 "It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."-- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
You work all day and try to find enough time in your off hours for family, friends, exercise, and the occasional movie or vacation. Your plate, as they say, is full. So the suggestion you might want to donate some hours here and there to help your community or a non-profit group, for free, may sound about as likely as the odds you'll find time to climb Mt. Everest.
Maybe it's time to look into volunteerism from a new perspective and investigate how you can get involved with helping others. It may not be as daunting as you think. In fact, many companies even help match employees with opportunities that fit their schedules and interests.
For example, Emory University has a web site devoted to connecting staff, as well as students, to volunteer projects during specific days and time slots. REALTOR Magazine and the Good Neighbor Society have an annual program that matches realtors who work on their own small-scale charitable efforts with mentors and awards them grant money. The AT&T Cares program actively encourages and helps employees find community service that is meaningful to them. Last year alone, AT&T employees and retirees, donated more than 8.5 million hours of time, worth about $176 million, to community outreach activities.
 Benefiting your community and yourselfWhile volunteering is about helping others, many volunteers find they end up getting back countless benefits - both personal and professional.
Volunteering offers you the chance to not only use the skills you have to help others, but you can also gain additional experience in a new field. It's a way to see if you have a "fit" in a new area without making a long-term commitment.
Volunteering brings new networking opportunities your way as you develop personal and professional relationships. You'll expand your horizons by helping people in different environments and new industries. In addition, volunteering gives you the opportunity to hone skills that are valuable in your workplace including teamwork, communication, problem solving, project planning, task management, and organization which can translate into a career boost.
In fact, a survey of volunteerism carried out by TimeBank through Reed Executive found that:
- 73% of employers would recruit a candidate with volunteering experience over one without.
- 94% of employers believe that volunteering can add to skills.
- Over 90% of employees who volunteered to learn new skills said they benefited either by getting their first job, improving their salary, or being promoted.
It also turns out that the old saying about how helping people does your heart good is literally true. Researchers have found that folks who volunteer are not only happier but healthier. According to a study by the Corporation for National and Community Service that reviewed a compelling collection of scientific research, volunteers have greater longevity, higher functional ability, lower rates of depression, and less incidence of heart disease.
How to get startedIf you are ready and willing to give volunteering a try, talk to your manager to see if your company has a program in place to match your volunteer interests with community needs. Your church or synagogue can be a good source of information on how and where to volunteer, too.
You can also search www.yourcause.com for volunteer opportunities in your specific location; the web site can help you network with other folks with the same areas of volunteering interest, too. The U.S. government has its own website (www.usa.gov/volunteer#Volunteer_Your_Time) that lists ways to volunteer in countless ways from being a poll worker at election time to helping monitor your community's water quality.
 Getting into the volunteering spirit? Experienced volunteers have words of encouragement and a few common sense words of advice on how to not overdo it:
- Realtor Ellen Kiss of Kiss Properties, Inc. in Del Mar California, founded Adopt-A- Classroom (www.aacsd.org) five years ago to help children from grades K through 5 who live at or below the poverty level. "A lot of the children come from troubled homes and do not have food on their table. It brings me great joy to know I can make a difference. I know I have helped a lot of children," Kiss tells Synergy. "The downside is that it does take time to keep it all together. When the real estate market changed I felt I had to work harder at my job and couldn't spend as much time as I would have liked in volunteering. But, overall, we have accomplished a lot and there is more to come."
- "I have made many more friends and contacts than I might ever have, and I have been given leadership opportunities that would never have occurred without being a volunteer. I also have a social justice streak, and volunteering helps fulfill a personal and emotional need that I have for participating in efforts that are equalizing and generous. The volunteering experiences have simply brought more people into my life, and more opportunities to see things beyond my own point of view," says Linda Sheldon, Manager for Accessible Design and Construction in Campus Services at Emory Services. "I do occasionally overextend myself and I have to recognize that and trim my interests."
- Debra Parmenter, who works with Coldwell Banker Heritage House Realtors in Durango, Colorado, calls working and volunteering "an eternal balancing act" and tells Synergy the key is establish boundaries. "If I didn't, I would never sleep. It is difficult because I always feel there is so much more that needs to be done," she says. "But the benefits of volunteering have been much more than I have given. It has made me a more compassionate and understanding human being. It has helped in my career, too. It's helped me a great deal in being more organized and enhanced my ability to work people with different personalities."
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