Why Volunteer?

By: Volunteer Success

It’s really important to think about why you want to volunteer to find the right role. Are you simply doing it to graduate because community service hours are required for high school graduation in your province? Or are you looking for a meaningful experience?

  • There are great benefits to volunteering for both high school students and college/university students
  • Think about your specific why(s) for volunteering:
    • Use or develop skills: check out this skills self-assessment
    • Explore your interests and a career path. Get some great ideas here!
    • Develop your resume or application for post-secondary school
    • Give back to the community and contribute to something larger than yourself
    • Meet new people and develop your network

Once you can answer your why, go to: Where & Who to Volunteer With?

Also check out:

When can I volunteer?

How to Find the Right Volunteer Opportunity

How to Apply for Volunteer Roles

How-to Tips for Interviewing and Email Communications

How-to Tips for Applying for Unadvertised Volunteer Opportunities

How-to Tips for Working in the Volunteer Role

How to Troubleshoot Problems in Your Volunteer Role

How to Get a Reference and/or Paid Role!

Also read…

Understanding Volunteer Recruitment and Engagement: What Is Wrong With This Picture?

By: Thomas W. Mckee

I recently googled “Volunteer” on Google images and got 972,000,000 pictures. The first two pages of images, since I didn’t look at all 972 million, displayed 30 images, and 11 (just over 1/3) of those pictures were like the ones below. The following graphics are used by many organizations to promote their volunteer opportunities. When you click on the image, you are linked through to the website of the organization that is trying to recruit volunteers. As I looked at many appeals for volunteers, I asked, “What is wrong with this picture?” The answer? Twenty-first century volunteers do not want to raise their hands.

Free toolkit on Reactive Volunteer Engagement from Vantage Point!

By: Vantage Point

How many of us have faced this scenario: someone walks through the doors of your organization, unsolicited, and expresses interest in getting involved with your cause. They haven’t responded to a specific posting and it is clear that they have skills to offer. What do you do? Do you have a process in place to determine if and where there is a fit for their passion and skill-set? Vantage Point called this scenario reactive volunteer engagement and came up with a proactive tool to help organizations take advantage of these unsolicited but potentially valuable “knowledge philanthropists”.

What is Volunteering? A Guide for Youth

By: Volunteer Success

Do you want or need to volunteer but not sure how to get started? You’ve come to the right place! In this series of short articles, we will cover the what, why, where, who and how of volunteering. We begin this learning journey by defining what exactly is volunteering.