Community service is that "feel good" activity that many want to accomplish, but don't always make the time for. With everyone so busy with family and work, it is sometimes tough to make volunteering a priority. Here are several reasons why volunteering is more than just an opportunity to feel good about yourself and is actually a valuable use of your time.
Community service greatly affects your community, and this is a very common fact. Why not take a few parts of you time to make the community a better place to live in? Volunteering a few hours a month can make a huge difference even with a small amount of time that is invested. Events such as park and street cleanups, local school projects, serving food at a shelter or working at your local food pantry, helping with youth activities, and more are some of the volunteering activities today. Even if you just have an hour each week to give, this truly makes a big impact.
Volunteering makes you an example. Volunteering not only makes an impact on the greater community, but it impacts your family and friends directly. If you have children, this is a great teaching and mentoring experience for them. If you can, do your best to find volunteer opportunities that you can bring your kids to, where they too can volunteer and help. This will teach them that giving back is not only the right thing to do, but helping others and the environment is investing in their future. It's also a nice opportunity to create group volunteer events, which you and your friends can participate in to make an even bigger impact. With social media being so ubiquitous these days, group volunteering with friends can spread like wildfire across networks, which will create a positive word of mouth on the volunteer experience and organization for you and your friends.
Depending on your schedule, several companies today are offering some workplace volunteer programs that allow their employees to spend a certain amount of hours per month that are approved during work hours. Why not spend such time to the community for the better good? The company is paying you for such tasks which make it advantageous for your family and friends to partake in such events to make to the most use of their time. If your company is not offering such volunteer program, then you might want to inquire about it from your management to help you get started.
Volunteerism enhances your skills and you gain more experience. This is one benefit that many don't realize, but is maybe one of the most important reasons to volunteer. You may have seen terms about volunteering such as "micro-volunteering" or "skills based volunteering." These are new concepts that are proving to be the most valuable to volunteers and organizations. Micro-volunteering or skills based volunteering means taking the skills you possess (often through your work experience) and applying it to a volunteer opportunity in small increments of time.
For example, many nonprofits do not have in-house web designers. If you are a web designer, your skills are in high demand. Taking time to volunteer every couple of weeks for a few hours and applying your design skills to an organization in need will have a huge impact for only a small commitment of your time. Not only will the organization benefit from it, but you will also gain additional experience by honing your skills. For freelance web designers, this is a great opportunity to do some pro-bono work that could potentially lead to a long-term contract with the organization once they see how well you do volunteering.
Community service greatly affects your community, and this is a very common fact. Why not take a few parts of you time to make the community a better place to live in? Volunteering a few hours a month can make a huge difference even with a small amount of time that is invested. Events such as park and street cleanups, local school projects, serving food at a shelter or working at your local food pantry, helping with youth activities, and more are some of the volunteering activities today. Even if you just have an hour each week to give, this truly makes a big impact.
Volunteering makes you an example. Volunteering not only makes an impact on the greater community, but it impacts your family and friends directly. If you have children, this is a great teaching and mentoring experience for them. If you can, do your best to find volunteer opportunities that you can bring your kids to, where they too can volunteer and help. This will teach them that giving back is not only the right thing to do, but helping others and the environment is investing in their future. It's also a nice opportunity to create group volunteer events, which you and your friends can participate in to make an even bigger impact. With social media being so ubiquitous these days, group volunteering with friends can spread like wildfire across networks, which will create a positive word of mouth on the volunteer experience and organization for you and your friends.
Depending on your schedule, several companies today are offering some workplace volunteer programs that allow their employees to spend a certain amount of hours per month that are approved during work hours. Why not spend such time to the community for the better good? The company is paying you for such tasks which make it advantageous for your family and friends to partake in such events to make to the most use of their time. If your company is not offering such volunteer program, then you might want to inquire about it from your management to help you get started.
Volunteerism enhances your skills and you gain more experience. This is one benefit that many don't realize, but is maybe one of the most important reasons to volunteer. You may have seen terms about volunteering such as "micro-volunteering" or "skills based volunteering." These are new concepts that are proving to be the most valuable to volunteers and organizations. Micro-volunteering or skills based volunteering means taking the skills you possess (often through your work experience) and applying it to a volunteer opportunity in small increments of time.
For example, many nonprofits do not have in-house web designers. If you are a web designer, your skills are in high demand. Taking time to volunteer every couple of weeks for a few hours and applying your design skills to an organization in need will have a huge impact for only a small commitment of your time. Not only will the organization benefit from it, but you will also gain additional experience by honing your skills. For freelance web designers, this is a great opportunity to do some pro-bono work that could potentially lead to a long-term contract with the organization once they see how well you do volunteering.
About the Author:
Sebastian Troup likes writing about philanthropic solutions for businesses and non profit organizations. To get further details about the importance of strategic philanthropy, or to find some employee giving programs, please check out the Truist website now.
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