Communiblog

Maximize your Impact: Volunteer your Skills

Sharing your skills benefits you and helps those with whom you share, but what if there was something more? 

What if sharing your skills meant that you made a significant social impact affecting tens or hundreds of people and helping empower them to reach their own goals, or the goals of their community?

Rest assured, there is a way: volunteering. Often people think of volunteering as simply giving time, but many volunteer opportunities encourage you to share your skills as well. As long as you are there, why not? It doesn’t cost you anything extra and you are doubling your productivity by giving both time AND skills.

Many great volunteer organizations like Taproot Foundation and Cross Cultural Solutions match skilled professionals with people in need of skills and training to cultivate sustainable solutions for disadvantaged communities.

Through Taproot Foundation, business professionals act as pro bono consultants to nonprofit organizations. This enables small organizations with even smaller budgets access to the business expertise and experience they need to succeed and make a positive social impact. Taproot expands the idea of ‘pro bono’ work beyond the field of law to include marketing, IT, management consulting, etc. and applies the skills to strengthen organizations that help entire communities. The website lists a slew of benefits for you as the volunteer as well. Your work is tax deductible, makes an unique and impressive addition to a professional portfolio or resume, and serves as a valuable networking opportunity.

Cross Cultural Solutions uses skill sharing to improve communities abroad. Students and professionals take their expertise to countries such as Ghana, India, South Africa, Russia and many others to provide skills-based training to individuals and organizations working to improve the infrastructure of their communities. Cross Cultural Solutions’ volunteer opportunities last anywhere from a week to several months, offering a great way to make a social impact with a short vacation or to create a meaningful, long-term cultural immersion experience. Your work with Cross Cultural Solutions also stands out on a resume and is a great way to meet like-minded professionals, as well as travel to parts of the world you may never have had the opportunity to visit otherwise. 

Volunteering your skills, either close to home or in a completely new cultural environment, improves communities by giving individuals and organizations the skills to help themselves.

What are some skill sharing volunteer organizations in your community? What are the resources that you can offer others? Share your thoughts in comments, twitter, and facebook!