Nonprofit Organizations and Volunteering

There is no doubt that volunteers do make up the most of the staff at nonprofit organizations. They do most of the work. Here are various ways that volunteering has benefits to those who do it:

 

·        You can learn – Believe it or not, when you volunteer you can actually learn a lot of skills you may not normally find in the secular job market. If you are in college you can find out what type of degree program would fit most for the job you are doing. You could even use that time as an internship. Here is a list of areas you can volunteer:

o       Volunteer Management: If you are a take charge guy, you can help recruit and schedule other volunteers to do certain tasks. You can get involved with interviewing them; you can conduct orientations, and so on.

o       Grant Writing: If you like to write, help them obtain funds by being a grant writer. You are doing a good service because you can obtain funds for them that help to keep them going.

o       Administration: If you know filing and are good with the phones, you can be an administrative assistant. This way you can help by answering phones, maintain the records, and more.

o       Event Planning: Nonprofit organizations hold events year round. Events are held to accomplish a goal, raise funds, or other reasons. Imagine helping them by planning these events. You can do such things as develop and mail out invitations, rent equipment, or register participants.

o       Member Services: If you like working closely with people, you can be part of member services. By working in this capacity you can help build public awareness of the organization and its goals to the public. You can be involved in membership drives, register new members, develop newsletters, and more.  

·        Online Volunteering – With the use of the Internet, you can actually volunteer to help out any nonprofit organization anywhere. You can work at a translator for those organizations who have offices in foreign countries, write articles, do research, develop and build web sites, be a mentor for children and young adults, use your artistic ability to design logos, and so much more. By using online volunteers, these organizations can stretch their resources further. By using online volunteers, technology is also available to help the organizations that do not have those resources. Also, online volunteering allows those who have disabilities or just can’t manage to be onsite, do to travel problems, or some other obstacle, to help the nonprofit organization. But before you get involved with online volunteering, you have to think about the following questions and provide an answer to them:

o       If you start volunteering, can do complete your assigned task with no problem?

o       Do you have regular access to the Internet? Do you have your own email account? You need these if you intend on working online.

o       Can you work on your own? Do you have what it takes to work on your own? Do you have a flexible schedule? Can you motivate yourself to get up to do the work?

o       Can you stick to deadlines? Once you know the schedule can you safely commit to it?

o       Is the timing right? Are you confident you have the time to get involved in a project at this time?