Volunteering

[cobrakai111]

Anyone hear of the organization Kiva.org by any chance? I'm just learning about it but here is some info my friend shared with me. Sounds really interesting.

Kiva.org allows individuals to make $25 loans to low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world (microfinance). By doing so, individuals provide affordable working capital for the poor (money to buy a sewing machine, livestock, etc.), empowering them to earn their way out of poverty.

It's a new, direct and sustainable way to fight global poverty, and the way I see it, I get a higher return on $25 helping someone build a future than the interest my checking account pays.

Anyway, if you have a minute, please check out the site: http://kiva.org. If you need more "reputable" validation than my recommendation, know that they have received great press in publications ranging from The Wall Street Journal to NPR to BusinessWeek.

[KDuff]

I really enjoyed the three years I tutored local high students while I was in college. Our program was pretty successful and we had several programs to help the kids with ESL, SAT, math/science, college counseling, a general homework help, and a course to work with them on their high school profiency test. In general, the kids and their parents were glad to be there and were grateful for the help.

A funny conclusion to my volunteering came two months ago when my doctor told me that there was a good chance I contracted tuberculosis while tutoring. She said it's fairly common for teenage immigrants to be asymptomatic, but for the TB to contagious. The real kicker is that I was immunized as an infant.

[JaredL]

This isn't really what OP was talking about, but I'm wondering about volunteering for political campaigns. Anyone done this? I'm thinking of volunteering for one of the people running for president. I posted this in the primary thread, but got no response so I thought I would try here.

Anybody know what volunteer jobs there are for these campaigns?

Basically, I:
1. can't donate much money.
2. don't want to call people, go door-to-door, plan meetings at my house or in my neighborhood etc.
3. wouldn't be super excited to answer phones, though this is 99.999999% better than calling other people. Being forward-looking, I would probably quit after a few goes with this job.
4. (added) don't want to get a bajillion calls from people asking me to do 1-3 above.

Are there random office jobs? Are there any planning type jobs where they could use people at a pretty low-level on the totem pole? Doing something like analyzing poll data and trying to put that info to use would be really enjoyable for me. Is this only done at the high-level by whoever the Karl Rove is for the candidate?

Jared

[cobrakai111]

[ QUOTE ]
This isn't really what OP was talking about, but I'm wondering about volunteering for political campaigns. Anyone done this? I'm thinking of volunteering for one of the people running for president. I posted this in the primary thread, but got no response so I thought I would try here.

Anybody know what volunteer jobs there are for these campaigns?

Basically, I:
1. can't donate much money.
2. don't want to call people, go door-to-door, plan meetings at my house or in my neighborhood etc.
3. wouldn't be super excited to answer phones, though this is 99.999999% better than calling other people. Being forward-looking, I would probably quit after a few goes with this job.
4. (added) don't want to get a bajillion calls from people asking me to do 1-3 above.

Are there random office jobs? Are there any planning type jobs where they could use people at a pretty low-level on the totem pole? Doing something like analyzing poll data and trying to put that info to use would be really enjoyable for me. Is this only done at the high-level by whoever the Karl Rove is for the candidate?

Jared

[/ QUOTE ]

Jared are you willing to do something for a local state level? I actually am looking for full time work for a national campaign and that's hard enough. It honestly will be very tough for you to find volunteer work that doesn't involve phone banking or knocking on doors. Perhaps some local offices will need things like envelope stuffing, data entry, etc. but I'm not sure. This is for the higher levels though. For local level depending on the state and what type of campaign they almost never turn down a free set of intellegent hands.