It’s the end of the year! What better gift to give this December than volunteering your time, talent, and treasures with a local nonprofit?
Forward Wayne County is focused on Volunteering this month. Today’s blog post focuses on some of the benefits of volunteering and how you can give back to your own community.
Why Volunteer?
Volunteering your time is one of the most valuable gifts you can give to a nonprofit organization. Without volunteers, many organizations would be unable to operate on their highest level.
Volunteering also has a host of benefits, like decreasing stress and increasing confidence in volunteers. It allows volunteers to connect with their communities in more meaningful ways, which can open doors for many kinds of career paths. In general, volunteering can help you grow skills you may not typically use and otherwise take you out of your comfort zone.
Just last year, more than 1.8 million Indiana residents volunteered. Their work had an estimated economic value of more then $4 billion. With a B! In a similar vein, according to a study from the Independent Sector, the estimated value of one hour of volunteer time is $29.95. Imagine the difference you can make!
Getting Involved
At this point you might be asking, “how can I get involved?” Luckily, there are countless tools online to help you find a location to volunteer.
Serve Indiana is a program from the state of Indiana all about volunteering. For example: interested parties can visit the site to find organizations looking for volunteers, find volunteering resources, and more across the state of Indiana.
If you’d like to focus on Wayne County nonprofits, you could check out the Wayne County Nonprofit Database. You’ll find information on nonprofits including mission and vision statements and website links. These tools are a huge help for narrowing down the type of organization you’d like to volunteer at and getting in touch with them.
Alternatively, if you have an organization in mind, just give them a call!
Whether it’s December or any other month, your volunteerism makes your community a better place to be. And to those of you who give their time, we say thank you!
