| Your Skill | Related Volunteering Options |
| Arts and crafts | · Teach activities at a senior center or handicapped facility.
· Teach at an after-school program.
· Make gifts for a charity sale or thrift shop. |
| Accounting/bookkeeping/tax preparation | · Audit books/prepare taxes for charities.
· Give seminars in finance for the homeless, new immigrants, single parents. |
| Computers/website design | · Teach people new job skills.
· Offer to design a site for your favorite charity.
· Better yet, offer to maintain and update it as needed.
· Offer to set up an e-newsletter or discussion group forum. |
| Cooking | · Cook at a soup kitchen.
· Train single parents or teen mothers to cook. |
| Foreign language fluency | · Teach English as a second language.
· Advocate for illegal immigrants.
· Translate (at schools, banks, lawyer's offices) for immigrants who are trying to get established. |
| Gardening | · Plant gardens in poor neighborhoods or your own town center.
· Care for local parks.
· Start a plant a tree program for the environment.
· Organize a garden walk fundraiser. |
| Good with animals | · Be a zoo docent.
· Offer to walk the dogs or clean up at an animal shelter.
· Run a drive for newspapers, towels, and toys for a local shelter.
· Raise puppies that will be trained as seeing-eye dogs. |
| Graphic design | · Design and create brochures, flyers, websites.
· Design signs to publicize upcoming events. |
| Handyman skills--carpentry, electrical, plumbing | · Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity.
· Repair homes of seniors in your area.
· Build a playground.
· Repaint a school, church, or community center. |
| Legal background | · Represent foster or abused children in court proceedings.
· Offer legal advice to poor. |
| Marketing/promotion | · Develop proposals or solicitation letters for charities.
· Solicit volunteers.
· Write press releases for charities advertising upcoming events.
· Write copy for brochures or websites. |
| Music | · Teach guitar or drums to troubled teens.
· Teach at a school with an under-funded music program.
· Perform at senior centers, handicapped facilities.
· Volunteer at an after-school program.
· Teach at a charitable summer camp for the handicapped, troubled youth.
· Usher or sell tickets at a concert hall. |
| Photography | · Take photos at charitable events to use for publicity.
· Take group photos and staged photos for use in brochures and other promotions. |
| Public speaking | · Emcee charity events.
· Be interviewed by the media on charity events and funding needs. |
| Sports | · Coach summer or after-school kids' sports.
· Organize a sports-related fundraiser (tennis tournament, sponsored 10K race, bike-a-thon).
· Teach at a charitable summer camp for the handicapped or troubled youth. |
| Teaching | · Become a literacy tutor.
· Read on tape for the blind or to the elderly.
· Work with mentally handicapped individuals if your background is in special education.
· Be a teacher's aid at an under-funded school. |
