Two Minds, One Mission: A Convergence of Vermont Community Technology

Vermont’s history of innovation is as inescapable as the state’s looming mountains, but far less well-known. A self-taught Brandon blacksmith is the true creator of the telegraph machine—and, through it, our modern age of connectivity. The direct current motor that powers our homes and industries is also owed to him. Next to the cafe in my town, a plaque details the invention of improved clothing washing and drying machines there in the 1880s. Massive precision scales, modern meat canning, and elevator safety brakes are but a few more advances stemming from the crags of Vermont’s mountains and minds. Time and again, Vermont stories have been written alongside simple, practical solutions to real-world problems. That tradition is far from over.

Inventors are a lonely breed, willing to go at it alone if their charge of creativity demands it. But every so often, the historical currents that drive these individuals to create what they do align like minds to push in the same direction, sometimes with no awareness of the others’ efforts. This chapter of innovation in Vermont—at least as far as community technology is concerned—is such an occurrence: two minds examining the same problem of widespread community disengagement, and somehow each selecting to complete one half of the solution. Let’s begin with the portion readers of this post are apt to already be aware of: the Bee app.

The Bee App: A Bulletin Board in Your Pocket

Shock launched the Bee app in June 2025 to disrupt the community bulletin board. There is far more happening in Vermont communities than even the most densely populated cork board indicates, but the organizers of these events lacked modern tools to spread the word of their efforts. Community members in search of these activities struggled to find them because information was heavily fragmented between these pinned-up flyers, social media accounts, nonprofit websites, community forums, and Reddit. Two groups, both willing to work together, yet unable to do so because of insufficient tooling. So we dreamt up an app that’s a bulletin board in your pocket and on a map to make it easy for them to connect.

Following the Bee app’s launch, we heard two things. Community members with pent-up passion to assist loved it, because now they knew exactly where to look for volunteer opportunities and community-building events. However, many organizers we spoke with—and nonprofit organizations in particular—painted a clear picture for us of what else they needed: a straightforward platform for managing volunteers who had already committed to supporting their work. The Bee app was a great way to get the word out, but once buy-in was achieved, it wasn’t the right tool for sustaining repeat engagement. For this, true volunteer infrastructure technology was needed.

Already Done: She Beat Us to It

The Shock team took it upon itself to create a volunteer management platform that met the needs of Vermont nonprofits. However, in all honesty, we had no idea where to start. Was this a part of the Bee app? What functionality was needed? Who were all the invested parties? How long would it take to build? This is a tool communities needed years ago, so any amount of time was too long. When the team broke for the year in early December, we all went away feeling as if we knew a lot about what the Bee app was missing, and some about how we could approach addressing that, but we still had a long way to go. A volunteer platform of any type lay at least a year away—that was clear.

Fortunately for Vermont communities, someone else had started working on this exact tool almost four years ago. Her pursuits also led her to Vermont; and, in January of this year, our paths crossed. The synergies between our work were stunning, and we immediately decided to team up. Fast-forward three months, and both this critical technology and the passionate founder who saw to its creation have joined Shock. Today, we’re telling the world.

Meet the Founder: Margarita Ivanova

Margarita Ivanova, the creator of the Dono volunteer management and in-kind delivery software platform, immigrated with her parents from mountanous Bulgaria to New Jersey at age two. She started work on Dono while studying journalism at Emerson College, in response to frustrations that arose during her time spent volunteering with food pantries in high school amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Her initial focus was on reducing food waste, which produced a DoorDash-like transportation tool that enables businesses producing waste to redirect it to food shelves for distribution or local farms for composting. But she was just getting started.

After taking a few months off to ace the LSAT and earn a full scholarship to the Vermont Law and Graduate School—where she remains a student—she resumed work on Dono and added functionality that lets nonprofit organizations manage their volunteers. These volunteer hours are tracked automatically, and additional features enable schools to view reports on their students’ volunteerism. This reduces administrative burdens and makes in-school volunteerism a celebration rather than a difficult-to-meet mandate. Then, in late 2025, she founded a nonprofit organization to bring Dono to market. We connected a month later, thanks to a common faculty acquaintance at the law school.

An eleven-week legal sprint followed this first encounter, culminating in the acquisition of the Dono technology platform by Shock, and Margarita joining our twenty-person team as Founder-in-Residence. Now, our combined engineering teams are integrating Dono into the Shock product ecosystem alongside the Bee app, as complementary but separate offerings. This summer, at our second Common Ground Summit, we will unveil this next generation of Shock tooling—but here’s a sneak peek in the meantime.

The Plan: What's Next for Bee and Dono

Now that we know volunteer management isn’t a part of the Bee app, we’ve doubled down on the app’s discoverability nature. The upcoming iteration highlights this by making data on the map more accessible through different views, including outside of the app. The Bee app will remain a starting point for people who want to volunteer in their community or just show up to a neighborhood event, and a resource that organizers in need of additional support can use to recruit help. Two parties, both in search of the other, now connected by accessible, human-first technology.

At the Summit, we’ll be releasing a revision of Margarita’s volunteer management platform, equipped with its essential functionality and backed by an organization committed to its considerate evolution. Using this powerful tool, nonprofits and volunteers can work together to tackle projects large and small, track time spent volunteering, and empower existing systems of mutual aid. Usage-specific resources for disaster readiness, response, and recovery will also be presented at the Summit.

As for Margarita, her initial focus will be engaging with nonprofits and businesses to tackle food security in central Vermont. She’ll also continue rolling up her sleeves and volunteering alongside other members of her generation, which will no doubt inspire many more features to incorporate into the software she started building four years ago. She will also be a very present participant on Bee’s social media accounts, sharing stories of the good work happening throughout the state.‍

Looking Ahead to Common Ground 2026

At Shock, we are incredibly grateful to be trusted with Margarita’s innovative technology, and to receive her support as Founder-in-Residence. Our work has just begun, and this early alignment of forces massively accelerates our shared vision of delivering accessible, impactful technology to communities throughout Vermont and beyond. We look forward to celebrating this partnership with Vermont at Common Ground 2026.