As I mentioned in comments, you can use
=INDEX(I:I,MATCH("something",I:I,0)+1)
Index/Match
is pretty similar to Vlookup
, you can read more here.
Also for error hadling you can use:
1) for Excel 2007 and later:
=IFERROR(INDEX(I:I,MATCH("something",I:I,0)+1),"there is no match")
2) for Excel 2003:
=IF(ISERROR(INDEX(I:I,MATCH("something",I:I,0)+1)),"there is no match",INDEX(I:I,MATCH("something",I:I,0)+1))