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Volunteer. Search for volunteer opportunities on the following websites. Most of these sites have the option of searching by topic or issue, so you can search for volunteer opportunities addressing the issue you care about. (If you don’t find opportunities in your area on one, try the others – each website includes different opportunities.) Volunteering Tips, Tools & Resources:
Participate in or organize a community service or service-learning project. Plan a service project in your community to address the issue that you care about. The following resources will help you in organizing your project. Project Plan-It - Project Plan-It! is an easy interactive series of questions and templates that allow you and your friends to plan your service project or program. At the end, you will be able to print out your own project plan, funding proposal, press release, service-learning reflection plan, and other helpful resources. Tips on Starting a Community Service Project Global Youth Service Day - Millions of youth participate in Global Youth Service Day, the largest service event in the world. They tutor young children, engage in disaster relief, register new voters, educate their communities about good nutrition, distribute HIV/AIDs prevention materials and meet many more community needs through their service. Global Youth Service Day supports youth on a life-long path of service and civic engagement, and educates the public, the media, and elected officials about the role of youth as community leaders. This comprehensive guide will help you plan your project, recruit volunteers, generate media attention, raise funds, and more. While the following resources were developed for Global Youth Service Day, they can be used to plan a service project at any time of the year. There are many other days of service throughout the year. Many of their websites have ways to find and organize service projects. There are also days, weeks, or months dedicated to particular issues. View the Service Events Calendar here. National Youth Leadership Council Resource Center - an extensive, searchable library of articles, project examples, and downloadable tools related to service-learning!
Raise and/or donate money to a charitable organization. Donate to a charitable organization that works on the issue you care about. Here are some places to find organizations to and to make donating easier: Charity Navigator - Your Guide to Intelligent Giving - Charity Navigator provides a listing of reputable charities to donate to, searchable by issue area. Case Foundation's Guide to Good Giving - Whether you shop with a purpose, volunteer on vacation, or honor someone with a donation to a cause they care about, giving has never been so easy, so fun, and so meaningful. Explore the Case Foundation’s Guide to Good Giving, and make giving a part of living. Facebook Causes - Make a difference, on Facebook. Causes on Facebook lets you start and join the causes you care about. Donations to causes can benefit over a million registered 501(c)(3) nonprofits and major presidential campaigns GoodSearch (You Search - We Give) & GoodShop (Earn money for charity while you shop online.) Other Websites To Give Online Donating to Charity Tips, Tools & Resources
Join or start a group or organization. Join a group or organization that you can address the issue you care about with. If you're already a part of an organization, work with the group to plan activities to address the issue you care about. If you're in school, there are many student organizations. Here are some national organizations that might have a local chapter in your school. All of these organizations engage students in service around critical issues. The links below bring you to a page to search for local chapters. There are probably other organizations in your school not listed here. Ask your teachers or administrators about organizations in your school. Other ways to find organizations - Search for organizations at Idealist.
- If you're in college, most campuses have a wide variety of student clubs & organizations. Your college website should have a directory of student organizations.
- To find community groups in your area, you can use a print or online telephone directory (try a "community organizations" category search. Your school or community library (and librarians) can also be helpful in your search.
No group out there that is working on what you'd like to work on? Start your own. - Guide to Starting a Youth Program - This guide is for you if you dream of starting your own nonprofit organization to give young people in your community better opportunities, but don't know where to begin. There are many resources (a wealth of them online) that can help you navigate how to start and manage a nonprofit organization that serves youth and their families. Rather than duplicate information that's already out there, this guide attempts to put you on the right track by guiding you to Web sites written just for grassroots organizers and youth service professionals.
- Youth Venture - Youth Venture inspires and invests in teams of young people to design and launch their own lasting social ventures, enabling them to have this transformative experience of leading positive social change. Venturers start businesses, civil society organizations and informal programs that address all kinds of social issues, including poverty, health, the elderly, the environment, education, diversity issues, and the arts. Youth Venture helps our Venturers through this process of designing and launching their ventures, providing guidance, how-to’s, and a process for designing and pitching a venture idea.
- Youth Social Enterprise Initiative - Download a guide to starting your own social organization.
Organize!
Organize your community.Your community could be your school or campus, your neighborhood, your town or city. - Idealist - Take the Lead in Your Community
- Youth Action Net - YouthActionNet™ is a program that invests in the power and promise of young people to create positive change. Through its global and national-level fellowship programs, customized trainings, dynamic website and peer-to-peer learning opportunities, YouthActionNet™ offers young change makers ideas, resources, and connections to like minds around the world.
- Activism Network & Campus Activism - This interactive website has tools for progressive activists. It is part of a network of websites that share information called the Activism Network. We built it, but you must provide the content. You can use it to start a campaign, share activism resources, publicize events, and build networks. Or you can join an existing campaign, get resources, learn about upcoming activist events, and let people find you.
- Raise Your Voice : Student Action For Change - The Raise Your Voice Campaign, an initiative of Campus Compact, has connected over 300,000 students across the country on over 450 campuses to support student civic engagement and address public issues crucial to our democracy. This site is dedicated to connecting, challenging, and supporting college and university students in community work, activism, leadership, and civic growth. Here you will find practical information, ideas, and resources, as well as a forum for sharing ideas
- Mobilize.org Mobilizer Teams - A Mobilizer team is a group of young people, of any size, who are working together to increase our generation’s involvement in the political process. A team can be as small as a couple friends grabbing coffee near a college or twenty teens hanging out at school during lunch. All that is needed is a few young people interested in making our world a better place through increasing civic conversation and political engagement
Organize online. - Change.org - Connect to people who care about the same issues. Users can create virtual organizations around social issues, called "Changes," to share ideas and organize collective action. Discover and engage with nonprofit organizations. We host social networks for 1.5 million nonprofits, allowing people to directly communicate with leading organizations. Make a difference by donating and taking action with others. Fundraise for projects around the world, volunteer with friends, or join online advocacy campaigns.
- Youth Noise - YN is a social networking site for people under the age of 27 who like to connect based on deeper interests than Paris Hilton's wardrobe and want to get engaged within a cause. Find a cause, search for friends, and get involved. Want to free Tibet? Passionate about human rights? Whatever your cause, network it here.
- Taking IT Global - TakingITGlobal.org is an online community that connects youth to find inspiration, access information, get involved, and take action in their local and global communities. It's the world's most popular online community for young people interested in making a difference, with hundreds of thousands of unique visitors each month. TIG's highly interactive website provides a platform for expression, connection to opportunities, and support for action. Join now and connect with thousands of other young people around the world!
Community organizing is a big concept and depending on what you want to accomplish, might include other action steps from starting an organization to petitioning to contacting the media. Use the resourcse on this site to help you.
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