Summer 2001

Technology
Finding Volunteer Opportunities Online

Finding a good volunteer opportunity has gotten easier in recent years thanks to a growing number of volunteer-matching Web sites. To get a better understanding of how these sites work, and how they compare, "Giving Forum" went online to try some out.

We visited three sites for the same hypothetical volunteer search: a Twin Cities resident seeking an education-related volunteer opportunity working with youth. Here's what we learned:

Hands On Twin Cities. Our first stop was to handsontwincities.org, formerly the Volunteer Resource Center (VRC), which recently unveiled a new online database of up to 8,000 metro-area volunteer opportunities. Overall, this site proved to be the most useful resource for our specific volunteer needs.

The site's "basic search" let us search for opportunities by our zip code, desired distance of the opportunity from our home (from one to 20 miles; we chose 10), and volunteer category — we selected "education & literacy" from a list of about 130 choices. We could also indicate that we were only available evenings and/or Saturdays.

Our initial search yielded five matches with four different nonprofits: three tutoring opportunities, one mentor/study job and a group facilitator position. We then narrowed our search by using the "advanced search," which let us specify the type of organization we wanted to volunteer for (we chose "children & families" and "youth organizations" from 27 categories) and the type of people we'd like to work with (we opted for "children 6-12" and "youth 12-18"). This narrowed our list down to one position that seemed to be a good fit for our needs. The site gave us a full description of the volunteer position and the organization, including a contact name.

VolunteerMatch. Our next stop was www.volunteermatch.org, operated by ImpactOnline. (You can access the same database through the AOL Foundation's networkforgood.org site.)

We entered the same zip code, distance and volunteer category as in our VRC search, which resulted in a list of 92 volunteer opportunities. But unlike the VRC search, VolunteerMatch didn't allow us to narrow our search any further. In our hypothetical search we could only work evenings and Saturdays, but many of the opportunities in the list were for after-school volunteering. Weeding those out was a time-consuming process.

But VolunteerMatch offers two search criteria not found on the VRC site: you can specify when you want to start volunteering (from the current week to six months from now) and whether you're looking for a one-time or ongoing opportunity (or both). VolunteerMatch also has an easy-to-use sign-up form that is e-mailed directly to the volunteer-seeking nonprofit.

Another advantage of VolunteerMatch is that it includes volunteer opportunities outside the Twin Cities, although the listings are weighted heavily toward the metro region. On the day we used the site, it had 694 volunteer listings in all categories within a 60-mile radius of our Minneapolis zip code, 39 in Rochester, 25 in Duluth and six in Grand Rapids.

Idealist.org. The volunteer database at Idealist.org is operated by Action Without Borders, whose mission is to "build a world where all people can live free and dignified lives in a healthy environment." In addition to volunteer listings, you can search the site for nonprofit organizations, jobs, services, resources and more.

The Idealist site had much fewer Minnesota volunteer opportunities than the previous two sites — we found 141 Minnesota listings in all categories. We entered the same hypothetical criteria as for the previous two searches, although we had to enter a city instead of a zip code and couldn't specify a distance. The search resulted in eight volunteer opportunities, including six for the same nonprofit. Three of those eight opportunities were also on our VolunteerMatch list.

Despite its more limited local listings, Idealist does have some features not found on the other two sites. You can search for volunteer opportunities requiring specific skills or languages, and you can enter desired start and end dates for your volunteer work.

The bottom line? The volunteer-matching sites we tested were equally quick and easy to use. But they varied considerably in their search criteria and functions and in the number of volunteer opportunities in their databases. Checking several different sites seems to be a good rule of thumb — all the sites we tested yielded at least a few opportunities we didn't find anywhere else. And the best site for you will depend to some extent on the geographic area where you want to volunteer and the field in which you want to work.

If you're a nonprofit looking for volunteers, you should definitely get your opportunities listed on as many of these sites as is appropriate and feasible. You'll likely reach a new audience of potential volunteers. For us, one short hour of searching connected us to countless hours of potentially fruitful volunteer opportunities.