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Volunteer.gov: Discover volunteer opportunities around the country
- oooyay 3y agoThere's two opportunities open at Crater Lake that are literally full time jobs in search and rescue.
- GavinMcG 3y agoPreventative search and rescue, for at least one—which is the opposite of what you'd typically imagine "search and rescue" entails, and if effective, obviates the need.
- oooyay 3y agoIt does require going on dangerous trails in inclement weather and it's a full time job. That was more my point. Seems like things that should be paid.
- umvi 3y agoNice, didn't know about this. Perhaps much smaller in scope, but justserve.org is a good one for finding service/volunteer opportunities in your local community
- KennyBlanken 3y ago[flagged]
- styxfrix 3y ago> JustServe.org is provided as a service by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. hmm...
- freeopinion 3y agoA short response to the reactions your comment received: I'm not sure why so many took your comment to be negative. It looks like a plug for that church. I was disappointed to learn the nature of the volunteer.gov sight. I don't know why I expected different from a .gov url. It is obviously useful to know who is behind an effort. So your post added useful information. I have used justserve.org to find opportunities to serve in my community. Most of the activities I joined didn't seem to benefit the church in any way beyond a rising tide lifting all boats. I jumped in because they looked like worthwhile activities that would just take a couple hours of my time. So I took your posting as a bit of good will for an organization committing resources to a website that lets people of any stripe find opportunities to help other people of any stripe.
- idiotsecant 3y agoCareful, you might accidentally interact with someone with different ideas than you!
- KennyBlanken 3y ago[flagged]
- mymusewww 3y ago[dead]
- jimmygrapes 3y agoSay what you will about Mormon/LDS religious beliefs, but I have never met anybody more selfless and pleasant when it comes to volunteering and caring for those in need. I've been a recipient of that kindness and co-participant in many volunteer activities with them, and not once felt like there was any attempt to push a belief on me other than "be kind to others". I probably wouldn't want to join them at church or read their literature other than as entertainment, but the individual people don't deserve all the hate that the church gets as a whole.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago[flagged]
- fragmede 3y agoDo you have a specific allegation here or are you just casting aspersions because you don't like the LDS church?
- WarOnPrivacy 3y agoMy state has 15 physical opportunities and 1 for data work. The closest physical option is 4 hours away.
- toomuchtodo 3y agohttps://codeforamerica.org/ https://codeforamerica.org/ might have more flexible, remote opportunities.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago> We aren’t accepting new volunteers for this program at the moment. Please check back in early October for further updates.
- tootie 3y agoThere are few if any ways to do voluntary software development. At least not for a charity org. Few of them need software work and of those that do it's really hard to just bring in volunteers have them do something useful. Probably the best thing you can do is just work on useful open source.
- saulpw 3y agoThese all appear to be full-time unpaid work? Like the expectations are incredibly joblike and the pay is free housing and a visitor's pass to all national parks.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoThey are volunteer opportunities, typically sought by folks who don't need an income (retirees, students, etc). If you're looking for paid work, there are alternatives: https://www.usajobs.gov/ https://www.usajobs.gov/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/climatecorps/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/climatecorps/
- boomboomsubban 3y agoI wasn't expecting paid work, but I also wasn't expecting "come live in this cabin for several months while you work full time in a visitors bureau." The map data entry opportunity that seems to be available in every state was closer to what I expected, some projects people could spend a few hours a week on in their hometown.
- arrakeenrevived 3y agoYou can filter the opportunities to only show "Event" types (as opposed to "Position" types) which are things like one-off volunteer events like this one: https://www.volunteer.gov/s/volunteer-opportunity/a093d000000zUAwAAM/dropin-volunteering-trash-trekkers https://www.volunteer.gov/s/volunteer-opportunity/a093d00000... But in general, I agree with you. From what I can tell, even though this is just broadly called "volunteer.gov", it really seems like it's specific to the Bureau of Land Management/National Park Service, and is missing a large amount of types of positions that I think most people would expect when they think "go volunteer".
- anjel 3y agoOld enough to recall a time when parks and museums were free of admission costs as was the parking? Congress in all its wisdom slashed those budgets but good over the last 4 decades and these job postings are symptomatic of these Bureau of Land Management/National Park Service fiscal funding revisions as well.
- synergy20 3y agois there a site to students for volunteering hours or regular volunteering
- Isthatablackgsd 3y agoThis is neat thing! Is there similar site for non-profit organizations or private sectors?
- lcall 3y agohttps://justserve.org https://justserve.org if available in your area.
- hoppyhoppy2 3y agohttps://volunteermatch.org https://volunteermatch.org
- KennyBlanken 3y agoWarning to any mobile users: the site has an enormous banner image that is absolutely crawling over a high speed wired connection. I'm going to guess some idiot uploaded a high resolution PNG... There's a general "search" field with no indication of how to search for a geographical area. I did a search and everything that comes up are janitorial positions for the national park service. In what reality are people going to volunteer to scrub bathrooms for tourists?
- WarOnPrivacy 3y agoThe thing about volunteer sites, the first one you visit can be impractical or worse, especially if it was placed in front of you. If I search for->thru a half doz volunteer sites, I tend to find usable opportunities. Case in point: americorps.gov. Enter zip code; go to the results page. Distance is 20mi. Results: 1-4 are four states away, 5-6 are virtual, 6 is seven states away. 8-9 duplicate Exchange Student hosting. 10-11 are nearby and look like what I'd expect. Volunteerism is trust-based and confusing me at step 1 isn't the best way there. habitat.org. My zipcode yields HFH offices (not build locations). None in my county. I imagine there's an (reasonable!) onboarding process beyond a background check. There are HFH stores that are closer; they prob have volunteers. It's not obvious on this page that there's somewhere I can click to find a FAQ or a splainer about different opportunities. volunteermatch.org. This seems more inviting+useful. My zipcode gets me 2 dozen nearby opportunities with locations, informative headlines and brief descriptions. All right on the results page. These were from the top results of a Kagi search. There are quite a few beyond that that look worth clicking into.
- beams_of_light 3y agoAnecdote: My wife has been in volunteer management for quite a while now, and in her multiple roles has used Volunteer Match. It’s a good platform, both for volunteers and organizers.
- pierat 3y agoReally? Why the hell should I volunteer to work for one of the richest governments in the world? What are they going for? The wealthy and bored housewives? I have no issue with volunteering for non-profits to do things like food distribution and homeless shelters. But volunteering for the USG? HAH fuck you pay me.
- idiotsecant 3y agoWe are the government. It's just people. The more rural and remote you get, the more this is true. There are countless volunteer search and rescue, firefighter, food distribution, etc in rural areas who volunteer to help because they want to improve and safeguard the community. This is the natural state of humanity, it just gets weird once you have enough people in one place that you need to make abstractions like 'government' instead of 'joe who has a snowmobile and does s&r for the town when needed'
- pierat 3y agoThat's not true. It's an organization made up of people, but is something distinctly different that individuals. Again, I made a point to say I'm for actual volunteer work, but doing so for a organization with trillions of dollars not even accounted for is laughable. Joing a group for SaR is completely different than a job and not paid. And, at the same time the federal government is begging for free labor, they're selling our national parks to Booze Allen Hamilton for $$$$$$ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37549569 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37549569
- mistrial9 3y agothe (implied) social contract around volunteering is "everything" .. here in California I was bluntly told by my Japanese colleague "never volunteer, you are being taken advantage of" true to his words, the only volunteer contact I got with that guy later was to be an usher at an exclusive dot-com event in San Francisco, pre-covid.. I did do it to hear the speakers, and lo-and-behold, the organizers mostly thought of the volunteers as worthless suckers.. you could see it. And, volunteers got the 'show up on time' authority talk from a typical hotel-worker-manager type, too! awful
- circuit 3y agoQuite a few of these "opportunities" are asking a LOT of volunteers, implicitly asking for unpaid labor. These are not your typical "volunteer a few hours a week helping fix up a school/sorting at a food bank/helping the homeless" to give back to your community. Look at this[1] particular ask: > Applicants must be available to work a minimum of 32 hours per week. > [minimum 3 month commitment with possibility to extend to a year] ... Weekend and holiday work is required. > shovel snow for extended periods of time, hike-ski-snowshoe in extreme weather conditions with a 35-pound backpack at 7,000ft, live in remote locations with regularly snow packed roads. > Groceries and shopping facilities are approximately 60 miles away; reliable personal transportation is required. [1] https://www.volunteer.gov/s/volunteer-opportunity/a093d000000yFWrAAM/preventive-search-and-rescue-psar-volunteer https://www.volunteer.gov/s/volunteer-opportunity/a093d00000...
- stephenr 3y agoI think you missed out this part: > Housing is included
- circuit 3y agoYou missed the last half of that sentence. It's a room, not a house, that you will be likely be sharing with someone else. > room in a shared apartment or house.
- arrakeenrevived 3y agoThe target audience of volunteers for this type of position are people that are probably used to happily sleeping in tents and eating camp food for days/weeks at a time. I don't think they'd mind.
- abluecloud 3y agoguess it's a race to the bottom then
- freeopinion 3y agoWorth mentioning https://justserve.org https://justserve.org Post a need or find one.
- mistrial9 3y agosalaried employees with health benefits and work rights are paid while building that site! so you can work for free! be sure to login with your cell phone.
- smallerfish 3y ago> the country Protip: the internet is available outside the US.
- KoftaBob 3y agoYeah my mistake, I should've said "around the US"
- tptacek 3y ago.gov is a US domain.
- uglycoyote 3y agowhich is why the title should have been "discover volunteer opportunities around the US"
- oytis 3y agoDomain for the government of the country
- lolinder 3y agoAs a general rule, government websites tend to assume that if you're visiting them you understand that all information is directed at residents of the country the government is in charge of. This is not limited to US entities: data.gov.uk purports to provide "data published by central government, local authorities and public bodies" without specifying which country it belongs to, yet I can't find my local information there!
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- dbg31415 3y agoThis site has issues. Why can't I search by Zip Code? Or by Remote? For a non-profit, and a government site, the Accessibility scores are pretty low... just using WCAG scanners. This should be a flawless site. They also claim "Volunteer.gov is committed to being in full compliance with the requirements of the American Disabilities Act..." but they aren't... there are at least 10 issues per page. There should be multiple languages supported. There's a post... "National Park Service 2024 COUPLES ONLY Opportunity" -- I'm not sure that's even legal. There should be a way to post non-profits, maybe there is. Just feels like any non-profit should be able to use this to post needs. I can't find any opportunities in Ausitn. Ok, we're just a small backwoods town. There aren't like "profile pages" for non-profits, or real job posts... you click on a card to learn more, and all it shows you is a button "apply now" -- it's missing the page that tells you more about the job and more about the non-profit. Ugh, anyway terrible UX. Curious how these people got funding for this... No thoughts were given to SEO, or usability, or growth... seems like it's destined to fail in the shape it's in.
- sangnoir 3y ago> This should be a flawless site. > Ugh, anyway terrible UX. Curious how these people got funding for this... No thoughts were given to SEO, or usability, or growth... seems like it's destined to fail in the shape it's in. Perhaps you should volunteer to fix it?
- dbg31415 3y agoIf they had gone to any number of design agencies, they likely would have been happy to do this work right, pro bono. Given they don't seem to have any sort of request for assistance... sort of left taking pot shots from the sidelines. Someone got a grant, didn't know how to build a real website, and likely doesn't have the right staff put together to make it all work. It should have been something like Volunteer Match or One Star... a way to network and do good. https://www.volunteermatch.org/ https://www.volunteermatch.org/ https://onestarfoundation.org/ https://onestarfoundation.org/ The idea has so much merit. But it's not being executed on correctly. They can reach out if they want suggestions. Happy to point them to design agencies or give strategy suggestions.
- ourmandave 3y agoAbout page says sponsors are: US Fish and Wildlife Service Bureau of Land Management US Forest Service US Army Corp of Engineers National Park Service US Geological Survey
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- samcheng 3y agoPretty interesting to see the visceral and divided reactions in this comment thread. Some people are like, “that’s crazy” and others think, “I wish I had the time for that.” I feel this is precisely the divide that would be worth bridging in the US. Spend some time knowing and loving nature, and you’ll realize that there are many people who would take these opportunities, and they’re not crazy, they just have a different perspective. I wonder what other opinions people have that we think are “nuts” but are really just a different perspective?