Everything you wanted to know about Volunteering!

These people dedicated their lives helping others!

What is Volunteering?

In most simple words, Volunteering means to give time, effort and skills to someone in need without expecting any benefit in return.

Why volunteering

The great poet, William Henry Davies, says in his poem ‘Leisure’, “What is this life, if full of care, We have no time to stand and stare”. Life today indeed resonates with these lines. We have become so busy with our lives that we are constantly running from one chore to another. In such circumstances, volunteering is a distant thought. Yet, it is something that offers benefits not only to the volunteer but to his family, friends and community. Take a look-

Brings Happiness: Humans are biologically hard-wired to help others. By bringing a positive change in lives of other people, they feel contentment and a sense of fulfillment. Their own lives become happier.
Connection Development: Volunteering is not only about helping other people, it is also helping our environment, animals and organizations. All this impacts our understanding for our surroundings, helps develop our connection and make this world a better place to live in for everybody.
Social Skills Development: Often, volunteering helps us practice our social skills. The need to interact and make contacts make us a better person socially.
Brings Self-confidence: With social skills comes self-confidence. This boost in self-confidence aids in improving our self-esteem. Pride in ourselves helps us both, personally as well as professionally.
Boosts career: The self-confidence, social skills and our connection with others all help us grow professionally. It boosts our chances of growth in our field of work.

Who can volunteer?

The will to help others is the only requirement to be a volunteer. There is nothing else deemed necessary or important. Age, class, race, education is all meaningless when it comes to volunteering. There is no minimum or maximum age. Little children in house can learn to volunteer when they see their parents helping others. When they donate their toys or books to needy children is a sort of volunteering.

How to find what is right for you?

The first step in volunteering is self-introspection. The right way to start is to ask the question: what do we aim to achieve by volunteering our time, energy and skills. This will help us evaluate volunteer opportunities to our goals. Some of such important questions are-

Are we looking for a volunteer opportunity that provides an opportunity to meet new people or we want to work on something remotely?
What causes we are passionate about? For example, is it the environment that we are concerned about, or we want to help underprivileged kids?
How much time we can commit?
What skills I can bring on to a volunteering opportunity?
How frequently I can make myself available, is it every week or once a month etc.?
Are we looking to develop our social skills?
Do we want volunteer experience on our resume or profile?

ColoringLIFE & volunteer opportunities

ColoringLIFE is a platform that connects enthusiastic volunteers to causes. Once an interested volunteer knows what he wants to contribute to, we offer a number of possibilities. These opportunities can be selected based on-

Location (preferred city/remote)
NGO & it’s cause
Skills of the volunteer
Frequency of volunteering

How to get the most out of volunteering?

To reap the maximum benefits out of volunteering, for the self as well as for the community it is important to take a few steps:

Choose the right cause and reason to volunteer. If a volunteer undertakes an opportunity that’s difficult to perform, may be based on skills/location etc., the sense of achievement would be missing. This would affect the volunteer’s motivation to continue helping others.
It is always recommended to understand the NGO’s needs and expectations from the volunteer beforehand. This can be understood by having open discussions and questions.
Feedback is a mechanism where the NGOs and volunteers weigh each other on the scale of satisfaction. Volunteers should not hesitate to speak up in case his experience is not what he/she expected. NGOs should also provide feedback as to how the volunteer fared on their needs. After this gap is identified, the performance from both the parties can be significantly improved and long term relationship can be ensured.

We hope this Volunteering 101 information will motivate you to come forward to help others, to volunteer! Volunteering is the most valuable gift we can give to those in need. Do not hesitate to contact us to know about your local volunteering opportunities. Together, let’s make a difference!

Posted in ColoringLIFE , Idea Box and Tagged Cause , Education , NGO , Skills , Volunteering .