Stage 4 Cancer Led Her to Build a Search Engine for Good with Dvora Inwood

Dvora Inwood is co-founder and Head of Product at Samaritan Scout, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that built the first AI-powered search engine dedicated to connecting people with local, in-person volunteer opportunities. The idea started with her daughter, a high school freshman who kept running into a wall trying to find real, nearby service hours, only to find Google surfacing large national organizations and outdated directories with nothing local. When Dvora was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer in 2022, the recovery gave her the time and urgency to finally build it. She launched Samaritan Scout in May 2023 alongside co-founder Will Rosenthal, a then-high school senior with a background in cybersecurity. Today, Samaritan Scout crawls more than 25,000 certified 501(c)(3) organizations, lets users filter by location, skills, and cause, and is working toward a full volunteer management platform that removes the friction from sign-up on both sides. **Timestamps:** **00:00:00** - She Got a Stage 4 Cancer Diagnosis and Built a Search Engine During Recovery **00:11:28** - Why Do Most Volunteers Never Discover More Than One Organization? **00:08:50** - She Lived 7 Miles From This Volunteer Opportunity for 30 Years and Never Knew It **00:08:04** - Why Is Volunteering With Strangers the Real Cure for Loneliness? **00:06:34** - What Skills Do Nonprofits Need That They Don't Know How to Ask For? **00:25:16** - Why Do Only 12% of Nonprofits on the IRS List Actually Want Volunteers? **00:16:04** - What Is the One Friction Point Stopping Most People From Ever Volunteering? **00:12:40** - She Builds This Unpaid, Up Late at Night, for Years. What Keeps Her Going? **Guest Links:** - Website: https://www.samaritanscout.org - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dvora-inwood/ - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Samaritan.Scout/ - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samaritanscout/ **GTZP Links:** - Website: http://www.gtzp.org - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/greaterthanzeropercent/ - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/find-your-cause/id1528910691 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2ZeAnlQ - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@gtzp