When you’re looking for a job, your resume is going to be how an employer first gets to know you. Of course you want to include the work experience and education that makes you qualified for a job, but should you include your experience volunteering?

Yes.

Listing volunteer work on your resume also can add a lot of valuable information to your job history, especially for new job seekers or recent graduates with short resumes. Volunteer positions can fill gaps in employment – so for students whose employment history is short, volunteer work can be an especially important addition to your resume.

How do you include information about volunteering on your resume?

There is no ‘right’ way to write a resume, so there is no right way to include information about volunteering on a resume.

Where do I include volunteer experience?

If you’re just out of school and you don’t have a lot of work experience, it’s okay to include volunteering along with paid work. Be prepared to answer questions about your volunteer work and how it helped to make you qualified for the job. It’s important to describe the volunteer experience in a way that shows how what you’ve learned while volunteering applies to the job you’re applying for.

If you have a longer work history, you can have a different section for your volunteer experience. Be sure to include information about the volunteer position that is relevant to the paid position that you’re applying for.

What if the volunteer position title was just “volunteer?”

Including “volunteer” on your resume may be accurate, but it might leave questions from your potential employer. Think about the work that you did while volunteering and talk to your volunteer supervisor to see if there’s a more appropriate title for the work that you did.

How should I describe the volunteer work that I did?

Describe the volunteer work in terms of what you achieved. Highlight the skills that you learned while volunteering.

Did you raise a lot of money? Did you manage a budget or accomplish goals on schedule? Did you supervise a staff of people? Even if they were volunteers too, your success required the ability to be a motivating leader.

If you are a student seeking your first job after school, being able to show volunteer work on a resume demonstrates that you had interests beyond the classroom. If you are returning to the paid work force after some time away, your volunteer activities can show that you kept yourself sharp and involved. If you want to change career fields, it may be your volunteer work in the new field that tells a prospective employer you’re worth the risk, even if all your paid employment history is in some other field.

Have you included your volunteer work on your resume? Did it help you to get a job? Tell us about it in the comments!

It’s that time of year again, the annual office holiday parties! Great, a day full of awkward socializing, lots of food, and buying presents for people you don’t know very well. What could be better, right? Using this time to volunteer as an office instead of spending awkward quality time together!

“How can this happen?” you may be wondering. By turning your Secret Santa gifts into service donations!

“Whoopee! Wait now what? How do I actually do this in my office?”

Easy, tell employees to bring a toy that they think the employee whose name they drew would have liked as a kid. For example, bring in a football for that jock in your office, a Barbie doll for the fashionista, or a game of chess for the deep thinker. Once the gifts are exchanged, donate them to children in need! Not only does your office get to have a good laugh about the toys that they get, children also get to have an awesome Christmas thanks to your office donations!

Volunteering and donating to your office’s favorite charities is a great way to make a solid bond between co-workers. Want some more ideas to keep this holiday spirit of giving up around your office? Look, we’ve got more!

• Volunteer for your co-workers favorite organizations or causes: Send around an email asking co-workers to share where they like to volunteer or what they are passionate about. Make these ideas into a day of employee service. Choose a place close to the office and try to get all staff members to attend. Try closing the office that day so that your co-workers can reflect on the experience together. Nothing spells teamwork like volunteering as a team!
• Make toys or decorations for your community members: Is there a retirement community in your area? A children or family shelter? They would love help with Christmas celebrations this year! Make cards or pictures so that they can decorate their walls with lots of holiday chair. Make toys or assemble toys for families or children in need so that they can have an unforgettable Christmas! It is a great way to spark conversation among employees that will focus on something besides the stresses of work.
• Make a donation to your company’s favorite cause: Do you have spare change laying around your desk or in your pocket? Great donate it to those who need it more than your desk surface! Vote on a charity to make donations to and pass around a collection bucket to your employees at the Christmas party. After donations are received recruit employees to personally donate the money to the designated charity. Who knows, they may like this idea so much that it will become an office tradition?
• Pick an ornament, give a gift: Put up a Christmas tree in the office with names and ages of children or families who may be struggling this holiday season. Get in contact with your local shelters to see who will sponsor this project. Employees can grab a name, buy and wrap a present to put back under the tree. The presents will then get donated to the needy families. Not only will families get a better Christmas thanks to your company’s presents, but also your office will be decorated with the tree and Christmas presents.

Volunteering is a great way to bring employees together because it is a way to collaborate on something other than work. When all employees feel passionate about the activity they are doing they can build a more effective team.

Sounds better than your awkward office Secret Santa event or tacky sweater party? Great! Give back this holiday season, and build a more effective work team through volunteering!

You’re ready! You’ve got a great idea for a volunteer project that can help your community. You’ve gotten a nonprofit partner (or you are a nonprofit), and you have a plan for having the project be more than just a one-shot project. You’re ready to do something.

Before you sit down to think up a task list, remember some of the preparation tasks that need to be done to make sure you have an awesome volunteer project.

Assess the situation

Typically, project planning starts with a needs assessment. Your most effective projects will emerge where several components come together, including an assessment of needs, opportunities and resources. Once you know the project’s needs, then you can sort out the options and choose a focus.

A needs assessment can be as simple or complex as you choose to make it. You can

• Do a community walk to see the neighborhoods where your project will take place and talk to residents and business owners.
• Interview community leaders, agency staff and other residents.
• Conduct a survey in the community or at a local school to help find direction for your project.
• Host community forums or town meetings to talk about visions and priorities for the community.

Set priorities

It is likely you will be able to identify dozens of needs. Getting people together to brainstorm freely is an important first step. The goal is to identify the effort that would best match the needs, resources, readiness level and hoped-for outcomes of everyone involved.

With time and creativity, you will have innovative ideas that get everyone excited.

Link the project to the community

Before moving into the details of planning, take time to flesh out the project objectives for everyone involved.

The service provided may appear to be the same whether or not you make strong community connections, but the impact is quite different. When community members have a voice in guiding the project’s direction, they’re able to contribute their knowledge of what their community needs help in achieving. With community input, the impact of the project can be longer lasting.

Recruiting volunteers

Recruitment volunteers can be a difficult, but working with a nonprofit partner can make things easier. Use traditional networks to find and recruit volunteers, and branch out to digital resources like the Make A Difference DAYta Bank to make your project visible to a digital audience.

Once you’ve recruited your volunteers, don’t forget to have a volunteer orientation so that volunteers have a good idea of what they’ll be doing and how to do it.

 

Have you planned your own volunteer projects? Let us know what tips you have in the comments!

Today’s post came from Calla Gilson and originally appeared on the Huffington Post on November 24, 2012.

Year after year it seemed to be the same old routine: after finishing the dishes from Thanksgiving dinner, my extended family members would each draw a name for the quickly approaching Christmas gift exchange. For weeks, each person puzzled over what would suit the recipient they had drawn, until finally Christmas arrived and countless soy candles, cookbooks and remote-controlled airplanes were swapped. The unfulfilling ritual seemed pointless, but continued habitually without a second thought until the year my cousin came up with a dire request to help her church’s food pantry that had been running dangerously low that winter. With one simple suggestion, a new tradition was born.

Now, each Christmas, individual families are asked to bring bags of groceries to our Christmas dinner. After the tables are cleared from the feast we enjoy, they are covered with groceries which we then sort and divide among the churches that my family members attend in two different towns. Later in the day, the supplies are delivered and shelved by our able hands, and sit waiting to make a difference in the lives of those who are of need in our community.

The holidays arrive in a whirlwind of tradition and time-consuming events. Yet, no tradition is truly as extraordinary as one that benefits others. There are countless ways to gain family participation in any number of service activities. I have long admired the involvement of my best friend’s family that cooks Thanksgiving dinner for any member of the community that is in want or need of a hot meal on Thanksgiving Day. Raised in this tradition, she has greatly benefitted from experiencing the interaction with guests, and serving those who would normally be overlooked with the festivities of the holiday underway. In any way a family can, it should involve every member in service. While the holidays are not the only time that a family joins together in service, each holiday brings with it wonderful junctures to form any number of traditions of service. Especially where the outreach of many food banks and clothes closets are concerned, the holidays bring with them an escalated need for supplies, often experiencing bare shelves after the tree has been taken down and ill-fitting gifts exchanged at the store.

The season of giving provides an excellent opportunity for kids of any age to make a difference and spread joy within their communities. One way to make an impact is to share your service work with others to inspire more people to get involved. For example, generationOn, the youth enterprise of Points of Light, in partnership with Hasbro, is presenting all young people with the opportunity to be a Joy Maker this holiday season. From November 19 – December 18, for each act of service shared by a young person during the holidays, Hasbro will donate one toy to Toys for Tots – up to 100,000 toys. To be a Joy Maker and share your service story visit www.generationOn.org.

Regardless of how you choose to give back, this time of year provides a wealth of opportunity and when planning a service project, below are some simple tips to consider — S.E.R.V.E:

Seek out activities in your area that have already been organized! There are so many great ways to get involved with local community outreach organizations — especially around the holidays. Do you live near an orchard? Perhaps a gleaning day collecting food for your local food bank is already an annual event. Watch news sources for opportunities to lend a hand, and once you become involved, the great networking of the service community will open doors to opportunities all around you.

Early involvement in service leads to a lifetime of caring for others. Personally, my interest in service was lovingly fostered by the support of my family and church community. A love for service and helping others is one of the greatest values parents can instill in their children. Equipping children with the ability to empathize and the problem-solving perspective of addressing issues within the community provides priceless life skills that allow them to better understand their world and leads to opportunities for exploration and learning like no other activity.

Record the work that you do together! Some of my favorite memories were created while helping others. Document the service that you do as a family. Make a scrapbook together, keep a journal, preserve your memories and share them with others! With today’s technology, blogging has become a great way to not only document experiences, but to share them with others and provide the world with inspiration.

Vacation time is helping time! Look for ways to combine fun and relaxation while lending a helping hand. Even though the kids have the day “off” school, why not make holidays such as MLK day a day “on” by helping at a local soup kitchen, or visiting the residents of your local nursing home? Joining together with other families is even a great way to get involved. Together with their peers, children can explore how to make their mark on the world within the safe confines of their families.

And finally, remember-Effective, not extensive. Something doesn’t have to be large-scale in order to make a difference! Utilize any opportunity to be of service to others! Do you know of people who are unable to leave their homes in your community? Why not take them a plate from your Thanksgiving meal? Look for ways in which to center the focus on others.

Phillips Brooks worded the essential quality of family service well when he said, “Charity should begin at home, but should not stay there.” The truth of this quote cannot be denied. While today, charity seems to have come to possess a connotation of some sort of financial outpouring, this could not be farther from the reality of the measure. Perhaps the best synonym for charity is love. In this respect, any action done to demonstrate the love that a family has for each other, projected outwards to others is without question an act of great importance. And, while the impact made in the lives of others may be immense, the reward of family service is immeasurably abundant in return. The unity that is wrought from selfless giving, coupled with memories that last far beyond the scent of any soy candle or battery life of remote controlled airplane combine to form a priceless bond. This year, talk with your family to discover what issues each member is passionate about. Address a need, and show your community the immensity of love that your family possesses. Take the steps toward a tradition that makes a difference.

Today’s post is written by Becca Webster, program associate for content design at generationOn and originally appeared on the Points of Light blog on December 4, 2012.

It’s a busy time of year—at home, in schools and in organizations across the country. Thankfully, it only takes a moment to engage youth in service and a moment more to double their impact.

For every young person caring, sharing and giving back to their community this holiday season, Hasbro will donate a toy to Toys for Tots—up to 100,000 toys. To be a Joy Maker, all you have to do is share how many young people are serving, what they’re doing and in what state. It’s that easy.

So how do you engage youth in service during the holidays?

Keep it simple and focus on the joy

Taking part in an easily repeatable act of service has big benefits for young people. They feel uplifted and empowered whether they help one person or 100. If all that joy is caused by a simple action, the action becomes a habit and a habit becomes a life of service.

Service in a moment,

At home:

Make it a Festive Community. Does your family string garlands of popcorn or make paper snowflakes? This year, make some extra festive ornaments and bring them to a senior center, homeless shelter or another place in your community that needs some cheer. This is a simple action that brings communities together and inspires young people to make service apart of their daily lives.

At school:

Make a few Giggle Books. This is something that can be done by any age student during class or during free time. Each student copies some funny-bone tested jokes into a handmade book. The books are then decorated with festive, cheerful images and messages and donated to a children’s hospital. Laughter, after all, is the best medicine.

At your organization:

Make some Happy Returns. There is a ton of waste created during the holidays. Stop recyclables from heading to the landfill and raise money for a worthy organization. Young people can decorate a recyclable collection box. Encourage everyone to deposit their bottles and cans in the box. Before you close for the holidays, tally up the returnables and announce how much money you’ve raised for your chosen recipient. This is also a great way to show that changing just one behavior (recycling instead of tossing) can make a big impact.

Get step-by-step instructions for these ideas and more.

And remember, be a Joy Maker and share any service done by youth this holiday season so Hasbro can donate toys on their behalf. It’s so simple, so quick, and so worth it:shareJoy.generationOn.org

The holidays are an important time of year for the nonprofit community. Organizations both large and small rely heavily upon income generated during this brief window to sustain their programs throughout the year.

Knowing this fact well, many organizations are on the lookout for innovative ways they can increase holiday fundraising results each year. At StayClassy, they’ve found that peer-to-peer fundraising spikes dramatically in December. Check out the great graphic they’ve produced that details some of the unique benefits of using peer-to-peer fundraising during the holidays.

But what if you’ve already got an end of the year appeal scheduled? Or an email campaign that’s going to launch? Won’t your donors be fatigued if you try to launch a p2p campaign too?

Honestly, they might be.

The truth is there’s no one size-fits-all solution when it comes to making the most of the Holiday period. If you’ve already got a bunch of fundraising activities lined up for your existing donors, then launching a p2p campaign on top of everything else might be overkill.

That being said, there’s still a simple way that any organization can use peer-to-peer to improve its holiday fundraising results…without fatiguing donors.

Leveraging Your Core Supporters

The best way to reap the benefits of p2p fundraising this Holiday Season while avoiding donor fatigue is to limit the pool of fundraisers you recruit to just your core supporters.

Your core supporters are people like board or staff members and your most passionate volunteers. When you ask your core supporters to fundraise, you focus on the people most likely to say yes and you spare the rest of your list the feelings of fatigue that come with excessive asks.

Keep in mind that you don’t need to have an army of fundraisers to benefit from peer-to-peer fundraising. We’ve found that the average active fundraiser (one that raises at least one dollar) brings in about $568 dollars. That eclipses the average online donation, which is anywhere from $60 to $90. Each active fundraiser also brings in seven donors and over half of those donors will be new to the organization. That makes p2p more than an effective fundraising method; it makes it a great tool for donor acquisition too.

The bottom line is that getting your core supporters fundraising during December can help your organization raise more money and acquire more new donors this Holiday Season.

How to Organize a Mini-P2P Campaign

The simplest campaign theme you can pitch to your supporters is to “give up some gifts” this Holiday Season. Charity:water has famously used this model to get its supporters to donate their birthdays to the cause. Supporters are asked to create fundraising pages for their birthdays; then they share those pages with friends and family, and ask for donations to charity:water instead of presents.

The same theme can easily be adapted for the Holidays. It’s as simple as setting up a campaign, adding in some default text, and then reaching out to your core supporters to get involved. One thing to keep in mind, even though the fundraising will take place online, your outreach doesn’t have to. If you want to get as many of your core supporters involved as possible, you should ask them personally.

Make a list of the people you want to get involved ahead of time and give them a call. Let people know they are being asked because of their special status in the organization. Even better, define the goal that this group of the organization’s closest supporters is looking to achieve collectively this Holiday season. It could be raising enough money to launch a new pilot program, open a new school, or any other worthwhile goal. By framing the ask as exclusive and important (both true things) you’ll send the right signals to prospective fundraisers and get more people involved.

Even if you only have a handful of people in your mini-campaign, don’t lose heart. We’ve seen some power fundraisers raise over $10,000 all on their own. By relying on your closest supporters for your Holiday campaign, you may get less people involved, but the ones you do will be more passionate. That means they’ll be more likely to go above and beyond!

To learn more about using social fundraising to boost Holiday results check out the infographic and join StayClassy for their upcoming webinar on last minute holiday fundraising.

 

The holidays are just around the corner (“AHH I still have so much to do!”). We all know this time can be extremely stressful, especially during holidays that require gift giving.

The holidays are often so overwhelming and stressful because the focus is centered on giving commercial goods to our loved ones. We become so fixated on giving the perfect gift to others that we often forget the real meaning of the holidays. Although the holidays are a time of giving, it is also important to help those around us who may not be fortunate enough to have a holiday full of presents, parties, and big holiday meals.

So instead of fixating yourself on the material part of the holidays, make a pledge of service to your community this holiday season! Not only will you feel less anxious about the holidays because you are making a beneficial mark on someone else, you are also making someone’s holidays a little cheerier than they may have originally anticipated. After all, your holidays might be a little better, as well knowing that someone gets to enjoy the time just as much as you do.

Are you convinced that you can stay away from the malls for one day to help someone else? Alright well here are some more benefits to volunteering this holiday season in case you need some more convincing.

• Volunteering helps you develop new life skills you may not have learned otherwise. Do you want to learn carpentry, become more social, or practice a new language? You can do all these things through volunteering! Volunteering is the perfect way to discover something that you’re really good at while contributing to the benefit of your community (it’s a win-win situation).
• Volunteering is a means of establishing yourself in the community. The commercial side of the holidays has caused a disconnect between community members. Bridge that gap by coming together as a community and helping those who are less fortunate this holiday season. It not only builds relationships between community members, but it also helps members understand the issues that affect their immediate community.
• Volunteering provides a sense of motivation and a feeling of achievement. Volunteers are motivated in their work because they are able to work for a cause or passion that they truly believe in. When one is able to work for an important cause they feel a sense of achievement because they see the importance that their good work has for someone else.
• Increase your career opportunities. Volunteering looks great on school and job applications. It is also a way to explore different career paths if you are thinking of a switch. If this is not enough motivation for you, then what is?
• Volunteering is a great way to gain new real world experience hands on! Volunteering is a way to gain life experiences in ways that you never would have thought possible.
• Meet a new group of people you may not have met otherwise. Volunteering with others in your community brings together a diverse group with similar interests who may not have met otherwise. You can not only learn more about your community, but you may also build new relationships and friendships!
• Volunteering serves as a good reflection of your entire self. Volunteering as an extracurricular activity reflects beneficially on your character. It sends the message that you have a good work and self balance. Who knows you may even inspire your family, friends, and coworkers to volunteer as well?

 

We hope these benefits are convincing enough to get you involved in giving back this holiday season. Your service acts can be big or small depending on your interests and schedule. Make your holiday more meaningful and less stressful; help make your community a better place today!

Related articles

• How Holiday Volunteering Can Be Like Black Friday Shopping
• Young Volunteers Really Can Make an Impact this Holiday Season
• 7 Ideas for Volunteering With Your Kids
• 5 Ideas for Getting Involved in Your Community During the Holidays

Why do you volunteer? Many volunteer for selfless reasons, but service can do so much good for the volunteer too! Consider volunteering more often to help others in your communities, social circles, and life, not only for all the wonderful benefits that come from spreading kindness, but also for the great benefits that people experience when they help others.

Research, observation, and possibly even your own experiences agree that helping others, altruism and finding meaning in life all have their hand in stress management. While donating your time or unneeded possessions doesn’t always solve your problems or relieve your stress, acts of kindness and volunteer work can provide the following positive effects:

• A good feeling about yourself. Having a positive sense of self can actually help you feel less reactive to stress, and bring more enjoyment to all of your activities.
• A feeling of connection to others. Having a sense of community, a supportive circle of friends and other forms of social support can increase your resilience as well as your longevity and quality of life.
• A sense of meaning and greater purpose in your life. Having a greater sense of meaning can help stress seem more manageable, feel less threatening and be less likely to trigger your stress response.
• Perspective about your stress. Having a change of perspective can help your stress seem much smaller to you, and may help you realize that you have more control in life and more options than you realized.
• A reminder to feel gratitude. When you’re feeling more gratitude about what you do have, your whole life feels better, and those things that you lack seem less important, less stressful.
• An opportunity to use your own unique gifts. Especially if you’re battling burnout or in a job that doesn’t thrill you, it’s important to have outside activities that ‘feed your soul’, that challenge you in ways that make you feel alive. Often, volunteer opportunities can provide that, while you provide others with gifts that they can really use as well.
• Something to think about other than one’s stress! Distraction can be a beautiful thing, and distraction from stress can give your body a chance to recover from chronic stress and feel healthy and calm again.

All of these effects can help with stress management, and are reasons to continue to volunteer throughout the year! Consider starting with small things that will still make a big difference to someone in need; do to what you can, rather than thinking that you’re too busy to make a real difference! Are you a regular volunteer, or do you plan to do something to help others this weekend? Share your good deeds in the comments below.

SUPER BONUS TIP! Don’t wait until the last minute to find a volunteer opportunity over the holidays. They can help relieve some stress, but finding a somewhere to volunteer might add to your stress, too. Don’t forget these tips for finding a holiday volunteer opportunity.

1. Stories are about people. People connect with other people, so make sure you focus your story on the real-life characters of your story.  Even if your organization works to increase a city’s tree canopy or preserve native plants or helps other organizations to be more effective, people are still the driving force behind the work being done.  So focus on the people involved.  People are what an audience will follow through a story.
2. Let your characters speak for themselves.  An important part of storytelling is making the story personable and relatable.  When characters speak to each other in a story, it lends immediacy urgency and authenticity to the piece. So use direct quotes and let characters speak in their own voices.
3. Audiences bore easily.  Let’s face it: these days, our attention spans are strained and unless you’re keeping people interested, you are wasting your breath. So when telling a story, get them engaged: make them wonder “what happens next?” or “how is this going to turn out?”  As the people in your story pursue their goal, they must run into obstacles, surprises, or something that makes the audience sit up and take notice. Try breaking your story into smaller chunks to see if each part is able to hold your attention.
4. Stories stir up emotions.  Human beings are not inclined to think about things they don’t care about.  Stories stir emotions not to be manipulative, not simply for melodramatic effect, but to break through the white noise of information that continuously inundates us and to deliver the message: this is worth your attention.
5. Stories don’t tell: they show. Show don’t tell is the most fundamental maxim of storytelling, and for good reason.  Your audience should see a picture, feel the conflict, and become more involved with the story – not just be receptacles for a long list of facts. This doesn’t mean you need to show your audience a slideshow with your story. Your story should help the audience draw their own pictures.
6. Stories have at least one “moment of truth.” The best stories show us something about how we should treat ourselves, others, or the world around us.  Call it an “Aha” moment – that point when your story conveys a message that really makes your audience say, “Yes! That’s a powerful idea.”
7. Stories have a clear meaning. When the final line is spoken, your audience should know exactly why they took this journey with you.  In the end, this may be the most important rule of all.  If your audience can’t answer the question, “What was the story all about?” it won’t matter if you followed rules one through six.

Everyone at HandsOn Network hopes you and yours have a wonderful, happy and safe Thanksgiving. We’ll be back on Monday to bring you more great ideas for helping to make sure that everyone has really great volunteer experiences.