Helping Hands: An AI Integrated Volunteer Matching Application

Kriti Niure (Northwest Missouri State University), Sai Abhigna Talla (Northwest Missouri State University), Dr. Gary Yu Zhao (Northwest Missouri State University), Dr. Cindy Tu (Northwest Missouri State University)

Helping Hands: An AI Integrated Volunteer Matching Application Getting help with everyday challenges, from something as simple as dog walking to complex needs like legal assistance, often depends on knowing the right person or organization. To address this problem, we developed Helping Hands, an AI-integrated web application that intelligently matches community help requests with the most suitable volunteers or organizations. Our application lets users submit a help request through a form. The system then runs a two-stage AI pipeline: first, a large language model classifies the request, determines its urgency, and decides whether to route it to local volunteers or broader organizations. Second, the model analyzes the meaning and context of the request to truly understand what the user needs. Based on this analysis, the system routes the request to matched organizations or volunteers within the user’s geographic proximity. Volunteers and organizations can see the requests on their dashboard and accept the assignments after which the requester’s information is securely shared with them. Helping Hands demonstrates how AI can serve as an efficient tool for community support. Unlike existing platforms that rely on manual filtering or keyword-based search, our system uses semantic understanding to interpret the full meaning of a request rather than matching on specific words. This allows to connect users with the most relevant help even when their description does not exactly match predefined categories. Our goal is to build a platform that makes it easier for people of all backgrounds to request help and for volunteers to contribute meaningfully to their communities.