Volunteering: Helping Out Without Leaving Home

By Michele Blandino

Most of us are well aware of the positive changes the Internet has brought to our lives. Whether is has afforded you the opportunity to work at home, helped locate a hard-to-find item that you have been scouring the stores for, or facilitated your banking and bill-paying activities, most of us would be hard-pressed to say that the Internet has not helped us simplify our life in one way or another.

You can now add another thing that just got easier, thanks to the Internet: volunteering. Face it, most of us would like to devote more time to volunteer activities, but the demands of children, jobs and other commitments often make it difficult to carve out additional time away from home. A few organizations have recognized this and have now made it possible for you to volunteer without having to leave home. Here’s a look at two such organizations:

• Volunteer Match is a nonprofit online service that matches volunteers with organizations that are seeking help. Their virtual volunteering service allows people to virtually volunteer for hundreds of positions ranging from maintaining church websites to transcribing audio taped interviews.
• InterConnection is an organization that specializes in providing virtual volunteer services to on-profit organizations in developing countries. Some of the organizations aided by InterConnection volunteers are Habitat for Humanity, Aid India and SIDS Awareness for Africa.

There are also resources available for organizations interested in adding virtual volunteering to their existing volunteer program. One site, ServiceLeader, has been developed by the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and is full of informative articles on deciding whether virtual volunteering is a good fit for your organization as well as the steps that need to be taken to implement such a program.

So, whether you are interested in offering your time and talents to a non-profit organization or if you run an organization that is looking for volunteers, the Internet may have just what you are looking for.