Volunteer Success offers you a number of great ways to find opportunities that are right for you, including doing a search on our site (see our article on Tips on Using Opportunity Search) and our Make an Offer Feature!

Beyond simply applying to volunteer opportunities posted by organizations, our Offers feature allows volunteers like you to make an offer of a skill, talent or time which will be promoted to organizations. Organizations interested in your volunteer offer can easily contact you through our website.

You can offer your support virtually across Canada or within a geographic radius of where you live. Only organizations logged into their account on Volunteer Success will be able to see your contact details on the offer.

So how do you make an offer? Here’s a few tips for getting your offer noticed.

Make sure your profile is fully completed. Think of your profile as your resume and then the offer form as your cover letter that goes with your profile. The combo of completed profile and offer will give organizations a good overview of your interests, skills and availability and if it is a good fit, will encourage them to make the next step and contact you.

Need help completing your profile? Check out this how-to article here.

Speaking of resumes, you can upload your resume to your profile as well, which will give organizations an even better picture of you and what you have to offer! Or consider adding the link to your LinkedIn profile if you would prefer to showcase your experience that way.

Make a good first impression with your title and description. The next step is to navigate to Make an Offer in your dashboard and complete the simple form. The title and description are the two most important fields on this page.

Make sure that the title is clear but to the point. Only the first 12 - 13 characters of your title will show up in the card view in the search page results (the whole title will show up when the organization clicks on Contact) so the first word or two should be the key words you would like organizations to notice. For instance, if you want to work in Animal Welfare, make your title Animal Care Volunteer and not Interest in Volunteering in Animal Care. If you want to perform as a guitarist for a nursing home, write: Guitar Student Available to perform… and not: Available to/Looking to perform as a guitarist…

Try to determine the one key word that you are “selling”: interest in a cause, or a specific talent or experience you may have. If you are a high school student, perhaps focus on the type of experience you are hoping to gain, for instance: Customer Service Volunteer or Administrative Volunteer.

Use the Description to highlight your interests, skills and abilities in more depth. The Description allows you to go into more detail about yourself. Once again, keep in mind that in the card view, only the first 90 characters will show up so make sure that your first sentence is eye-catching but clearly communicates your offer. Here’s where you can start by talking about what you are interested in doing, for instance:

• Interest in serving in a leadership capacity in an environmental organization…
• I’m a high school student interested in getting more customer service experience because I want to major in business. I’d like to volunteer with…
• I’m a new website developer and looking to build my portfolio…
• I’m an active retiree looking for mentorship opportunities in my community...

Avoid offering the warm body approach: “I’m willing to do anything for any organization.” Coordinators and Managers of Volunteers are very interested in your motivation to volunteer, and your reasons for wanting to get involved. A completely open-ended offer like this is likely to be ignored because organizations want to know that you have a specific interest in what they do, otherwise they may be concerned that you won’t be interested or that you won’t follow through on your commitment.

The description can cover any of the following:

• Your skills and abilities
• Your prior work or volunteer experience (if you want to do something similar)
• Your career/job aspirations - if you are building your resume
• The causes you are interested in
• Your ideal volunteer role

Finally if you have any restrictions or limitations on what you can do or are willing to do or specific needs for some flexibility (only available during the summer or not available through January and February), consider adding this in the description.

The final details. Our form allows you to specify just how far you are willing to travel to on-site or in-person volunteering so make sure that you’ve entered your postal code in your profile. The drop-down menu allows you to specify a certain distance, Online Only or Doesn’t Matter - which means that you are open to both online and potentially in person opportunities as well.

Once you’ve submitted your offer, check your email and remember to delete your offer when an organization accepts you. The offer will unpublish automatically after 45 days, but if you don’t want any other organizations to contact you, you can remove it sooner.

Have more questions? Please contact us at support@volunteersuccess.com and start making a difference your way in the community today!