What is microvolunteering?
Microvolunteering is short actions/activities (ideally less than an hour and certainly
less than a day) that make a different to a cause or people.
What are the benefits of microvolunteering to volunteers?
- Microvolunteering is accessible, low effort and low commitment.
- Volunteers feel like they are making a difference and supporting a cause.
- Flexible so fits in with a busy lifestyle.
- Good if you want to volunteer but have disability or health issues which would
make a regular role difficult.
- Volunteers can register their interest in a charity – and sign up to be contacted
about further roles.
- Can often be online or done from home.
- It is fun and enjoyable!
What are the benefits to organisations?
- Meet campaigning goals.
- If you have no roles or have to reject a volunteer, you can still get them involved
and keep them connected.
- Spread of awareness of your cause.
- Help with fundraising.
- Raise awareness of your charity.
- Good for involving young people and children.
- Good for involving people with busy schedules.
- Might lead to people wanting to do more volunteering in your organisation.
Ideas for microvolunteering projects
Not all of these ideas will work for all organisations and groups, but here are some
suggestions you might want to consider:
- Writing cards to people who use your service for festivals (e.g. Christmas,
Passover, Eid) and seasons.
- Writing letters or emails to MPs about an issue that affects your service users.
- Quick litter picking.
- Quick research tasks (e.g. researching funders or stock images to go with a
campaign).
- Completing surveys on a particular topic.
- Attending an event to raise awareness or money.
- Contributing to a bake sale.
- Post messages on social media to promote your campaigns or raise awareness
of your charity.
- Sort through and transcribe data (e.g. transcribing historical records or
interviews).
- Drawing a picture or writing about a campaign of yours or your charity (great
for children and young people).
- Simple craft activities.
- Citizen Science activities.
- CV /Job interview support
Next steps
- Brainstorm microvolunteering ideas – we’re happy to support with this at
Volunteering Kingston.
- If you’ve got a couple of microvolunteering ideas, you can create a page on your
website to list them.
- Reach out to people who might be interested such as schools, places of
worships, libraries, youth groups, community centres, older people’s groups and
let them know about your opportunities