Micro Volunteering – What/How/Why

Micro volunteering is a way to give your time, get involved, give back, build community and support in short and convenient bite-sized chunks. It has the power to turn lots of small actions into community action and provides you with a way to give without too much commitment. Often offering volunteers a series of easy tasks that can be done anytime, anywhere, on your own terms, at your pace, and often – you can even make up your own!

Right, ok what does that actually look like?

The opportunities are endless, and most importantly, they are manageable and meaningful to you. You could do any of the following, but these suggestions are certainly not extensive:

A great way to Micro Volunteer is to join a Time Bank, where you can contribute one hour at a time. Time Banks are built to unite communities by putting independent skills to the service of the public.  Anyone at any stage of their lives is welcome to join, and every skill is valuable, from shopping and running errands for someone else to gardening and even cooking. The best part of Time Banks is that for each hour you contribute to your community, you also gain an hour’s credit from your time bank, which you can spend by receiving an hour of someone else’s time. Here are some of the local Time Banks you can join today:

• Real Neighbours Wythenshawe Time Bank
• One Manchester Time Bank
• Southway Housing Trust Time Bank
• Godmanchester Community Time Bank

Learn more about TimeBanking here.

When we said you could micro volunteer from anywhere at any time, we meant it. Online opportunities allow you to volunteer from the comfort of your place or even when commuting to university. The possibilities are endless, from social media campaigning to translating documents and helping the visually impaired; online micro volunteering makes helping accessible to everyone.

• UVP – Unified Volunteer Platform (unv.org)
• Campaigning With Oxfam
• Be my Eyes

One-off volunteering opportunities are also a great way to micro volunteer without much compromise. This can include donating food to local food banks or attending public-space-enhancement events.

• One-off Volunteering at Motor Neurone Disease Association
• Community Fridges | Hubbub Foundation

Citizen Science Projects are interesting micro volunteering activities that contribute to the study and conservation of the environment. It can involve collecting data from your community simply by observing your surroundings, planting trees in your garden, or even building nests outside your house.

• The Carbon Community
• RSBP – Nature on Your Doorstep
• Citizen Science Projects – National Geographic

What micro volunteers say:

“As a full-time university student, I commonly felt frustrated over not contributing to my community as often as I wanted. With my studies as my prime responsibility, I found it hard to commit to long-term forms of volunteering. Fortunately, I found micro volunteering, which allowed me to help in small chunks whenever and wherever I could. Online volunteering activities were especially my favourite forms of micro volunteering since I could engage meaningfully anywhere in my free time.”

You don’t need many resources or time to support your community, and the best part is that Rise recognizes and compensates for all your extra efforts. Whether you volunteered outside Rise opportunities or even created your own initiative, you are now able to self claim Rise Points that can count for your degree profile.

No matter how small you think your contributions are, you can still engage and impact matters that are important to you thanks to micro volunteering’s accessibility and flexibility.

So go ahead, help someone today and begin your journey of micro volunteering!