- What are my interests? Establish your interests or which causes are closest to your heart. That way, you could narrow down your options of volunteering tasks to take or groups to work with.
- What are my skills? Volunteer tasks are widely varied. Some non-profits require specific skills to accomplish specific tasks. Knowing your skills will help you see if you are a perfect fit for the task at hand or not and if you can be useful as quickly as you need to be.
- What do I want to get from the experience of volunteering for the social good? Your volunteer goal is a great direction to follow through. Define whether it is just about self-fulfillment, academic credits, or getting exposure to the field you want to belong to in the future. This will help you prioritize one position over another.
- Am I flexible? To become an effective and valuable volunteer, you must be willing to change roles or compromise on some ideals in the course of keeping up with your tasks. Otherwise, discuss this with the organization and have your role defined clearly or go the opposite direction altogether.
- Do I want to work alone or with a group? Ad hoc volunteer roles may either require you to be independent and responsible working alone or as part of a team. See where you can be most productive and go for it.
- Do I want to work remotely or onsite? With this pandemic, even more ad hoc volunteering opportunities can be done remotely. It gives people the flexibility to help incorporate doing good deeds without having to walk too far but some find it rewarding to be onsite and there are opportunities to match them as well.
- How volunteering can affect my other commitments? Volunteering requires some form of commitment, whether you are going the informal or traditional course. If your hands are already full and volunteering will make it difficult for you to keep up with your responsibilities, it may be wise to first loosen up your schedule a bit before you take the plunge.
- How much time can I allot time for volunteer tasks? Apart from establishing a commitment to performing tasks, you must also be clear about how much time you could devote to it. By being realistic, you can avoid letting the organization down mid-assignment because of a last-minute change.
- How long can I commit to a volunteering task? One-time, short-term, long-term? You might be looking at volunteering opportunities that are ad hoc in nature but some are not as flexible. They may specify that they need people to sign up for a term, say 6 months or a year. This is true, especially for tasks that may put you under training. They may only need you a couple of hours each week but you will have to commit to a term so they won’t be spending so much time training every new set of personnel to take on the job.
10. Are there any associated expenses and can I cover them? In the course of keeping up with a volunteering task, there may be costs that you need to pay out of your pocket, like transportation. Take note of such expenses and see if you can pay for them or if the organization will reimburse them.
