Using the Internet to find Online and Offline Opportunities

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The Internet provides many ways for you to find both offline and online volunteering opportunities. This is an index of links to major regional and nationwide sites in the U.S. and Canada that provide updated lists of volunteer opportunities at various different organizations. Many of these are third party volunteer databases (they provide information about other organization's volunteer opportunities). Also included are links to indices of local sites, such as volunteer centers and community networks/freenets.

List of Volunteer Centers by U.S. State

There are a number of places to find such lists online. Our recommendation: the Points of Light Foundation Index.

List of Community Networks and FreeNets in the U.S.

Community Networks and FreeNets often have areas to promote local volunteer/service initiatives, and often work in conjunction with local volunteer centers. The Organization for Community Networks maintains a listing of networks by nation and state.

Web Sites Promoting Volunteer Opportunities in the U.S. and Canada with Domestic and International Opportunities

• Action Without Borders
  A well-traveled place to post volunteer opportunities, or for volunteers to post their services. Offers other nonprofit resources as well.

• Amigos de las Americas
  Sponsors volunteers, primarily between the ages of 16 - 25, in public health and environmental projects in Mexico and Central and South America.

• Amizade
  Not-for-profit organization with programs that offer a mix of community service and recreation which provide volunteers the opportunity to participate first hand in the culture of the region. Past projects have included building a vocational training center for street children on the Amazon, building additional rooms onto a health clinic in the Bolivian Andes, and doing historic preservation and environmental cleanup in the Greater Yellowstone Area. Volunteers need no special skills, just a willingness to help.

• Break Away: the Alternative Break Collection
  National non-profit organization based at Vanderbilt University, promoting service on the local, regional, national, and international levels through break-oriented programs which immerse students in often vastly different cultures, heightens social awareness, and advocates life-long social action. Break Away promotes alternative break programs through student training, technical assistance, volunteer placement, and publications.

• Charity Village Volunteer Bulletin Board
  Canadian registered charities and Canadian public service agencies needing volunteers may put a notice on the Charity Village Bulletin Board without charge.

• City Cares
  Local Cares organizations were formed with the goal to make volunteering possible for even the busiest individual. In cities large and small, 22 Cares groups have been established, and four more are currently being formed.

• COOL (Campus Outreach Opportunity League)
  National non-profit that helps college students start, strengthen and expand their community service programs. The COOL Web site lists to even more organizations that can help students to get involved in improving their communities and the environment.

• 4laborsoflove.org
  For volunteers to list their skills, and for agencies to list volunteer opportunities.

• Give Five
  Works raise public awareness about the important role that giving and volunteering play in our communities. You might have seen Give Five public service announcements in the newspaper, on TV, or heard them on the radio. The Web site includes Ten Tips for Volunteers, Selecting an Organization to Help, and general information about volunteerism.

• Make A Difference Day
  Each October, sponsored by USA Weekend. Includes a database of volunteer opportunities for Make A Difference Day each Fall.

• Netday
  Effort by a partnership among volunteers and corporations to wire schools in the U.S.A. to the Internet.

• Peace Corps
  Begun by the Kennedy administration in 1961, the Peace Corps places volunteers from the United States into developing countries to help citizens with education, environment, health, business, agriculture and other projects. Former and returning Peace Corps volunteers can also participate in the new Crisis Corps, providing short-term assistance to countries that have experienced natural disasters or a humanitarian crisis.

• VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America)
  Now part of the AmeriCorps national service program, VISTA members take on long-term community-related projects, many of them technology focused, and receive a small stipend. The "Friends of VISTA" web site has a listing of VISTA opportunities all over the U.S.

• Volunteer Canada
  Operates the Volunteer Opportunities Exchange (VOE)

• VolunteerMatch This site allows those seeking and offering volunteer services to search among their listings for the best match available.

• Volunteers Solutions
  A Boston-based nonprofit hosting a database of volunteer opportunities in selected cities in the U.S.

• Volunteers of America
  49 community-based service organizations throughout the U.S. offer more than 160 different programs that help people including children, youth, the elderly, families in crisis, the homeless, people with disabilities or mental illness, and ex-offenders returning to society.