r/volunteer

Hi, I like to dream about volunteering abroad for a good cause. One day I really want to do it. What do you think I should do? I am looking for something effective for the local community or environment. Online I see a lot of volunteer opportunities abroad but many give me 'white saviour' vibes... If you have any ideas or thoughts about this please share! I am still in the discovery phase so I'd be happy to hear anything and everything (anywhere or online opportunities are also fine!)

Just to clarify, by 'cool' I mean something meaningful for the community, not instagram cool etc.

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My mom, 80f, has a lot of time on her hands and great qualities to offer. She can’t lift anything heavy but otherwise has no restrictions. She has 50
Years of experience in plumbing sales and lots of experience with kids. Any general suggestions of places for her to volunteer?

I started volunteering for a local nonprofit about a month ago but with pretty minimal involvement and communication about the organization/ things to come. The ED invited me to come with her to a live Spanish radio interview. I was so excited and came along thinking I was just there to observe and learn. I never got any info on which radio station or what the interview was going to be about. She gave me a different meeting location, I got there called her and told her the building was closed. Then at the radio station I realized she wanted me to be interviewed. I told her I just wanted to listen. For context, I don't speak Spanish even though I'm Latina and I'm autistic. She knew both of these things before hand.

During the interview she kept throwing the conversation to me forcing me to speak. At one point, I had enough and refused to answer. She still tried to force me to close out the interview after I refused to speak at one point. After we left i told her I was uncomfortable and don't speak Spanish well (I know basics). She just said, "but this is what you do right? Communications?" I told her I do content creation not media or live interviews. I emailed her the same day expressing my concerns and detailing that putting me live on air without any heads up wasn't OK. I told her I should have clarified my role and just assumed i would be observing.

The next day I decided to email the radio station and asked if I could stay anonymous in the interview and explained I wasn't aware I would be interviewed so I didn't want my name attached to it. On Saturday, the ED tried to call me and said we need to talk via text. On Monday, I responded and explained that I didn't want to talk on a Saturday and wanted some time to process so I waited until Monday. All of a sudden I get notification that I'm cut out of the organization email I had and she texted me asking me not to attend any meetings/speak to anyone at the organization. I wanted to talk and clarify but after a few texts she referred to me as demanding and that she wanted me to be honest. I'm genuinely confused and I feel like it's unethical to put anyone live on air without preparation. That's why I assumed I was observing. Having autism just heightened how awful this whole thing was.

Is this unethical? I've never experienced anything like it as a volunteer.

Our nonprofit is growing, and keeping track of volunteer hours with spreadsheets is becoming a mess. We have people signing in at different locations, missing entries, and it's taking way too long to verify everyone's hours at the end of the month.

Has anyone switched to a volunteer hours tracking system that makes reporting and attendance easier without creating extra work for volunteers? I'm mainly looking for something that's simple, accurate, and works well for recurring volunteers.

Would love to hear what's worked (or hasn't) for your organization.

I applied for a volunteer role with the through Idealist and was sent a link by someone in Mentor A Promise to pick a time to meet, but they never showed up to the meeting. I emailed them and asked if it was ok to reschedule our meeting since no one showed up,and they told me to pick a new time to connect (didn’t even apologize). I had the new meeting scheduled for today, and no one showed up again.

As far as I can tell, this is a legit nonprofit, but are the volunteer opportunities legit? I think the emails came from the CEO, but them not getting on either of our calls and the lack of info of the organization overall (along with their many volunteer listings) is raising a lot of red flags.

Does anyone have any experience with them?

TLDR; I am burnt out and frankly I’m done and can’t wait for it to be over. Anyways for anyone who quit volunteering, what other activities did you do to keep yourself sane? Located in Australia.

So I volunteer for an international organisation which I have done over the course of 10 years. In the early days, I really enjoyed it - it was mostly local activities with some leadership promotions. However, I had someone who to cut a long story short, is not someone who should be around young people and as a result I’ve had symptoms of PTSD. I did try to whistleblow at the time but in the end, I guess I was the one who was causing the hassle.

Fortunately, I was able to move onto other youth activities in the organisation not relating to the local activities. I really enjoyed those youth activities and don’t regret doing it. However, I’m currently part of a youth club where I am on the board, which includes my partner. I was president for 18 months but had to take a step back as it’s significantly affecting my mental health.

We are probably going announce next week that it will be closed due to lack of members and people willing to put their hand up for leadership positions. I know at least 1 member and our sponsor club will be pissed off about that but frankly we can’t take the criticism and the crap anymore. The lack of communication and action from some of the other volunteers is shit. And the leadership above our club is also shit too…pretending that they care about us when in reality their actions has shown they don’t.

We are currently supposed to have a trivia night held next week which we were forced to do with limited time but there are no rsvps so will probably cancel that and close the club as we don’t see the point.

It’s frustrating that other people want the club to work but aren’t prepared to really help my partner and I who are basically doing most of the work and have been since the start of last year.