Make a Difference in Seconds. Micro-Volunteering Links for 2017
Last year we took a closer look at micro-volunteering—tasks that require minimal commitment and often take less than 10 minutes to complete. As schedules tighten for the average American, this concept continues to gain momentum. Here are a few more ways you can help make a difference without making a major commitment.
Give the Gift of Sight.
In 2016, Be My Eyes inspired a new crop of volunteers, and has helped bring sight to thousands of blind or visually impaired people around the world. When a blind person needs assistance (reading the expiration date in the grocery store, for example), they submit a request through their app, and connect with a sighted volunteer who quickly responds. Learn more about the program and how to download the app and get started.
Lend Someone Your Voice.
Keeping up with the sensory volunteer theme, roughly 2.5 million Americans are speech impaired. You can help give them a voice as part of the Human Voicebank Initiative. The program allows you to easily record and “donate” your voice to be synthesized and personalized to help someone with severely impaired speech. If you have a family member or neighbor with a hearing, voice, speech or language disorder, you can also help them one-on-one with these resources provided by the National Institute of Health.
Be a Residential Do-Gooder.
Since 2007, Knots of Love has helped to warm the heads and hearts of people undergoing chemotherapy. All you need is basic knitting skills to be the perfect volunteer. Find yourself gazing at the stars? You can help map the solar system with cosmoquest.org. Or perhaps you’d like to join micro-volunteers crowdsourced from over 50 countries as you complete tasks to benefit academic research and the public good. Nearly 1 million tasks have been performed on the Crowd4u.org platform, and many take as little as 10 seconds to complete. If you want to take a break from volunteering from home, you can help raise money for your favorite charity just by taking a jog around town. And if you see a playground along your route, you can help a parent with young kids find it, too, when you add it to this crowdsourced playground map.
Find more opportunities in your area, here.
