National Volunteer Week

April 21-27 is National Volunteer Week, which invites us all to recognize the impact of volunteer service and how people power helps tackle societal issues and build stronger communities.

I grew up in a family that contributed a great deal of time to serving our community, so volunteerism is an ideal near and dear to my heart. My mom and dad often taught Sunday School and regularly supported other church events. My dad was a Volunteer Assistant Fire Chief and EMT who risked his life to serve his community. Even after he passed, leaving my mom to raise three girls alone, she continued giving back by chaperoning events at my school and organizing a Saint Jude’s Bike-a-thon. My extended family is also full of altruistic folks who actively support all manner of causes.

I didn’t dive too deeply into service work until my late twenties, but it became a cornerstone of my life once I found my way to it. I thought this weeklong observance was the perfect opportunity to share a little bit about why I invest my time and energy in this way and ways you might begin to do the same if you’re interested.

Benefits of Volunteering

Although the goals of helping others or improving the world are undoubtedly good motivators for volunteering, there are many other benefits I’ve experienced from getting involved in my community and supporting causes I believe in.

Valuable skills: I once transitioned from a job involving many community outreach activities to a very desk-based, isolating role, so I began signing up for volunteer shifts tabling at events to keep my social engagement skills sharp. In addition to maintaining skills, volunteer work allowed me to develop new ones and grow into organizational leadership roles, such as becoming a committee chair and board president.

Sense of purpose: Volunteering nearly always provides warm, fuzzy feelings. My drive to be involved in my community was particularly activated during the Trump years when divides in our country were widening amidst significant social problems and upheavals. I knew I couldn’t solve all of the world’s problems and found it challenging not to get sucked into all of the negativity, drama, and tension. Volunteering more during that period helped me channel my concerns and frustrations into positive action. It offered the satisfaction of feeling like I was doing my part to create the future I wanted to see.

Improving my mental health: Research in the past decade has uncovered a correlation between volunteering and happiness. There is also evidence that giving back can reduce stress, anger, and anxiety.

Social connections: Studies have also shown that volunteering helps people feel less isolated and reduces loneliness. I have met countless wonderful folks throughout my volunteer efforts. Some became friends, others supported me in job hunts, and many are just friendly faces I enjoy seeing when I bump into them in other areas of life.

Ways to Get Involved

People often ask how I find volunteer opportunities. What worked well for me initially was to consider all of the buckets of causes I wanted to support and find one organization per cause that I could help in some way. At first, it was pretty casual, with most of my commitments being one-off events or projects that didn’t require ongoing involvement or significant responsibilities. Eventually, I felt up for a bigger challenge and began getting involved with board service.

I recommend a few methods for finding volunteer opportunities. Suppose you already like and support particular organizations. In that case, you might start by checking whether their website has listings for volunteer opportunities. If not, find an email address or use the contact form to reach out and inquire directly about service opportunities.

Another method is to check job boards since many sites that post professional openings also have listings for volunteer opportunities, e.g., Indeed and Idealist. There are also volunteer matching websites that promote volunteer openings and offer search filters to identify opportunities that best fit your skills, interests, and schedule availability.

Considerations in Choosing Opportunities 

As you investigate volunteer openings, you’ll discover a wide range of time commitments, schedule flexibility, level of responsibility, skills required, and the effort needed to sign up.

Below are some questions to help guide your considerations in evaluating what types of volunteer opportunities are going to be the right fit for you:

• How much time per [week/month/quarter] am I willing to commit to volunteering?
• What are my preferences around synchronous vs. asynchronous service work?
• What are my preferences around remote vs. in-person service work?
• What nonprofits and/or causes am I interested in supporting?
• What skills am I most interested in contributing?
• What types of work am I open to doing (e.g., physical labor, admin tasks, specialized skills)?
• Do I want to commit to a recurring schedule, or will signing up for one-off opportunities work better for my schedule?