Choosing an opportunity
Typically there are over 300 volunteer opportunities available on the website. New ones are added each week and others are removed as volunteers start work on them.
When searching the site you'll want to find an opportunity that you can feel enthusiastic about. There are a number of things that you might want to consider - the skills required, the benefit to the charity, how much time you can commit...
Skills and the opportunity description
Each volunteer opportunity has a skill type associated with it. This gives an indication of the skills that you would need to work on that opportunity.
There's often overlap between skill types so you might want to choose more than one when searching.
The opportunity description is based on a conversation between the charity and one of our team of project definers. All of our project definers have worked in IT and use their experience to add some detail to the charity's vague request for help.
The description should give you an idea of what needs to be done, whether the work has been started and any specific technologies involved. There may also be an indication that the charity is prepared and ready to go or that the project definer thinks that it is a lengthy task.
The geographic location
If you're filtering opportunities by region remember to look at other nearby regions if you live close to a boundary.
No-one wants to travel long distances to volunteer their services. All the opportunities are split into regions so you can see at a glance whether the charity within the same region as you. The search results include the first part of the charity's postcode and you can sort the results by that field. This should give you a good idea of how close the charity is to you.
Virtual opportunities
Virtual volunteering provides flexibility to volunteer when and where you choose rather than visiting a charity's office at a time convenient to them.
Sometimes it's not necessary or even desirable for the charity and volunteer to meet face to face. For example, website projects can often be done via phone and email.
For some geographically remote charities it's simply unrealistic to expect to find a local volunteer with specific skills. In other cases the charity simply wants to throw the net as wide as possible to find the most suitable volunteer.
In these situations we will offer the charity the opportunity to work remotely or "virtually" with a volunteer that they won't have the chance to meet face to face.
There are disadvantages to virtual opportunities - it's much harder for you to build a relationship and you'll need to make more effort to communicate with each other - but this can be a very satisfying way to volunteer.
The charity
If you feel strongly about certain issues such as homelessness, young people or the environment you might choose a charity working in that area.
When selecting an opportunity you may wish to consider the aims and objectives of the organisation you'll be working with.
The organisations helped by iT4Communities are not all registered charities. Many are, but other organisations such as voluntary and community groups and social enterprises also qualify. Our rules require that they are not-for-profit and have an unpaid board of management.
The opportunity description should give you a brief idea of the organisation and its aims. If you choose to contact the organisation you can ask them for more details.
