Startup Idea: Automated Mileage Tracking and Reporting for Charity Volunteers

Startup idea to develop a software solution that automates mileage tracking and reporting for Meals on Wheels (MOW) volunteers. The solution should sync with existing map data used for deliveries, maintaining a database for each volunteer’s mileage, and generating 'certified' reports for tax deduction purposes.

I am a former IBM executive. I am now retired. I have a friend who volunteers to deliver meals for Meals on Wheels (MOW). This is a charity that delivers tens of thousands of meals to low income people each day across the country. The software needed is focused on helping the volunteers to track their charitable contribution (i.e. mileage) to this cause. The volunteers drive to a meal distribution location and are given the meals to be delivered within an area. MOW gives the volunteers turn by turn driving directions to deliver the meals on a route. The volunteers follow that plan to ensure the people in need get the meals that match with their needs.

The need for the software is to help the charity to automate the collection of the mileage data for the volunteers so they can report it on their tax returns. Currently, the volunteers need to manually account for their mileage and that is fraught with errors, is time consuming and may not be accepted by the IRS. The IRS is tough on this and requires a "certified" reporting of the travel expenses to agree to the deduction. So it would be very helpful to both the volunteers and MOW to provide an automated solution to do the mileage accounting. The maps are already being pulled with the mileage estimates. All that needs to be done is to integrate that into a database so MOW can produce a "certified" mileage report form their volunteers. This app would greatly help MOW to gain the support of their volunteers.