Why Should I Volunteer?

Information on finding the right volunteer opportunity and making the most out of your service activities can be crucial to making a real difference and enjoying a rewarding experience as well. This linked website is a resource from the University of Texas at Austin that can help individuals explore how volunteerism can influence a career, help you share quality time with your family, and assist you in finding the right agency and opportunity to match your interests. You can also find links on the site to resources that can assist you during your volunteer activities, as well as helping you to find and prepare for an international volunteering experience. The site also has links that can help you determine what costs incurred by volunteering can be tax-deductable.

How to Search:

To begin your search for public sector volunteer opportunities, first you can search by Featured Positions which is on the left side of the home page. You will see a list of activities under Featured Positions. Once you picked an activity, the page will return all the opportunities for every single state. However, if you only want to see an activity at your state; you may pick the state on the map on the upper right. By doing this, it will only show the opportunity for the state that you have selected.

Find Opportunities is another feature that you can search for the opportunity. This option is on the upper middle of the page. You can search by Key Word Search and/or Zip Code Search which will search all opportunities within 30 miles of your search zip code. For advance search, please select Opportunity Type to specify searching criteria.

After you have explored the various opportunities and have made a decision on which position suits your needs, you can register on-line. You will be immediately notified that your application has been sent to the volunteer coordinator who has posted the position. After reviewing the applications, the volunteer coordinator will notify you of the next steps.

Requirements for becoming a Volunteer:

Volunteering with Volunteer.Gov/Gov partnering agencies depends upon each agency's specific requirements, but will always include:

• A sense of solidarity and service, plus commitment to share one's knowledge, skills, time, and effort with others (the volunteering "ethos" or spirit).
• A willingness to serve in a non-salaried, non-stipend volunteer position with no or little remuneration beyond incidental expenses (arranged on a case-by-case basis and subject to the availability of funds).

Guaranteeing Privacy and Security

The information that you provide is governed by strict records management, retention, and disposition rules and/or regulations. Protecting individuals' privacy is a duty of government that will be guaranteed. Regulatory frameworks and security policies are designed to assure that both information and systems are protected from unauthorized use.

Although the natural and cultural resources application asks if you want to have the information that you provide shared with others, we are unable to do so at this time due to current regulations. Volunteer.Gov/Gov is working with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to change this restriction which would enable the public to access more opportunities. Presently, the site does not have the ability to notify you of future opportunities via a Volunteer Profiling. We anticipate gaining approval to incorporate this feature onto the site once privacy and security requirements are satisfied.

Positions posted on Volunteer.Gov/Gov are updated on an ongoing basis and are deleted or automatically withdrawn when the end date arrives or the job is filled. At present, the volunteer positions posted on this site contain current listings and descriptions of opportunities of the partner organizations listed below in only the veterans affairs and natural and cultural resources arenas of the Federal Government. When fully operational, the site will enable you to search for other public sector opportunities in a variety of areas, such as housing, social services, etc.

A special welcome and invitation to public sector volunteer organizations to join our growing list of public sector partners.

Volunteer.Gov/Gov's vision is to become a world-class portal that enables citizens to access information and apply on-line for public sector volunteer opportunities in the USA. Volunteer.Gov/Gov will help strengthen our democratic society by helping public agencies nationwide accomplish their mission, get results, and engage the public as integral partners and supplemental workers in the delivery of goods and services.

Volunteer.Gov/Gov seeks to:

• Increase the effectiveness of public sector organizations;
• Enhance relationships among different segments of our society;
• Facilitate new approaches for expanding the foundations for volunteer action; and
• Broaden the base of the American volunteer movement.