Search Tips
1. Saving Your Search – if you want to save the searches you have made for volunteering opportunities, then you need to create an account by going to Login and giving a username and password. This can be a good idea as there are thousands of volunteering opportunities on this website and you don’t want to lose that opportunity that looked right up your street!
2. Keyword searches - put in the word that describes the kind of volunteering you’d like to do e.g. coaching, fundraising. If you’d like some ideas about the kinds of volunteering opportunities available, go to Popular Searches, Type of Activity, Organisations or Gobsmacking list
3. Location Search - this is where you put in a postcode or town/city to start your search. This works well in areas where there are fewer opportunities e.g. if you live on one of Scotland’s islands. However, if you live somewhere like Glasgow, this basic kind of search will result in thousands of opportunities to choose from which can be entertaining but a bit overwhelming. If this happens to you, you need to narrow your search.
4. Popular Searches - you can find a list of the most recent popular searches to give you an idea of what other people have been looking at. Having said that, popularity isn’t everything. You won’t believe what you can do as a volunteer, so use your imagination, think about what floats your boat and get hunting for an opportunity that matches your passion!
5. Most Recent Opportunities - if you go to the top right-hand side of the front page of the website, you’ll see a list of the most recently added volunteer opportunities.
6. Narrowing your search – once you have seen the volunteering opportunities available with your first search, you might see something that takes your fancy in which case you can go ahead and apply for more information. If you don’t see anything you want to do, try narrowing your search. Look under the What Can I Do? panel on the left hand side of the screen and you’ll see a number of ways you can do this;
- Expanding the radius – if you have put in a postcode or a town, volunteering opportunities within a 5 mile radius are automatically returned. Look at the sliding scale and expand your radius so you can see what volunteering might be available if you travel a wee bit further (you can expand to a maximum of a 50 mile radius).
- Type of Activity – this lets you narrow the kind of search to pick the kinds of things you’d be interested in doing as a volunteer e.g. fundraising, befriending etc.
- Issue/Cause/Client Group – this lets you narrow your search to pick the kinds of organisation you’d like to volunteer for e.g. environmental, criminal justice, children etc.
- Organisation – this allows you to search for specific organisations you might want to volunteer with e.g. Childline, Consumer Focus Scotland. However, remember there are literally thousands of small, grassroots organisations doing interesting and worthwhile work out there, so give them a chance to benefit from your time as well!
- Services – this allows you to search for volunteering opportunities that offer tasters (i.e. a chance to try it out first to see if it’s for you), wheelchair access or that offer childcare.
- Time – you can narrow your search to return volunteering opportunities that take place at a particular time e.g. Saturday mornings, Tuesday evening.
- Date Published – you can pick out volunteering opportunities that have been published recently.
- Last Updated – you can search for volunteering opportunities whose details have recently been updated.
7. Other Ways of Searching - you can also search for volunteering roles by checking the ‘yes/no’ check boxes under the following categories:
- Home-based Volunteering – you can usually do all of these opportunities from your own home. For more information click here.
- On line Volunteering - you can usually do all of these opportunities from wherever you have access to the internet. For more information click here or view on line volunteering roles here.
- Residential volunteering – these opportunities usually provide accommodation and meals; some may provide a “living allowance”; however, some may ask for a contribution from you towards living costs and can be referred to as “working holidays”. For more information click here.
- Short term / seasonal working - these opportunities can usually be done over 1-4 weeks or over college/university holiday periods for example. If you’re looking for one-off event volunteering opportunities then use the “one-off” check box below instead! (make underlined hyperlink to that tick box. Make one-off check box hyperlink to that section of website)
