Volunteering

Volunteering is defined in dictionaries as either freely offering to do something, or working for an organisation without being paid. In the sense of voluntary work, it usually means doing something without being paid that will benefit others. It would be unusual to volunteer for a business, but organisations that often rely on volunteers include charities, schools and other youth organisations.

Volunteering has enormous benefits for the direct recipients of the unpaid work, and for society generally. However, it also has benefits for the individual volunteers. This page explains more about why you might choose to volunteer, how to choose your cause or organisation, and how to decide what help to offer.

Why Volunteer?

There are a number of reasons why you might choose to volunteer or do voluntary work.

The first and most obvious is because you want to do so. It might be a way to do something you enjoy, and possibly to meet new people. As our page on Making Friends as an Adult makes clear, volunteering is a very good way to meet like-minded people doing something for a cause that you care about. It can also be a way to enable you to give something back to the community.

Volunteering can also be a way to develop your skills, as our page on Developing Your Super-Strengths suggests. This, in turn, may enable you either to move into a different career that better fits your strengths, or to supplement the gaps in your skills that prevent you from moving forwards in your existing career.

Some people also use volunteering as a way to ‘test’ potential careers and jobs. For example, if you were interested in a career working with young people, you might volunteer with a youth organisation such as Scouts or Girlguiding to get experience. This will improve your chances of getting a good job in your chosen field.

If this sounds appealing, you may be interested to read our guest post on How to Boost Your Career Opportunities through Upskilling.

What to Consider When Volunteering

There are several things that you should consider before volunteering. In particular:

• What skills do you have that might be useful? It is also worth considering whether you would like to use those skills in volunteering, or if you would like to develop other skills.

• What would you like to do? There are many different opportunities when volunteering, and it is wise to consider which you would prefer. You might want to build skills that will help your career—or you might want to do something completely different, just because it interests you and you enjoy doing it.

• What interests you? It is no good volunteering for something in which you have no interest, because you will not be either invested or engaged—and that means that both you and the organisation will get much less out of your involvement. Choose a cause that you are really passionate about, and something that you really want to do.

• How much time are you prepared to offer? It is generally wise to start with a relatively low commitment, and build up, because you don’t want to over-commit. For example, if you are helping in a soup kitchen, you might want to volunteer once a month and then see how you feel about taking on more sessions.

• What times could you volunteer? For example, if you work full-time during the day, it is no good looking at volunteering in a school. However, you still want to volunteer with children, you could consider an organisation like Scouting or Girlguiding, because they generally have meetings in the evenings. Remember that activities for younger children will probably take place earlier in the evening, which might be more difficult to manage if you have a long commute.

• Will you need to do any training? And do you have time for that? Most volunteer roles require you to do at least some basic training, especially if they involve working with children or vulnerable adults. Make sure that you can commit to getting the training done within a reasonable timescale. If you can’t do that, it seems unlikely that you’ll have enough time to volunteer effectively.

Finding or Choosing a Voluntary Role

There are two elements to finding or choosing a voluntary role:

• Identifying what you want to do by way of volunteering; and

• Finding a suitable organisation or opportunity.

Both these can be either deliberate choices or largely serendipitous.

Some examples of routes into volunteering include:

• The opportunity may be advertised or publicised in some way

  For example, if your children are at primary school, the school may ask for volunteers to help with particular roles or tasks. Many schools welcome parents into classrooms to help with reading, or to get involved in the Parents Association to support fundraising.

  Volunteer days at local parks and outdoor spaces are often advertised in local media, or on social media sites, and you can just turn up to help. Neighbourhood social media pages are often good ways to find volunteering opportunities that you may not otherwise encounter.

• You may see opportunities that are not advertised as you go about your business

  You might, for example, visit a relative in a care home, and see that the gardens could do with extra attention, and offer to help periodically. At your children’s school, you might see that a school play needs some assistance, perhaps with make-up, sets or costumes, and offer to help. You might also deliberately offer your expertise to run a club, or do some careers sessions at the school. If you or your children are involved in a club of any kind outside school, there are likely to be plenty of chances to volunteer to help, not all of which will be advertised.

• You might go looking for opportunities

  Sometimes you have to create your own opportunities. If there is a particular place or organisation for which you would like to volunteer, you should contact them to ask about possible opportunities. This will require you to send your CV and a covering letter to explain why you want to volunteer, and the skills you have to offer.

  Our pages on preparing a CV and covering letter provide some useful information to help with this process.

Generally speaking, if a voluntary opportunity sounds appealing and interesting, it is worth considering.

If you don’t think that you will enjoy the activity, then it may not be for you. However, if you are considering volunteering at a club, you need to be aware that volunteering is not always fun, and every organisation has some jobs that nobody wants to do. Taking on one of those jobs may be a good way into the organisation, and you can then move into a more attractive position later.

A Final Thought

Volunteering is a valuable experience for both volunteers and organisations.

However, it is also worth remembering that it is voluntary. In other words, you don’t have to do it.

It is therefore a good idea to review your volunteering experience periodically—say, every six months to a year. Ask yourself if you are still enjoying it, and if you want to continue. If not, you might consider trying something else. After all, you’re not being paid, and it should be fun even if you’re also getting value from it.