highlighted the relevance for Volte.earth of working from this center, due to the "entrepreneurial environment and a community where everyone is moving in the same direction": promoting initiatives that positively impact society. New projects of global ambition and awareness that are driven from the Catalan capital and its entrepreneurial ecosystem.