Why we built Rendered

I'm Dan, co-founder of Rendered with my brother Sam. We came at the same problem from very different directions - here's how we ended up building this together.

Sam spent a decade working in charities and NGOs - Oxfam, Amnesty International - and now runs a research organisation studying what actually drives social change. Across every cause he's worked on, from climate campaigns to humanitarian response in Jordan and Bangladesh, he kept seeing the same thing: talented, committed people consistently underdelivering. Not because they lacked ability, but because they lacked capacity.

What stuck with him was visiting refugee camps - Zaatari in Jordan, Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh - and watching organisations deal with overwhelming human need while stretched impossibly thin. He kept thinking: with better operational support - systems, communications, the professional infrastructure any commercial organisation takes for granted - these teams could be so much more effective. The bottleneck wasn't talent. It was resources.

I came from a very different background. I'd spent years running small businesses, and something that had always bothered me about volunteer work is that even talented, well-meaning people can just walk away, and you've got no real grievance. You can't push back on quality or timeline without feeling ungrateful. I'd rather just pay someone, even a small amount, because the dynamic changes completely when there's money involved.

We started working together after I helped Sam get up to speed on AI tools for a research project. We liked it, and wanted to try building something. So we spent months talking to charities - what they needed, what they couldn't get, what they'd tried.

In our last research interview, someone said something that stuck: "The best software we've ever had was a custom CRM. A pro bono volunteer built it for us."

We both had the same reaction: wouldn't it be great if that kind of support was far more widely available?

I'd seen what talent platforms could do when they went beyond simple matching: vetting, relationship management, quality guarantees. But those platforms are built for companies with real budgets. Freelancers charge full commercial rates, the platform takes its cut on top, and the total cost puts them completely out of reach for most charities. I started to think about what it would take to deliver those same principles at a fraction of the cost, built specifically for the organisations that need it most and can afford it least. I pitched the idea to Sam, and within a month the platform was live and our first professionals had signed up.

What happens next

We're building this in public. We'll share the numbers, the lessons, what's working and what isn't. Right now we've got some great talent signed up and we're rolling this out to charities. Our current revenue is zero. We're figuring this out openly, and we'd like people to come along for it.

If you're a professional who wants meaningful, flexible, paid work for causes you care about - we'd like to hear from you.

If you know a charity that's been putting off a project because they can't afford professional help - introduce us.

If you just want to watch what happens - follow along.