Volunteering

Volunteering is something that some people would like to do and it is something that I know that we do when we have the time. There are organization that take volunteers throughout the year because there is such a demand and then there are organizations that take volunteers at a specific time during the year to meet their demands. Organizations that take volunteers at a specific time during the year normally need the volunteers for a specific project or if there is training involved they want to do the training at a specific time.

When you ask a charity or organization if they need help when you put your hand up it is important to understand that you may get a variety of answers to that question like the following:

• What experience do you have volunteering with an organization like ours?
• What is your available time evenings, weekends, or weekdays?
• How much time are you willing to volunteer?
• What type of volunteer work are you looking to do?
• Where are you located? (this can happen when you apply for a volunteer position with an organization that is national and you don’t give your location)

Now here are some of the answers you might receive when you volunteer:

• Thank you for your interest, please let us know a good time to contact you and we can discuss how you can assist our organization.
• Thank you for your interest, at this time we are currently not accepting volunteers but will keep your name on file for when an opening comes up.
• Thank you for your interest but we are not accepting volunteers. Please try again at a later date.
• Thank you for your interest and we are having a meeting on (specific date) and look forward to meeting you then.

Sure the questions and answers are just a few ideas of what you might receive and you have to be willing to accept any of these. I work with an organization that does need volunteers for specific events and projects and we always have to ask where the person is located to see if volunteers are needed at the specific time. We always keep the contact information so that when we need volunteers we have a list of people we can reach out to.

When you get an email saying that an organization doesn’t currently have any positions available, understand that and appreciate that you get a response. Don’t get upset that they don’t have something immediately for you because everyone organization is different. Also it is important to understand that if you reply again with a tone of being upset that the organization cannot assist you immediately it doesn’t look good on you.

Volunteering is something that can be very rewarding but it can also require a lot of your time and energy and you have to know what is expected of you before you make the final commitment of your time for any organization.