The thing about volunteer sites, the first one you visit can be impractical or worse, especially if it was placed in front of you.
If I search for->thru a half doz volunteer sites, I tend to find usable opportunities.
Case in point: americorps.gov. Enter zip code; go to the results page. Distance is 20mi. Results: 1-4 are four states away, 5-6 are virtual, 6 is seven states away. 8-9 duplicate Exchange Student hosting. 10-11 are nearby and look like what I'd expect.
Volunteerism is trust-based and confusing me at step 1 isn't the best way there.
habitat.org. My zipcode yields HFH offices (not build locations). None in my county. I imagine there's an (reasonable!) onboarding process beyond a background check. There are HFH stores that are closer; they prob have volunteers. It's not obvious on this page that there's somewhere I can click to find a FAQ or a splainer about different opportunities.
volunteermatch.org. This seems more inviting+useful. My zipcode gets me 2 dozen nearby opportunities with locations, informative headlines and brief descriptions. All right on the results page.
These were from the top results of a Kagi search. There are quite a few beyond that that look worth clicking into.
Anecdote: My wife has been in volunteer management for quite a while now, and in her multiple roles has used Volunteer Match. It’s a good platform, both for volunteers and organizers.
Pretty interesting to see the visceral and divided reactions in this comment thread. Some people are like, “that’s crazy” and others think, “I wish I had the time for that.”
I feel this is precisely the divide that would be worth bridging in the US. Spend some time knowing and loving nature, and you’ll realize that there are many people who would take these opportunities, and they’re not crazy, they just have a different perspective.
I wonder what other opinions people have that we think are “nuts” but are really just a different perspective?
Quite a few of these "opportunities" are asking a LOT of volunteers, implicitly asking for unpaid labor. These are not your typical "volunteer a few hours a week helping fix up a school/sorting at a food bank/helping the homeless" to give back to your community.
Look at this[1] particular ask:
> Applicants must be available to work a minimum of 32 hours per week.
> [minimum 3 month commitment with possibility to extend to a year] ... Weekend and holiday work is required.
> shovel snow for extended periods of time, hike-ski-snowshoe in extreme weather conditions with a 35-pound backpack at 7,000ft, live in remote locations with regularly snow packed roads.
> Groceries and shopping facilities are approximately 60 miles away; reliable personal transportation is required.
Some of these postings are indeed asking a lot, but I don't think this specific one is that crazy. It's essentially an opportunity to live out in the wilderness and go hiking regularly, with free housing provided in exchange for maintenance and rescue work. I know a lot of outdoors enthusiasts that would love to do that. Hell, I know a lot of outdoors enthusiasts that would probably do it without the free housing, or even pay out of pocket to do it (see also: PCT or Appalachian Trail hikers).
These full-time positions are fairly common at National Park Service (or other agency-managed) public lands, and are attractive to retirees. I was a paid (and housed) intern at one site, but I lived alongside three or four couples in their RVs. Some used it as a way to vacation, while for others it was more of a lifestyle, volunteering for four months at one location, then traveling for a couple months before volunteering at another location.
This feels like making something into a problem when it's not a problem. These are volunteer opportunities, no money is being offered and that's made very clear. People volunteer because they want to do something, or feel like it needs to be done. That's what volunteering is, that's the opportunity that's on the table, this website lists those opportunities.
Where exactly are you drawing the line before using scare quotes around volunteering? Is 10 hours a week too much? Is requiring transportation too much? Would working at 5,000ft vs 7,000ft be ok?
For what it’s worth: if I were at a time in my life where I could do the linked opportunity, I absolutely would. Even better would be an Antarctica opportunity for a winter season.
Some people may see the use of the word volunteering as virtue signaling, it depends on the audience. IMO, if you assist at the local blood bank during a donation drive after a disaster -- that's volunteering. If you are retired and/or rich and can afford to go do Antarctica to assist with research for three months as an essential role or not -- that's free labor.
A person living paycheck-to-paycheck may view the Antarctica opportunity as pompous, but environmental-club peers may view it as volunteering to save the planet and deserves a round of cheers with drinks in hand.
It's asking a lot because the vast majority of folks can't not work unless they also want to stop eating or become homeless after the end of the season not because they implicitly lack the commitment. It's also unpaid labor for a government with a 6 trillion dollar budget.
Most of the old folks retiring at 70 aren't doing any of these labor intensive affairs so its mostly a task for the idle children of the upper middle class to rich. Are we feting people for being born on third base again?
For a non-profit, and a government site, the Accessibility scores are pretty low... just using WCAG scanners. This should be a flawless site.
They also claim "Volunteer.gov is committed to being in full compliance with the requirements of the American Disabilities Act..." but they aren't... there are at least 10 issues per page.
There should be multiple languages supported.
There's a post... "National Park Service 2024 COUPLES ONLY Opportunity" -- I'm not sure that's even legal.
There should be a way to post non-profits, maybe there is. Just feels like any non-profit should be able to use this to post needs.
I can't find any opportunities in Ausitn. Ok, we're just a small backwoods town.
There aren't like "profile pages" for non-profits, or real job posts... you click on a card to learn more, and all it shows you is a button "apply now" -- it's missing the page that tells you more about the job and more about the non-profit.
Ugh, anyway terrible UX. Curious how these people got funding for this... No thoughts were given to SEO, or usability, or growth... seems like it's destined to fail in the shape it's in.
> Ugh, anyway terrible UX. Curious how these people got funding for this... No thoughts were given to SEO, or usability, or growth... seems like it's destined to fail in the shape it's in.
If they had gone to any number of design agencies, they likely would have been happy to do this work right, pro bono. Given they don't seem to have any sort of request for assistance... sort of left taking pot shots from the sidelines. Someone got a grant, didn't know how to build a real website, and likely doesn't have the right staff put together to make it all work.
It should have been something like Volunteer Match or One Star... a way to network and do good.
The idea has so much merit. But it's not being executed on correctly. They can reach out if they want suggestions. Happy to point them to design agencies or give strategy suggestions.
the (implied) social contract around volunteering is "everything" .. here in California I was bluntly told by my Japanese colleague "never volunteer, you are being taken advantage of"
true to his words, the only volunteer contact I got with that guy later was to be an usher at an exclusive dot-com event in San Francisco, pre-covid.. I did do it to hear the speakers, and lo-and-behold, the organizers mostly thought of the volunteers as worthless suckers.. you could see it. And, volunteers got the 'show up on time' authority talk from a typical hotel-worker-manager type, too! awful
Say what you will about Mormon/LDS religious beliefs, but I have never met anybody more selfless and pleasant when it comes to volunteering and caring for those in need. I've been a recipient of that kindness and co-participant in many volunteer activities with them, and not once felt like there was any attempt to push a belief on me other than "be kind to others". I probably wouldn't want to join them at church or read their literature other than as entertainment, but the individual people don't deserve all the hate that the church gets as a whole.
A short response to the reactions your comment received:
I'm not sure why so many took your comment to be negative. It looks like a plug for that church.
I was disappointed to learn the nature of the volunteer.gov sight. I don't know why I expected different from a .gov url. It is obviously useful to know who is behind an effort. So your post added useful information.
I have used justserve.org to find opportunities to serve in my community. Most of the activities I joined didn't seem to benefit the church in any way beyond a rising tide lifting all boats. I jumped in because they looked like worthwhile activities that would just take a couple hours of my time.
So I took your posting as a bit of good will for an organization committing resources to a website that lets people of any stripe find opportunities to help other people of any stripe.
Warning to any mobile users: the site has an enormous banner image that is absolutely crawling over a high speed wired connection. I'm going to guess some idiot uploaded a high resolution PNG...
There's a general "search" field with no indication of how to search for a geographical area.
I did a search and everything that comes up are janitorial positions for the national park service. In what reality are people going to volunteer to scrub bathrooms for tourists?
Readit News
If I search for->thru a half doz volunteer sites, I tend to find usable opportunities.
Case in point: americorps.gov. Enter zip code; go to the results page. Distance is 20mi. Results: 1-4 are four states away, 5-6 are virtual, 6 is seven states away. 8-9 duplicate Exchange Student hosting. 10-11 are nearby and look like what I'd expect.
Volunteerism is trust-based and confusing me at step 1 isn't the best way there.
habitat.org. My zipcode yields HFH offices (not build locations). None in my county. I imagine there's an (reasonable!) onboarding process beyond a background check. There are HFH stores that are closer; they prob have volunteers. It's not obvious on this page that there's somewhere I can click to find a FAQ or a splainer about different opportunities.
volunteermatch.org. This seems more inviting+useful. My zipcode gets me 2 dozen nearby opportunities with locations, informative headlines and brief descriptions. All right on the results page.
These were from the top results of a Kagi search. There are quite a few beyond that that look worth clicking into.
I feel this is precisely the divide that would be worth bridging in the US. Spend some time knowing and loving nature, and you’ll realize that there are many people who would take these opportunities, and they’re not crazy, they just have a different perspective.
I wonder what other opinions people have that we think are “nuts” but are really just a different perspective?
Look at this[1] particular ask:
> Applicants must be available to work a minimum of 32 hours per week.
> [minimum 3 month commitment with possibility to extend to a year] ... Weekend and holiday work is required.
> shovel snow for extended periods of time, hike-ski-snowshoe in extreme weather conditions with a 35-pound backpack at 7,000ft, live in remote locations with regularly snow packed roads.
> Groceries and shopping facilities are approximately 60 miles away; reliable personal transportation is required.
[1] https://www.volunteer.gov/s/volunteer-opportunity/a093d00000...
Its not implicit, "volunteer" is the word for a non-coerced unpaid laborer.
For what it’s worth: if I were at a time in my life where I could do the linked opportunity, I absolutely would. Even better would be an Antarctica opportunity for a winter season.
A person living paycheck-to-paycheck may view the Antarctica opportunity as pompous, but environmental-club peers may view it as volunteering to save the planet and deserves a round of cheers with drinks in hand.
https://www.usajobs.gov/
Most of the old folks retiring at 70 aren't doing any of these labor intensive affairs so its mostly a task for the idle children of the upper middle class to rich. Are we feting people for being born on third base again?
Deleted Comment
> Housing is included
> room in a shared apartment or house.
Why can't I search by Zip Code? Or by Remote?
For a non-profit, and a government site, the Accessibility scores are pretty low... just using WCAG scanners. This should be a flawless site.
They also claim "Volunteer.gov is committed to being in full compliance with the requirements of the American Disabilities Act..." but they aren't... there are at least 10 issues per page.
There should be multiple languages supported.
There's a post... "National Park Service 2024 COUPLES ONLY Opportunity" -- I'm not sure that's even legal.
There should be a way to post non-profits, maybe there is. Just feels like any non-profit should be able to use this to post needs.
I can't find any opportunities in Ausitn. Ok, we're just a small backwoods town.
There aren't like "profile pages" for non-profits, or real job posts... you click on a card to learn more, and all it shows you is a button "apply now" -- it's missing the page that tells you more about the job and more about the non-profit.
Ugh, anyway terrible UX. Curious how these people got funding for this... No thoughts were given to SEO, or usability, or growth... seems like it's destined to fail in the shape it's in.
> Ugh, anyway terrible UX. Curious how these people got funding for this... No thoughts were given to SEO, or usability, or growth... seems like it's destined to fail in the shape it's in.
Perhaps you should volunteer to fix it?
It should have been something like Volunteer Match or One Star... a way to network and do good.
https://www.volunteermatch.org/
https://onestarfoundation.org/
The idea has so much merit. But it's not being executed on correctly. They can reach out if they want suggestions. Happy to point them to design agencies or give strategy suggestions.
true to his words, the only volunteer contact I got with that guy later was to be an usher at an exclusive dot-com event in San Francisco, pre-covid.. I did do it to hear the speakers, and lo-and-behold, the organizers mostly thought of the volunteers as worthless suckers.. you could see it. And, volunteers got the 'show up on time' authority talk from a typical hotel-worker-manager type, too! awful
Perhaps much smaller in scope, but justserve.org is a good one for finding service/volunteer opportunities in your local community
hmm...
I'm not sure why so many took your comment to be negative. It looks like a plug for that church.
I was disappointed to learn the nature of the volunteer.gov sight. I don't know why I expected different from a .gov url. It is obviously useful to know who is behind an effort. So your post added useful information.
I have used justserve.org to find opportunities to serve in my community. Most of the activities I joined didn't seem to benefit the church in any way beyond a rising tide lifting all boats. I jumped in because they looked like worthwhile activities that would just take a couple hours of my time.
So I took your posting as a bit of good will for an organization committing resources to a website that lets people of any stripe find opportunities to help other people of any stripe.
Dead Comment
There's a general "search" field with no indication of how to search for a geographical area.
I did a search and everything that comes up are janitorial positions for the national park service. In what reality are people going to volunteer to scrub bathrooms for tourists?