5 ways you can contribute to your community – and help your career too!
So you want to help your community – great! There are loads of ways you can do it.
Giving back to your community is a wonderful thing to do – you’ll have a great time and find it really rewarding. But did you know it can help your CV too?
'Did you know helping your community can boost your career prospects? Here's how'
You’ll be building new skills, gaining experience, often in a setting that’s very much like the workplace. And if you’re off to university, it’s a great way to get the kind of work experience under your belt that employers say graduates often don’t have.
Here are just 5 of the ways you can do it:
1. Volunteer
OK, so volunteering isn’t just “one way” to help your community – it’s a whole bunch of ways. Here are just a few of the many ways you can help local causes by offering your services:
You could volunteer to help children who are struggling
to read near you
Help homeless people by volunteering locally: National charities such as Shelter and Crisis, as well numerous local charities, are often on the look out for volunteers to cook meals and deliver blankets. Training is usually given.
Help people learn to read: The charity Beanstalk links volunteer reading helps to nursery and primary children who are struggling to read. Read Easy look for volunteers to coach adults who struggle to reading.
Help out at an animal shelter: Animal shelters take in stray animals and injured wildlife, and many rely on volunteers to help look after the animals.
Volunteer in a charity shop: Local charities often run shops to raise funds. As a shop assistant, you’ll serve customers and help manage stock.
The great thing about volunteering is it’s often a bit like a job. You’ll have a role, responsibilities and a manager you’ll report to. This makes it a fab way to build up employability skills you can add directly to your CV. If you receive training, you can
Skills gained: Teamwork, communication, hard work and dedication, time management
2. Help out at a youth club
Helping out at a youth club gives you leadership,
teamwork and people skills
If you go (or have ever been) to a youth club, you’ll know that they’re a great way for young people to meet up outside school, have fun and take part in activities. In some communities, they provide opportunities to make friends, socialise and take part in activities that wouldn’t otherwise be there.
As a volunteer, you’ll be close in age to the attendees so they’ll be able to relate to you. You’ll help supervise the young people, and organise activities like sports, music and community projects. You’ll get to do all the fun stuff like trips and activities.
You’ll get a DBS check you can put on your CV, and gain direct experience which will be particularly helpful if you want to be a youth worker, teacher, teaching assistant, or nursery nurse – and transferable skills that are fab for loads of other career paths too.
Skills gained: Leadership, teamwork, communication, people skills, time management, organisation, creativity, reliability
3. Fundraise for a local cause
If there’s a local charity or community project that’s close to your heart, fundraising is a great way to help out – particularly as small, local causes are often in need of extra money.
Fundraising develops your initiative, organisation and
time management skills
Some local causes you could fundraise for:
Local charities
Sports clubs
Youth clubs
A one-off local project
Fundraising is pretty easy. You could join an existing event like a sponsored walk, cycle, swim or run, or you could plan your own instead. Fundraising sites like JustGiving, Virgin Money Giving or BT MyDonate give your supporters somewhere to donate, and a page you can share with friends and family on social media.
To fundraise successfully, you need to plan carefully and publicise your event with potential supporters – including friends and family, and others too through a social media campaign or within your community.
Skills gained: Leadership, teamwork, organisation, time management, initiative
4. Help the environment
Looking after the environment isn’t just about recycling and remembering your bag for life. Climate change can seem too big to tackle at an individual level, but through relatively small actions, you can help protect local wildlife and its habitat in ways you can see:
There are plenty of small local actions you can take
to help the environment - like tree planting
Tree planting: National charities like the Woodland Trust rely on volunteers to help create new forests and keep our communities looking green. Google local charities and initiatives as well as national organisations.
Tackling local pollution: Community groups often organise their own litter picks or river clean ups to help wildlife thrive in polluted areas.
Hedge laying / dry stone walling: It might sound like hard graft (because it is!) but helping create and repair hedges or walls with a charity like your local Wildlife Trust can actually be very therapeutic and help you connect with the environment.
Species surveying: Essentially counting animals (and plants). The idea is to keep an eye on numbers of a particular species in an area to monitor the effects of conservation efforts, and check if that species needs more support to thrive.
Skills gained: Teamwork, hard work and dedication, reliability
5. Spend time with older people
Sadly, more than half of people aged 75 or over live on their own. More than one in 10 older people see friends and family less than once a month. Yet there are plenty of ways you can get involved in your own community:
Some things you can do:
Join a befriending service run by a charity like Age UK – you’ll be partnered with an older person and visit them once a week for a chat.
Offer to help an older person you or your family knows. You could help them out with tasks like shopping, posting mail, picking up prescriptions or dog-walking.
Get in touch with a local care home or sheltered accommodation complex. You may be able to spend time with the residents on an organised programme - or even get a new scheme going.
It goes two ways – there’s plenty to gain from spending time with older people. You’ll benefit from all those years of wisdom and experience – and maybe even some great careers advice!
Skills gained: Communication, reliability, hard work and dedication
