Virtual Volunteering: How to Make an Impact from Home
13 Websites Offering Volunteer-From-Home Opportunities
In these challenging times, it's more important than ever to extend a helping hand to those in need, even if you are homebound due to illness, injury, age, or something else. Numerous organizations are facilitating remote volunteering opportunities, bridging the gap between willing at-home volunteers and nonprofits requiring assistance. All it takes is a phone or internet connection and a generous spirit to make a difference. Join the effort to brighten your own day while uplifting others with these 15 ways to volunteer from the comfort of your home!
13 Websites Offering At-Home Volunteer Opportunities
All for Good is a digital hub for volunteerism and community engagement that pulls volunteer opportunities from multiple sites around the web via feeds in order to provide the most comprehensive database of volunteer openings around the world. Clicking on the ‘Volunteer from Home’ banner on the home page takes you to the Remote Opportunities search page where you can find thousands of opportunities including requests for wellness check volunteers, instructional video makers to keep kids active at home, virtual advocates for the American Heart Association to support those impacted by economic disruption, and virtual food donation participants.
Support Bookshare’s initiative to make reading easier for children and adults with reading disabilities. Volunteer to scan books, proofread files, or become a mentor teacher or parent ambassador to support Bookshare users.
Another popular volunteer search tool is Catchafire, which always offers strictly online volunteer opportunities for business professionals. These organizations are in need of strategic advice for navigating their businesses during this public health emergency – like re-evaluating marketing strategy, tapping into the Work Share program with the unemployment commission, conducting community needs assessments, and learning how to use online resources for transitioning business to a virtual world.
Our friends at Create the Good provide users with an online portal for uncovering volunteer opportunities in their specific communities. Simply enter 'remote' in the keywords search box to explore ways to pitch in – sign up to make social phone calls to the elderly, write notes of hope for the homeless, create cards for the isolated elderly, participate in virtual food drives, teach a virtual class of your choice to older adults, and much more.
Crisis Text Line provides a lifeline to anyone in crisis -- including those finding it difficult to deal with forced isolation, being bullied, addicted to drugs, being abused by a loved one, feeling depressed or even suicidal. Learn how to become a volunteer Crisis Counselor and become someone’s lifeline here.
With Idealist, you can search for volunteer opportunities, as well as opportunities to provide loans or to donate to individuals with active fundraising campaigns for good causes, such as helping rural farmers and fishermen while teaching sustainable agricultural practices in El Salvador. Toggle on the option for ‘Virtual/Remove Only’ on the Actions Search page to see a comprehensive list of ways to help from home. If you’re interested in helping a specific community, add your city or zip code and click search.
An international nonprofit focused on creating a global culture of volunteerism, Points of Light offers an online portal to search for volunteer opportunities globally or in your specific community. On the Get Involved page, searching for ‘coronavirus’, ‘online’, ‘at home’, and ‘remote’ will give you a list of volunteer tasks you can do from home.
Smithsonian Digital Volunteers
For you history buffs, the Smithsonian Institution – the world-renowned museum and research complex in Washington, DC – offers virtual volunteer opportunities for anyone interested in transcribing historical documents or editing Wikipedia articles related to the institution’s artifacts and research. Find out more on the institute's Digital Volunteers page.
Show some love to our nation’s heroes by volunteering virtually with Soldiers’ Angels. Make care packages, write letters or send greeting cards, bake goodies, sew blankets, or join a special campaign to support our soldiers.
Be a mentor to a foreign student or support someone that is homebound with Table Wisdom’s Co-video Partner program. Volunteers are matched with someone in a different city and partake in a video chat each week.
Translators Without Borders (TWB)
Are you fluent in more than one language? Use your skills for humanitarian aid by translating medical texts or translating for crisis response purposes via TWB.
UN Volunteers Online: Unified Volunteering Platform
The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) program has created an online portal for volunteers looking to pay it forward from home. Find volunteer opportunities ranging from data collection, writing and editing, translation, and social media support to graphic design, fundraising strategy development, teaching a language and more.
An online portal for finding volunteer openings, Volunteer Match allows you to filter for virtual opportunities and serves up a wide variety of options – from making blankets for children and compassion calls to hospice patients, to writing grant applications for nonprofits and letters to inmates, to designing logos and websites and so much more.
