What Every Student Should Know About Volunteering

How can volunteering lead to the happiest place on Earth?

Shortly before 2009 ended, President Barack Obama challenged college students to “go out and change the world.” It’s a call that most college students are taking to heart. While reports about the record turn-out of college students in the 2008 presidential election are well-documented, this generation is also being heralded as more “civic-minded” in their activism and volunteering.

It’s a trend college campuses are picking up on. Giving back to the community isn’t just about padding your Gamma Rho or Sigma Kappa Sigma resume. In fact, getting involved and giving back can make the difference to whether a student is accepted at the university of their choice, especially as more colleges are requiring community service for acceptance, admission and graduation.

So, what should every college student know about volunteering?

When Good Volunteering Goes Bad

It’s an unfortunate reality that sometimes, volunteering can go awry. Journalist Caitlin Kelly, who spent a year and a half as a Big Sister to a Hispanic child in her county, writes about her experience, “My goal is not to dissuade anyone from doing it, but my experience of being a Big Sister was sadly instructive and left me very wary of making such a commitment again. That quite likely deprives me, and others, of some good results.”

In her Jan. 10 True/Slant article, Kelly describes bending over backwards to give her Little Sister a better chance at life, only to be let down and humiliated when her charge doesn’t show up to the entrance interview Kelly arranged for her at a prestigious boarding school.

“We rarely hear about the ones that don’t work out because, after all, the idea is to encourage volunteerism,” Kelly writes. “Not scare people off.”

Honesty is a critical first step to establishing the necessary relationship for a good volunteering experience. Kelly references later in the article that her young charge’s social worker only admitted to the difficulty of the family and the girl’s own manipulative tendencies after Kelly had already spent nearly a year as a Big Sister, including a transparency about the expectations involved.

Volunteers Have Rights, Too

Volunteering generally means receiving no pay of any kind. In this generation of entitlement (who hasn’t scratched their head about six-year-olds toting around iPhones?) not receiving any kind of compensation can seem to suggest a lack of importance.

Not so, according Diana Hentges in the Jan. 4 edition of The Kansas City Kansan.

“Working at a job unpaid does not imply a lack of structure or polices or that the job is unimportant,” Hentges writes. “On the contrary, volunteers are vital for the success of non-profits.”

That being said, the lack of pay does not translate into a lack of rights–there are actually federally-recognized rights for volunteers. If a student has responded to a call for a concession stand worker, the volunteer coordinator cannot put them to work scrubbing the stadium. The volunteer always has the right to refuse participation in the tasks that are not comfortable or consistent with what they believed they would be doing, or to leave the opportunity if it isn’t going to work out for all parties involved.

Keep Informed and Involved in the Process

Volunteers should take it upon themselves to ask the necessary questions of their volunteer coordinators. Whether seeking volunteer placement through an agency like the Chamber of Commerce for a local city or DoSomething, it’s important to ask themselves three questions: what are my interests, how much time do I have and what are my skills?

Interests

Students should ask themselves several questions about their motives while also exploring their interests. Students who are interested in photography, for example, may be ideally placed in a position that requires pictures for the city’s newsletter, while a student who likes working with animals could volunteer to walk the dogs at the local humane society.

By keying in on their interests, students are more likely to stay attached to their volunteer opportunities. VolunterMatch.org allows for users to search for volunteer opportunities based on their location and a variety of interests, including cooking, gardening and even writing.

Time

Depending on the volunteer position they’re applying for, students may face incredibly demanding time commitments before their work even starts. Most rape crisis centers, for example, require six weeks of training to assist in their crisis hotlines, and organizations that work with children or the elderly may have a screening process that takes up to a month.

Volunteers may have to fill out a substantial amount of paperwork, undergo a lengthy training process or submit to a criminal background check, so ask in advance what the documentation and training requirements are. Make sure that the amount of time involved in the screening process as well as the actual volunteering fit into the available schedule–these days, most organizations list these requirements on their websites–or be prepared to seek out another volunteer opportunity.

Skills

Obviously, most people don’t like focusing on their weakness, but when it comes to volunteering, students need to be honest with themselves about what they can and can’t do. If the volunteer position requires someone who is assertive and the student is a milquetoast, the experience isn’t going to be a positive one. Being aware of strengths and weaknesses is critical to finding a successful partnership between the student and the volunteer opportunity.

A student’s skill set can also determine the ultimate volunteer placement. If a student is a talented gardener or landscaper, they might be able to find an ideal position in assisting with their city’s beautification projects of lesser-developed areas, or in organizing state parks.

How Agencies Can Help Volunteers

The responsibility for a good volunteering experience isn’t just on the student, however. Those seeking volunteers should also make the effort for the volunteering experience to be productive for the volunteers. NOLO, an online legal encyclopedia, has several suggestions for how volunteer coordinators can seek to make the experience more positive for volunteers, including playing on their motivation, making service fun and acknowledging the contributions the volunteer is making.

Once a student has found a suitable volunteer opportunity, it’s important to learn the ropes. This means knowing all of the necessary information, from who is serving as the supervisor of the project to where volunteers should park their cars. These housekeeping bits can help prevent volunteers from getting lost in the shuffle, and feel more included with the rest of the volunteering team.

Benefits of Volunteering

Volunteering can have incredible pay-offs. Not only are colleges looking for students involved in giving back, but many organizations have programs designed to reward students who give back. Disneyland, for example, is offering “Give a Day, Get a Day” program, which allows individuals to bring proof of volunteering and receive a free ticket into the park.

However, most students get involved because they have a genuine need to give back.

“Well, my personal philosophy is that if there is a need and I have every opportunity to meet it, then why not?” Emily Riggs, a 24-year-old out of Martinez, Calif. who volunteers for the American Cancer Society, says. “I can choose to be unproductive or help others and to me it’s a no-brainer. But that is also my philosophy and I know in that respect, my opinion differs from others. To me, it just makes sense. I feel so incredibly fortunate to be able to give back and so I do.”

There are countless ways for students to get involved. Most college campuses provide an office for Student Life, which will often promote volunteer opportunities across the campus and community. The city Chamber of Commerce can also provide some opportunities. Online, students can check out DoSomething, GlobalVolunteerNetwork or VolunteerMatch to find volunteering opportunities near them.

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