6 Great Ways to Volunteer Online
Elton Lin
When it comes to volunteering, it’s never a question of if you should volunteer; rather, it’s a question of when and how. Do colleges actually care about volunteering? Yes! And you should too—not just because colleges care, but because you’re giving back to the community. Only good things come from volunteering, whether that's social good, the betterment of other people's lives, or personal fulfillment, so colleges hold applicants' volunteering efforts in high esteem.
But how do you volunteer in the age of COVID-19? Volunteering opportunities have become increasingly unsafe, and volunteering as a hands-on camp counselor or tutoring at your local library are no longer easily viable options, yet the local and global communities need more help than ever.
This is where online volunteering shines. Even over the internet, students can volunteer their time and effort with substantial impact, while ensuring their safety and the safety of their community and peers! Below are some great online volunteering opportunities of which students should take full advantage:
Quarantutors is a nonprofit tutoring organization that offers free tutoring online to K-12 students, founded with the goal of providing young students with accessible academic support in the midst of the pandemic, especially in the flux of school closures and reopenings. While Quarantutors is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, its online reach stretches internationally. Since its founding in March 2020, it has helped over 800 students get the academic support they need. If you’re confident in, say, math or English, but you’re unsure of your teaching skills, Quarantutors offers informational Zoom seminars to help potential tutors polish their teaching skills. High school students can apply to be a Quarantutor (and college students can apply, too) for a huge variety of school subjects, from AP classes and electives to foreign languages and more, and—again—these tutoring sessions are held entirely online.
For museum buffs and students with a passion in science or history, the Smithsonian is always in need of more Smithsonian Digital Volunteers. As a Digital Volunteer, students can aid curators and researchers in the Smithsonian mission from the safety of their own homes. The Smithsonian asks volunteers to donate their time to a variety of programs, including the Smithsonian Transcription Center, where volunteers transcribe historic documents and scientific records to increase accessibility, and Invader ID, where volunteers can track changes in invasive species and these organisms’ impact on the environment. More selected Smithsonian Digital Volunteering opportunities can be found on their website.
As a Red Cross Digital Volunteer, students can provide crucial online support to the Red Cross Social Engagement Team. In times of urgent need or disaster, Digital Volunteers remotely monitor social media for status updates and conversations from people affected by disasters who may be in need of Red Cross assistance. Volunteers also use their personal social media to share essential disaster resources and updates and provide encouragement to those affected by the ongoing disaster. Red Cross Digital Volunteers do this in continuous four-hour shifts, during which they are also expected to report with local chapter communicators to the Red Cross National Headquarters Social Engagement Team. Interested students can apply online and find a specific role that suits them best, and, if accepted, will go through online training to prepare them for this crucial volunteering position.
Zooniverse is an incredibly accessible online community that allows volunteers all over the world to remotely participate in actual ongoing research projects. With over 1.6 million registered users and counting, Zooniverse calls itself a prime hub of “people-powered research”, hosting active projects of all kinds, from climate research to psycholinguistics to historical artifact analysis and much, much more. You can also see finished projects that Zooniverse volunteers have helped to complete. Zooniverse volunteering opportunities include simple volunteering for projects, beta testing before projects are launched, and moderating project discussions on the Zooniverse website. Interested students can get started at any time.
For more computer science and technology-minded students, donate:code is a great volunteering opportunity to pursue. In a time when technology projects are increasingly becoming both expensive and necessary—especially in light of COVID-19 and its significant impact on small businesses—donate:code provides those with technological assistance with help from volunteers well-versed in a large variety of technological aspects, from more in-depth things like coding to system familiarity with programs like Wordpress and social media. Volunteers can sign up, create a profile, and quickly begin remotely providing their technological skillset to those who need it.
LibriVox is a volunteering program that works to make books in the public domain (that is, those published at least 95 years ago) free and accessible online. Volunteers record themselves reading chapters of these public books aloud, essentially creating audiobooks for free online use. There are many kinds of recording projects available for volunteers to tackle, such as collaborative works, readings in languages other than English, and dramatic readings. For potential volunteers who have little to no experience in recording audiobooks, LibriVox offers helpful tips and advice, and a more extensive guide as well. Volunteers must register for the LibriVox Forum, where all LibriVox activity and communication takes place.
Despite the times, there is clearly no shortage of volunteering opportunities, as long as you know where to look—that is, online! These are a good handful of well-qualified online volunteering opportunities available for students, but these are also merely a few of many, and if you try volunteering for these programs and find yourself a passion in doing so, then we encourage you to explore the internet for other similar volunteering opportunities as well.