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Volunteering

Why Volunteer?

Volunteering is not about ‘charity and giving’ but about working together for mutual benefit.

Volunteering strengthens the link between higher education and work promoting active citisenship and gaining new skills through team development.

In other words, volunteering is more than just giving few hours of your time – it is about learning new skills from which you and the organisations will both benefit.

There are various reasons why people decide to volunteer:

  • Volunteering develops key transferable skills that will help you to succeed in your chosen career and could open up new opportunities and challenges.
  • For some people volunteering will add more to their CV and thus improve their job prospects and employability.
  • For others volunteering is fun, fulfilling and a good opportunity to make new friends.

Volunteering is personally rewarding, enhancing career prospects, employability and aiding personal development and lifelong learning.

Things to consider

Before you get started you should be clear about how much time you can devote.

If you are studying you should remember that your workload will vary throughout the year and you do not want to disappoint anyone when you are under pressure and are unable to volunteer.

If you find an opportunity that you are interested in you should find out as much as you can about it. Most projects will have a volunteer manager or coordinator and they should be able to give you a good explanation of what your role will be.

If you are keen to volunteer in a different part of the world, there are a number of residential placements that exist. The length of these placements ranges from a week to a year. And there can be financial costs to participate. Find out in advance as much as you can about what the placement will involve so that things like the standard of accommodation or number of hours you are requested to work don’t come as a surprise when you get there!

Benefits of Volunteering

For You

Professional / career development

  • Improves your CV and makes you more employable
  • Helps you to develop transferable skills (time management, communication, inter-personal skills, etc)
  • Helps you to develop specific skills (e.g. how to write a press release, create a website, fundraise, etc)
  • Provides you with the opportunity to see if an organisation or career sector is for you
  • Enables you to make valuable contacts to use as referees on your CV

Personal development

  • Improves your confidence and self-esteem
  • Shows that you have an interest in the wider community
  • Enables you to meet new people and see new places
For others

Volunteering is also significant to the larger community because it:

  • Enables citizens to play an active role in their community.
  • Helps tackle social exclusion.
  • Mobilises social capital.

Volunteering Opportunities