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Advice for Volunteers
Information on finding the right volunteer opportunity and making the most out of your volunteer activities can be crucial to making a real difference and having a rewarding experience. Many of these resources are written by internationally-recognized volunteerism

Why Volunteer?
People volunteer for a wide variety of reasons, especially wanting to help others. But it's also OK to want some benefits for yourself from volunteering.
Some people are uncomfortable with the notion that a volunteer "benefits" from doing volunteer work. There is a long tradition of seeing volunteering as a form of charity, based on altruism and selflessness. The best volunteering does involve the desire to serve others, but this does not exclude other motivations, as well.
Instead of considering volunteering as something you do for people who are not as fortunate as yourself, begin to think of it as an exchange.
Consider that most people find themselves in need at some point in their lives. So today you may be the person with the ability to help, but tomorrow you may be the recipient of someone else's volunteer effort. Even now you might be on both sides of the service cycle: maybe you are a tutor for someone who can't read, while last month the volunteer ambulance corps rushed you to the emergency room. Volunteering also includes "self-help." So if you are active in your neighborhood crime watch, your home is protected while you protect your neighbors' homes, too. Adding your effort to the work of others makes everyone's lives better.
Your Motivations
Think about how much you receive when you give and consider why you want to volunteer. You may have several different reasons. Here are just a few of the many possible motivations identified by other volunteers:
to feel needed :

to share a skill
to get to know a community
to demonstrate commitment to a cause/belief
to gain leadership skills
to act out a fantasy
to do your civic duty
because of pressure from a friend or relative
satisfaction from accomplishment
to keep busy
for recognition
to repay a debt
to donate your professional skills
because there is no one else to do it
to have an impact
to learn something new
for freedom of schedule
to help a friend or relative
for escape
to become an "insider"
guilt
to be challenged
to be a watchdog
to feel proud
to make new friends
to explore a career
to help someone
as therapy
to do something different from your job
for fun!
for religious reasons
to earn academic credit
to keep skills alive
because an agency is geographically close
to have an excuse to do what you love
to be able to criticize
to assure progress
to feel good
to be part of a team
to gain status
because you were asked
to test yourself
to build your resume
to be an agent of change
because of personal experience with the problem, illness, or cause to stand up and be counted

You will probably have some special reasons of your own. Remember that the motivations you have to select the place to offer your services may not be the reasons why you stay. Once you're on the volunteer job, you will continue to serve as long as you feel that your efforts are accomplishing something, that your talents are appreciated, and that you make a difference. And if you also like the people with whom you work, so much the better!
As long as you are truly serving through your volunteer work, isn't it wonderful that such an exchange occurs? In fact, it tends to strengthen your commitment to volunteering when you can see the benefits to both the recipient of your efforts and to yourself. And it is much more comfortable than "charity" because it upholds the self-esteem of those with whom you volunteer.

Volunteering as Wish Fulfillment:
One of the exceptional things about volunteering is that is allows people to live out their fantasies. Many of us secretly wish we could spend our days on Broadway, or taming lions, or saving lives. But our career paths, and maybe our true talents, led us in more mundane directions. Volunteering is a way to make your dreams come true.
Instead of selecting a volunteer assignment that makes use of your professional skills, consider finding a form of community service that taps the "inner you."

Do you love show business? Well, there are lots of community theater groups, local telethons, and performing troupes that might welcome your involvement. If you can't act or sing, you might stage manage, sew costumes, or make the bookings. The point is that you would be part of the company and can smell the greasepaint.

Do you love animals? There are very few paying jobs that give you lots of contact with animals. But you can volunteer at the zoo to do everything from helping the keepers to giving tours. The humane society would welcome your help in caring for unwanted pets and finding adoptive families for them.

Do you envision yourself in a white coat? If you can settle for blue or rose, you can volunteer at almost any hospital and be where the medical action is. You won't be practicing medicine, but you certainly will be helping patients to recover quickly by adding all the nice, human touches that a friendly face can provide. If you are willing to undergo intensive training, you can join an emergency squad and, even as a volunteer, you will truly save lives.

Some dreams are not so dramatic. Maybe you may want the chance to be a manager or a leader. By chairing a volunteer committee, coordinating a special event, or being a team captain of other volunteers, you finally be in charge!

Volunteering also offers a change of pace. Are you desk-bound? Join the National Ski Patrol or volunteer for a state park and give service to others out of doors. Are you an executive who might relish the tangible accomplishment of painting a senior center, after work days spent on long-range goals?

Everyone's dreams are different, but there is a volunteer opportunity to match each one. Give yourself a change of pace. Follow the inner you.

Put Volunteer Work on Your Resume
When you are looking for a job, your resume gets your foot in the door. It represents you to a potential employer and you want it to stand out from the resumes of the other applicants. One way to capture the interest of an employer is to show that you are an involved citizen -- someone who works to make the community a better place to live. In other words, make sure your volunteer work appears on your resume.
It is a common misconception that there is only one "right" way to design a resume. Actually, the most important thing is to present the information in such a way as to document and support your career goal. If you tell a prospective employer that you want a particular job, your resume must prove that you are the right candidate to fill it. Sometimes your paid work history may not be as important as what you have done as a volunteer in demonstrating that you have the necessary job skills.

One approach used by many people is to add a section to their resumes called "Community Service" or "Volunteer Work." They list the highlights of their volunteering here, to show that they have interests outside of their employment history already described. This is certainly better than ignoring volunteer experience on a resume, but it is not the best way to highlight what you have learned as a volunteer.
Consider integrating your volunteer work into the section of your resume called "Work Experience." Even if you were not paid a salary and did not consider the volunteering to be "employment," it certainly was productive work and should count as "experience." The key is to translate what you gained from the volunteer activity into the language of the paid work world.

Don't use "volunteer" as a job title. It's an adjective and alone does not convey the work that you accomplished. So, if you did tutoring, use the title "Tutor." If you coordinated a project, identify your work accurately as "Project Coordinator." The fact that you filled this position in an unpaid capacity is part of your description of the work. First grab your prospective employer's interest with an accurate position title.
Next describe the volunteer work in terms of your achievements, highlighting the skills that you learned and demonstrated. What would be important to the work world about what you did? For example, did you raise $100,000? Did you manage a budget or accomplish goals on schedule? Did you supervise a staff of people? Even if they, too, were volunteers, your success required the ability to be a motivating leader. All these sorts of things impress an employer.

Take the time to analyze what you learned as a volunteer. Did you have the chance to practice public speaking? Write reports, news releases, newsletters? Plan projects, coordinate sub-committees, train others to do the work? Such skills are applicable to just about any setting.

Describe your activities and achievements fully. You do not need to say these were done as a volunteer, though you are of course welcome to do so. If you feel uneasy about representing volunteer work as equivalent to a full-time paid job, you can identify the volunteering as being part-time. Be honest. Don't overstate what you did. But also be sure to give yourself the credit you deserve.

If you are a student seeking your first real job, being able to show volunteer work on a resume demonstrates that you had interests beyond the classroom. If you are returning to the paid work force after some time away, your volunteer activities prove that you kept yourself sharp and involved. If you want to change career fields, it may be your volunteer work in the new field that tells a prospective employer you're worth the risk, even if all your paid employment history is in some other field.

Be unapologetic about giving space on your resume to volunteering. Since the whole goal of a resume is to get you an interview, think how more interesting your face-to-face conversation will be when you add all those community activities to show you who really are.

Rights and Responsibilities of Volunteers
Whether you are a volunteer or an agency making use of volunteers, understanding the rights and responsibilities of the volunteer is the key to successful volunteering. It is at the heart of what makes a good volunteer and what makes a good volunteer experience. From the viewpoint of an organization, volunteers who do not understand and fulfill their responsibilities can be more of a liability than an asset. From the viewpoint of volunteers, organizations that do not respect their rights are not worth volunteering for. The "rights" of the volunteer are essentially the "responsibilities" of the organization, while the "responsibilities" of the volunteer are essentially the "rights" of the organization. The list below is a short version of the most important rights and responsibilities of volunteers. They may seem like common sense, but they are often violated by those who do not consciously think about their importance.

As a volunteer, you have the right to:
• Feel that your efforts actually contribute to the organization’s objectives
• Receive the necessary orientation, training, and supervision
• Learn how to improve your skills in the work you are doing
• Be treated with respect
• Expect that your time will not be wasted by poor planning
• Ask questions and give suggestions about the work you are doing
• Be trusted with confidential information necessary to do your work
• Be appreciated for the work you have done
• Be given written proof or evaluation of your work, if you request it

As a volunteer, you have the responsibility to:
•Meet your time commitments or provide adequate notice so other arrangements can be made
• Only accept responsibilities that you can reasonably handle
• Perform the work assigned to the best of your ability
• Follow organizational policies and procedures
• Respect the confidences given to you
• Be open-minded and respectful of others
• Accept reasonable tasks without complaining
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