Desperately Seeking Volunteer Opportunities...

Volunteer matching sites take the process a step further, by trying to play matchmaker between the non-profit and the volunteer. More than just a listing service, the groups that run matching sites often provide assistance to the organization by helping them make a volunteer plan, or by working with them to define programs.

Some, such as the Clearinghouse for Volunteer Accounting Services (CVAS) ( http://www.cvas-ca.org ), target a set of volunteers with a specific skill set – in this case, accounting professionals. They then match them up with organizations who can use those skills. If you’re a professional in a specific area, these sites can help you use your existing skills to help organizations in need.

Others, such as Volunteer Match ( http://www.volunteermatch.org ), allow the volunteer to enter their zip code, and a complete list of all sorts of opportunities in that area are presented. As of February 2002, about 19,000 organizations listed about 34,000 opportunities. A quick test, narrowing down the search to within 5 miles of my home zip code, turned up 61 opportunities. Expanding the search to 10 miles brought it up to 130.

While VolunteerMatch catalogs activities on an international scale, there are also localized sites, such as CompuMentor ( http://www.compumentor.org ), which is located in California. Their mission is to match technical resources with local non-profit organizations and schools.

Group Engines ( http://www.groupengines.com ) takes it a step further: they send weekly emails to registered volunteers with opportunities matching their preferences. Groups who need volunteers can also search the database to find registered members with specific skills/interests. Of course this allows you, the volunteer, to have volunteer opportunities delivered to your e-doorstep, without even doing the searching yourself!

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