What is Volunteering?

Volunteering is offering your time and energy to do something useful without getting paid. It describes hundreds of different activities that you can choose to undertake to benefit or support others in the community both in the UK and abroad.

Volunteering is time well spent and can be a great way to meet people, learn new skills and gain a lot of useful experience to add to your CV.

Although there are no age-limits on being a volunteer, people under-16 or over-65 sometimes find difficulties, mainly for insurance reasons.

People give many reasons for volunteering. It can be a route to a job or a chance to try new things that could lead to a career change.

Whilst doing something worthwhile with your time it is possible to gain new skills and experience which will look great on your CV.

Employers are impressed by people who have undertaken voluntary work because it shows that they are both pro-active and also have a social conscience.

There are more opportunities available to volunteer than ever before covering a vast range of causes, organisations and activities, so it will not be hard to find something that will interest you.

A good place to start is Volunteering England which has a network of Volunteer Centres that spans the country. There Volunteer Centre is a local organisation that provides support and expertise within the local community involved in volunteering or looking to be involved in volunteering.

Volunteer Centres are often a good place to start looking for volunteering opportunities in the local area. They can find out what you're interested in doing, and try to match you with a suitable volunteering role with a local charity or voluntary organisation.

You can find out the kind of thing that you can volunteer for online here.

Once you start volunteering you should usually expect: