Introducing Nipun

Nipun Mehta is a designer of large-scale social movements rooted in small acts of service and powered by micro-moments of inner transformation. He is the founder of ServiceSpace, an incubator of projects at the intersection of volunteerism, technology, and gift-economy, now a global ecosystem of more than 1.5 million members that has delivered millions of dollars in service for free. He has been honored as an “Unsung Hero of Compassion” by the Dalai Lama and was appointed by President Obama to a council addressing poverty and inequality in the United States.

Nipun Mehta is the founder of ServiceSpace — an incubator of projects that support a gift culture. In his mid-twenties, he quit his job to become a “full-time volunteer,” and over the last 25 years his work has reached millions, attracted more than 1.5 million members, and grown into projects like DailyGood, Awakin Circles, and Karma Kitchen. President Obama appointed him to a council for social change; the Dalai Lama recognized him as an “Unsung Hero of Compassion”; and Germany’s OOOM magazine named him among the Top 100 Most Inspiring People of 2020. He has addressed gatherings around the world, alongside leaders from Steve Wozniak to Elizabeth Gilbert to John Lewis. One of his most formative experiences was a walking pilgrimage across India with his wife of six months — lessons that became his widely read UPenn commencement address. His mission statement: “Bring smiles in the world and stillness in my heart.”

Nipun Mehta is the founder of ServiceSpace, an incubator of projects working at the intersection of volunteerism, technology, and gift culture. What started as an experiment with four friends in Silicon Valley has grown into a global ecosystem of over 1.5 million members that has delivered millions of dollars in service for free. Nipun has received many honors, including the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the Dalai Lama’s Unsung Hero of Compassion, and the Goi Peace Award. President Obama appointed him to a council on poverty and inequality. He is routinely invited to share his message of “giftivism” with audiences ranging from inner-city youth to international dignitaries at the United Nations; his UPenn commencement speech has been read by millions.

Nipun’s high-school goal was to become either a tennis pro or a Himalayan yogi. Instead, by the third year of his Computer Science and Philosophy degree at UC Berkeley, he began a software career at Sun Microsystems. Dissatisfied with the dot-com greed of the late 90s, he went to a homeless shelter with three friends to “give with absolutely no strings attached.” They ended up creating a website — and an organization named ServiceSpace. Over the years they built thousands of websites for nonprofits while incubating projects from DailyGood and KarmaTube to Smile Cards and Karma Kitchen. In 2001, at twenty-five, Nipun quit his job to become a “full-time volunteer,” with no plan of survival beyond six months. So far, so good.

In January 2005, Nipun and Guri, his wife of six months, set everything aside for an open-ended walking pilgrimage across India — “to use our hands for random acts of kindness, our heads to profile inspiring people, and our hearts to cultivate truth.” Living on a dollar a day, they walked 1,000 kilometers before settling at a retreat center to meditate for three months. Today they live in Santa Cruz, rooted in a practice of small acts of service. The journey continues.