How Volunteering Can Benefit Your Career?

What is Volunteering?

Volunteering is an unpaid act of giving your time, skills and energy towards a social cause. Ideally, an individual will sign up for volunteering activities with an NGO or through an online platform like ConnectFor that promotes volunteering.

How Volunteering Can Benefit You?

Volunteering can be beneficial not only for our personal development but also for our career growth. Whether you are a student, working professional, homemaker or a person who is on a break, a volunteering experience can be a brownie point and can set you apart from the rest of the crowd.

How Volunteering Can Benefit Your Career?

Some of the ways in which volunteering can benefit your career growth include:

1. Learning new skills.

As a volunteer, you might be working on developing new content for an NGO’s website along with a small team of volunteers. Teamwork, leadership skills, communication skills are some of the skills you could develop while engaging with your fellow volunteers in completing this volunteering task. This can be very handy when you are a new graduate.

2. Platform to showcase and develop your existing skills.

Apart from your profession, you may possess skills that you do not put to use at work. Volunteering can provide you with a platform to showcase and develop your additional skills.

For example, you work as a business analyst and you are also good at designing. Then you could volunteer to prepare collateral for an NGO’s social media campaign.

3. Your network grows.

Volunteers may come from different backgrounds — working professionals, students, homemakers. Volunteering provides an enabling platform where you can meet new people, expand your network and not remain limited to people you might know only from work, family, college or school. You never know what possibilities your expanded network could bring in — perhaps, a future job referral!

4. More career options can become available.

Individuals have shifted their careers from the corporate to the social sector after a satisfying volunteering experience. Volunteers have even started their own NGOs to work towards a social cause close to their hearts.

The NGO sector also offers a plethora of job opportunities ranging from strategic to managerial to communication roles. You never know when a volunteering experience may lead you to a different and fulfilling career path!

5. You stay motivated during forced or intended career breaks.

Engaging in volunteering during your career breaks can prove to be a win-win situation. Future employers would appreciate your willingness to serve social causes and that you chose to make a difference in whatever small way possible.

Volunteering can have a positive impact on our emotional well-being, especially during a forced career break. It can make you feel good about yourselves and can keep you motivated for future opportunities.

To Sum Up:

Volunteering provides us with a platform to develop new skills, improve your existing skills and increase your network. It can also give alternative career options and keep your motivation levels high during periods of unemployment.

You don’t have to give up your job or take a break to pursue volunteering! You can engage in volunteering activities along with your regular profession and other commitments. You can choose to volunteer for a cause close to your heart depending on your availability of time.

Let us not lose out on the benefits of volunteering for our career growth and development. We, at Connectfor, provide you with a variety of volunteering opportunities depending on your skills, interests and experience.

To know more about the current volunteering opportunities, please visit our website: https://www.connectfor.org/virtualvolunteering/

— Blog by Padmapriya N, Volunteer, ConnectFor.