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CHARITY GUIDE

Mission

Charity Guide's mission is to inspire and facilitate flexible volunteerism. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Charity Guide promotes opportunities to make a difference that are entirely flexible and immediately actionable. We call this approach: "Volunteering On Demand."

Volunteer Outreach and Referrals

Charity Guide serves well-meaning people with busy or unpredictable schedules. We use one-to-one marketing techniques to appeal to "would-be volunteers" on the cause of their greatest interest and at the moment of their greatest willingness to act.

Charity Guide influences the volunteering decisions of more than 700,000 people per year, presenting service projects more than 2 million times annually. Our approach tends to attract self-directed individuals who believe in their power to act individually to make the world a better place.

Flexible Volunteering

There is enormous, untapped kindness available from busy people like you who yearn for greater fulfillment through helping others. However, many well-meaning people are unable to commit to volunteering that requires a specific time commitment — which is characteristic of many traditional volunteer opportunities.

Charity Guide's "Volunteer On DemandTM" approach offers a flexible alternative. At CharityGuide.org, you can choose service projects based on duration:

Or, you can search for volunteer opportunities by cause:

Editorially-Reviewed Volunteer Directory

Charity Guide receives requests from many terrific charities to be included in our Volunteer Directory. However, most of the proposed volunteer opportunities are not sufficiently flexible for Charity Guide's audience of busy people with unpredictable schedules, who cannot make time commitments in advance.

If you would like your charity to be listed at CharityGuide.org, one of our editors would need to select your charity for inclusion in the "How to Make a Difference" section of one of our Service Projects.

The following excerpt from our Editorial Guidelines explains the selection process:

Generally, at least three different organizations should be listed in the "How to Make a Difference" section of a service project.

To qualify, the selected organizations must be nationally relevant, either by:

  • providing complete "how to" instructions at their website
  • facilitating the "make a difference" activity via their website
  • offering recipient locations throughout the country
  • providing a mail-in address to receive collected items

When many alternatives are available, recommend the reputable organizations that make it easiest for self-directed volunteers to successfully accomplish their make-a-difference activity in the least amount of time, with the greatest flexibility.

If you believe that your organization and volunteer opportunity qualifies, please forward the URL of the relevant Service Project. Or, please suggest a new Service Project that can be accomplished by a self-directed volunteer in either 15 minutes, a few hours (once, or each week), or during a volunteer vacation. Please send your ideas to Questions@CharityGuide.org.

Recommendations are determined by the Service Project writers, with final review by a senior editor.