Volunteer Vacations Blog

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Giving back 7 Surprising Reasons to Volunteer

28 February 2010
Globe Aware
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There are lots of things we want to do and should do, yet never seem to find the time to actually do. Volunteering shouldn’t be one of those things. Why? Besides providing much-needed help to people or organizations that need it most, volunteering can open the door to new business opportunities, friends, skills, and appreciation for the everyday things you take for granted. Most of all, it can make you happy.

“There’s no better feeling than knowing you had a hand in improving someone’s life,” says Brae Hanson, managing broker of Starck, REALTORS®, in Barrington, Ill., and an avid volunteer.

So before you say you don’t have the time or energy to take on a volunteering task, consider these seven reasons why you should start giving back now.

Reason #1: It Will Boost Your Visibility (for Free)

Volunteer to benefit your business? That doesn’t sound very altruistic. And while that probably shouldn’t be the primary reason to volunteer, it’s certainly a nice perk.

“Real estate professionals always want to be doing more selling and prospecting, but many don’t realize they can do both of those things while giving back to the community,” says Robert Rosenthal, a spokesperson for VolunteerMatch, a San Francisco nonprofit that matches volunteers with charitable groups.

Cappy MacPherson, a salesperson with Watson Realty Corp, Hidden Hills, Jacksonville, Fla., says volunteering is one of her best â€" and lowest cost â€" marketing tools. Instead of spending money to get her name out in the community, she gains exposure by volunteering with local charities, including HabiJax, the Jacksonville Habitat for Humanity branch.

At ever volunteer job, she wears T-shirts promoting previous volunteer events, along with a name tag that identifies her real estate business.

The strategy acts as a conversation starter and gets her name circulating in the community. Since 2006 it’s landed her four buyers and generated leads for two potential listings. “These are six prospects I would never have had,” she says. “It’s a wonderful way to market without breaking the bank.”

Reason #2: You’ll Sharpen Your Business Skills

With so many volunteer opportunities out there, you can select the ones that will help you improve certain business skills.

For example, Hanson, of Barrington, Ill., has perfected her marketing skills through 20-plus years of fundraising and promoting charities. Volunteering also has forced her to refine her time-management skills and has given her more financial know-how.

“I’ve never been fond of reading financial statements, but I’ve gotten better at budgeting and understanding profit and loss statements just from reviewing them for charities,” she says.

MacPherson, meanwhile, has improved her knowledge of home-improvement tasks â€" knowledge that comes in very handy when working with buyers and sellers. Through her Habitat for Humanity work, she’s learned the finer points of painting, roofing, and caulking, as well as an understanding of how buildings come together properly.

“I’m now able to see subtle problems in houses and know when to suggest further inspections,” she says.

Reason #3: It Doesn’t Require a Huge Time Commitment

If you read the stories of this year’s five Good Neighbor Award winners, you’ll be taken aback by how much time they devote to their causes. For a rookie volunteer, it can be downright intimidating. But such a large time commitment isn’t necessary.

Start small by volunteering for a one-time event or scheduling just a couple hours per week. Check out volunteer opportunities in your ZIP code by searching on Web sites such as VolunteerMatch. Each listing includes the estimated time contribution required, so you can be choosey about which jobs you take on.

Another option: Take a volunteer “vacation” to a developing nation or to a city in the United States to build a new school, restore the environment, or help on a medical mission. You can learn more about volunteer vacations at Web sites such as GlobeAware or CharityGuide.org.

Or, volunteer from the comfort of your own home. Instead of watching an hour of TV at night, log in an hour of virtual help to an organization of your choice. Learn about virtual volunteer opportunities at ServiceLeader.org.

Once you find a volunteer job that you really enjoy, making time for it will come naturally, Hanson says. “When something is important to you, you find the drive to get it done.”

Reason #4: Make Meaningful Community Connections

Weekly Rotary Club meetings put Lisa L. Bass, president and broker of California Commercial Corp. in Brentwood, Calif., and president of her local Rotary Club, in touch with local businesspeople and city council representatives.

Through in-person conversations and club projects, she built meaningful relationships in her community that could never have been made via e-mail or phone. Some recent Rotary activities have included donating dictionaries to local school kids and providing wheelchairs to people in Mexico.

When fellow Rotary Club members have commercial real estate needs, Bass is their go-to person. But she says the biggest benefit of volunteering is the pick-me-up she gets from doing good things. “The meetings give me purpose that I look forward to, especially when I’ve had a difficult week,” says Bass.

In today’s high-tech age, “it’s hard to feel connected on a deeply meaningful level,” says Rosenthal, from VolunteerMatch. “Volunteering is an opportunity to connect with others who share a similar cause.”

Reason #5: It’s Time to Expand Your Professional Horizons

In the early 1990s, Saul Klein, E-Pro®, GRI, owned a real estate brokerage, property management firm, and a financial-planning business, yet he was becoming increasingly interested in finding a new avenue for his real estate skills.

At the same time, through his volunteer work with the San Diego Association of REALTORS®, including a post as president of the group, he uncovered a zeal for emerging real estate technologies. He used his newfound passion as a launching pad for the next chapter of his career.

Klein now educates other real estate professionals on how to use technology, does speaking engagements around the country, has written real estate courses and books on technology, and is a founder of InternetCrusade, a San Diego company that manages the e-Pro® designation for the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

“Volunteering really has paid me back,” Klein says. “I love being able to take a message to people that I believe is valuable and that will make differences in their lives. It’s very rewarding when people tell me my advice is valuable.”

Volunteering can do the same for you; perhaps it will open the door to a new business niche or help you uncover a new path for your real estate career. You also can use volunteer opportunities to learn about a business specialty. For example, if you specialize in waterfront properties and you want to learn more about the issues that local residents face, volunteer with a beach clean-up organization. Or, if your aim is to develop a niche selling green property, consider volunteering at an environmental awareness group. There, you can learn more about the movement and meet prospects interested in environmentally sound homes.

Reason #6: You’ll Appreciate What You Have

Life seems tough when you don’t have an iPhone or you can’t afford to hit Starbucks every morning. But when you see firsthand how families live without heat, electricity, or indoor plumbing, you might feel a little better about your present situation.

Sean Waters, a salesperson with Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty Boston, Mass., says he’s witnessed such living conditions for the first time during a “magical and enriching” volunteer vacation to Cuzco, Peru withGlobe Aware, earlier this year. There, he rehabbed an orphanage and taught children English and baseball.

Despite lacking many comforts that Americans take for granted, Waters was amazed to see that Peruvians live happy lives with an intense love for and focus on family and friends. That realization sparked changes in Waters’ life when he returned home. He now makes more of an effort to spend quality time with his loved ones. “We work so hard, yet we’re lacking so much in terms of having time for each other,” says Waters.

The trip also served as a business motivator. Waters recognized that he needs to ramp up production to finance more service trips (next up is India) and to visit out-of-state relatives.
The other business benefit: Waters says the experience broadened his world view and will help him better connect with some of his sophisticated, well-traveled clients. At the very least, travel talk beats the weather as a topic for chit-chat.

Reason #7: You’ll Feel So Good About It

A growing body of research links volunteering with better health. One study, The Health Benefits of Volunteering: A Review of Recent Research, by the Corporation for National and Community Service, says volunteering improves longevity, lowers depression rates, and reduces the rates of heart disease.

Indeed, many volunteers cite a phenomenon commonly called, “helper’s high,” in which they gain feelings of exhilaration and energy from volunteering. MacPherson says she likens the feeling she gets from volunteering to the endorphin rush after a workout.

Hanson agrees. She says her post-volunteering highs frequently last five days and translate into greater enthusiasm for her work and life in general.

“Happier people live longer, and happier people are going to sell more real estate than grumpy ones,” MacPherson says.

The research evidence pleases, but doesn’t surprise, Rosenthal. “You don’t need scientific validation for people to know that the world needs them,” he says.

Double duty: Both sides reap the benefits of volunteer trips

28 February 2010
Globe Aware
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USA Today

KRASANG ROLEUNG, Cambodia â€" Andrew Krupp doesn’t speak a word of Cambodian. And, for the most part, the dozens of happy-faced children racing across the dusty schoolyard to greet him don’t speak a word of English.

But that doesn’t stop Krupp from winning them over immediately.

It doesn’t take much, after all, to get across the basics of the hokeypokey, which it turns out is just as big a crowd-pleaser in the poorest thatched-roof villages of Cambodia as it is in the manicured suburb near Chicago where Krupp lives.

“I’m like a novelty act riding into town,” says the 39-year-old manufacturing executive, laughing as his frenzied “right foot in” sends the children into hysterics. “Everybody loves a lunatic.”

A lunatic with a mission. With the ever-energetic Krupp occupying the kids, his five traveling companions are free to grab hammers and saws and get down to the real task of the morning: building new eraser boards for the rural school’s ramshackle classrooms.
It’s a lot of work.

It’s also their vacation.

A volunteer vacation, it’s called â€" a type of trip that has gone from being on the fringe to the mainstream in just a few years.

Krupp and the others have signed up to visit Cambodia with GlobeAware, one of a growing number of organizations that design vacations for people who want to spend as much time helping in the destinations they visit as they spend seeing the major sites.

People such as Mary-Ellen Connolly, 46, of Chelsea, Quebec.

“I’m so sick of going to typical tourist attractions and doing the same old tourist thing,” says Connolly, who volunteers at home teaching the visually impaired to ski and thought it would be fun to combine voluntarism with vacation.

Like the others here, Connolly says she wanted to “give back.” But she also saw the allure of volunteering as a way to experience a country on a deeper level.

“I wanted to meet the local people,” she says, “because that’s the way to really know a country.”

A scene from a Dickens novel

Connolly, a part-time accountant who left her children with her husband to take the trip with a friend, is talking outside an orphanage where the group spends every afternoon. In Siem Reap, the region’s tourist hub, the tiny, run-down building houses 23 children in two rooms â€" one for girls, one for boys.

Many of the kids are barefoot, their hair a mess, their clothes stained â€" a Cambodian version of a scene from a Dickens novel. But however bleak their situation, they, like kids everywhere, relish the chance for a little adult-sponsored goofiness. Encouraged by GlobeAware’s local coordinator, Sophanit Prin, 26, who serves as guide and translator, Connolly and the others quickly organize lessons in such life-important skills as playing “duck, duck, goose” and “hot potato.” The sad faces turn to smiles.

Like the thousands of other tourists arriving each week in this low-lying region of rice paddies and rural villages, famed for its 1,000-year-old temples, Connolly and her companions spent a day or so of their one-week trip exploring the legendary ruins of Angkor Wat and other remnants of Cambodia’s ancient Khmer empire. And like other Westerners, they’re staying in Siem Reap, which has mushroomed with hotels, restaurants and nightspots over the past decade as tourism rebounds from years of violence.

But that’s where the similarity ends. While other tourists lounge at $200-a-night resorts around Siem Reap â€" in sharp contrast to the region’s still-widespread poverty â€" the GlobeAware group bunks in a no-frills, $15-a-night guesthouse a short walk from the town center. They’ve paid $1,200 each for the trip, but much of that money goes to the local institutions on the group’s itinerary.

‘Volunteering 101’

In addition to spending time at the orphanage, the group takes on at least one, sometimes two more volunteer activities each day. On one sunny morning, the group assembles wheelchairs for some of the war-ravaged country’s thousands of land-mine victims. On four nights before dinner, Prin leads the volunteers down a dusty road to a Buddhist monastery to help teach English to locals.

The mix is typical of the new breed of short-term volunteer vacations, which often follow a “little of this, little of that” format that gives volunteering newbies a chance to try a lot of things to see what clicks. Krupp dubs it Volunteering 101, “a survey course of the options available” for those considering a longer-term commitment.

Krupp quickly decides that teaching is by far the most difficult task of the week. Welcomed at the monastery by monks in orange robes, the six GlobeAware volunteers are ushered into stark, barely lit classrooms, introduced to rows of wide-eyed students and then, for the most part, left on their own.

It’s trial by fire. But as Krupp notes, it doesn’t take long to realize the students, many of whom hope to become English-speaking tour guides at the nearby temples, a relatively high-paying job in the region, want little more than to hear the correct pronunciation for words they’ve only seen in books.

Despite an influx of tourist dollars in recent years, Cambodia remains one of the world’s poorest countries. Years of war and genocide under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s devastated the population â€" by some estimates, 2 million people died â€" and the violence and chaos continued well into the 1990s, stunting economic development.

A difficult life for most

At the Angkor Participatory Development Organization, a small non-profit agency that partners with GlobeAware, director Savuth Tek-Sakana explains that a typical job in the region pays only $100 a month. Those who speak English, however, can find work in tourist hotels paying as much as $250 a month, a small fortune in an economy in which more than a third of the population subsists on less than $1 a day.

Still, even for the higher earners, it’s a rough existence â€" a point that hits home when Tek-Sakana and Prin whisk the group into the countryside to visit a typical village.

The destination, Kravan, is less than a mile from Ta Prohm, the magical, jungle-covered ruins made famous in Angelina Jolie’s Tomb Raider, and just steps away from Prasat Kravan, a lesser-visited Hindu temple built in 921.

Leading the way down the muddy path that serves as the village’s main street, Tek-Sakana points to the rickety, one-room huts that house families of five, six or even eight people. Built on wooden stilts to keep occupants dry during the rainy season, the thatched-roof huts have flimsy walls made of palm leaves. There’s no electricity, running water or toilets. And the “kitchen” is a fire circle in the dirt.

“I’m at a loss,” says Krupp, echoing the shock of other volunteers at the sight of children running barefoot through the same muddy puddles that serve as latrines for roaming chickens and pigs. “I’ve seen poverty, but extreme poverty like this is so mentally conflicting. It makes it hard to enjoy life seeing and feeling how some people are forced to live in the 21st century.”

Much can be done in a week

Visiting such sites long has been part of the volunteer vacation experience. But it also has brought criticism from some who see it as little more than voyeurism.

Even some of the participants on this trip are conflicted. “I felt a bit embarrassed, like it was a show for us,” says Gabrielle Duchesne, 26, of Toronto. “But I think it’s good that we see it. If we can go back and find a way to volunteer, to donate, to integrate giving into our lives, then it was worth it.”

Like others on the trip, Duchesne says she was hesitant to sign up fo r a volunteering experience that was so short, concerned that she wasn’t going to be able to do enough.

But “it takes a lot of people doing small things to make a big difference,” says Duchesne, a fundraiser for the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. And she and others on the trip are surprised by how many small things they can get done in a week and, indeed, by the difference they seem to make.

The proof comes on the final day, when the group meets grateful recipients of the wheelchairs assembled during a single morning. Awkward at first, the “wheelchair party,” as GlobeAware’s Prin has dubbed it, loosens up as Duchesne distributes snacks, and the recipients begin to tell their stories. Some have waited years for a wheelchair, which costs many times the $20-a-month stipend that one disabled recipient says he has received since stepping on a mine in 1987.

“At first I was nervous, but it was a happy occasion, not sad,” Duchesne says afterward. The wheelchair recipients “left better than they had arrived, and that’s the reason we’re here.”

IF YOU GO

GlobeAware offers volunteer vacations to Cambodia year-round; 13 departures are planned for 2008.

The seven-night trips feature five days of volunteering in and around Siem Reap and a day visiting the nearby ruins of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm and other ancient Khmer Empire sites. The cost is $1,200 per person, based on double occupancy, including lodging and meals. Singles will be paired in rooms.

GlobeAware has similar programs in 11 other countries, including Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Costa Rica, Peru, Romania and Ghana. Costs: from $1,080 to $1,390 per person.

Information: 877-588-4562; globeaware.org

Voluntourism – Volunteering on your vacation

28 February 2010
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Some vacations allow travelers to give back while they’re away. CNN’s Heidi Collins explains.

Volunteer Vacation Primer

28 February 2010
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By: Manya Chylinski

No longer on the fringes of travel, voluntourism has attracted increasing numbers of travelers looking to learn new skills, meet people, and give back to the global community. In a recent Travelocity poll, 38 percent of repondents said they planned to volunteer while on vacation; thats up from just 6 percent in 2006. “People tell me that a vacation with us is the most meaningful experience of their lives,” says David Minich of Habitat for Humanity. Here’s how to plan one.

THE EXPERIENCE:

Go with your interests when deciding to work with people, animals, or the environment. Most programs don’t require you to have any special skills. Despite the short-term naure of these trips, you may complete a significant task, such as building adobe stoves in an Amazon village. “We’re not solving the world’s problems,” says Globe Aware’s Kimberly Haley-Coleman. “But volunteers do make a difference.”

Honeyteering: Increasingly more newlyweds opt for 'honeyteering' vacations

28 February 2010
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To have and to hold – and to help

by Aimee Heckel

The most popular destinations are Costa Rica, Peru and South America, according to the Lasso study. And the most popular volunteer activities were building and teaching, following by community development (including caring for children) and conservation.

Nestoria recently traveled to Costa Rica (via globeaware.org) to help with a sea turtle project. She said this kind of trip is ideal for newlyweds because volunteers stay in private shacks and patrol the beach at night collecting sea turtle eggs.

“During the day, there might be beach clean-up, but there is chilling out,” Nestoria said, “a lying-on-the-beach vacation, but also giving back to the local community.”

She encourages newlyweds to remember that the trip is not about them; it’s about the needy community. This can seem counter to the Bridezilla-style wedding where the couple is the center of attention.

“Just make sure your motives are in the right spot,” Nestoria said.

Read the full article.

Vacations With a Heart: Voluntourism Opportunities Around the World

28 February 2010
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What better time to show your love for the world than Valentine’s Day? Volunteer vacations provide a way to lend a helping hand, whether it’s across the globe or close to home. And with Disney’s new Give a Day, Get a Disney Day promotion, you can even earn a free ticket to a Disney park. Whether you want to spend a few weeks building communities, or just tack on an extra day to your vacation, you can make a difference by donating your time and efforts to places in need. […]

Read the entire article at Smarter Travel.

Top 5 Tips on how to Volunteer and Travel Successfully

28 February 2010
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More and more travelers want to incorporate community service projects into their travel itineraries. For those who want to volunteer and travel at the same time, a volunteer vacation experience can satisfy both wanderlust and the need to give back, on a global scale. Below are the Top 5 Tips on how to Volunteer and Travel Successfully, brought to you by Globe Aware, a nonprofit organization that specializes in facilitating volunteer travel.

  1. Research organizations that specialize in placing volunteers in international environments. By participating in an organized volunteer program you can make sure that your volunteer time will be well organized, and your skills well utilized, within a community in need. Volunteering with an organization also ensures safety while you volunteer and travel abroad.
  2. Choose your travel destination based on the type of volunteer work you would like to be engaged in. If you would like to volunteer in environmental initiatives, you might want to consider traveling to Costa Rica. If you would like to volunteer in building infrastructure initiatives, you may want to consider traveling to Ghana. Choosing the location based on the type of volunteer work you would like to do will ensure that you get the most out of both volunteer and travel time.
  3. Research the visa and immunization requirements necessary for each volunteer and travel destination you are interested in. For instance, because of visa requirements, organizing a volunteer trip to Ghana might take more planning time than a volunteer trip to Costa Rica.
  4. Do some homework and investigation about the culture of the community you will be volunteering in. This will help you be able to experience the culture in a deeper, more meaningful way while you volunteer and travel.
  5. Travel with an open heart and open mind. Don’t pack any pre-conceived expectations. Concepts of scheduling and organization are not universal, so be ready to go with the normal flow of thing sin the community in which you will volunteer and travel.

If you are interested in learning more about how to volunteer and travel at the same time, visit www.globeaware.org to see how a volunteer vacation can change the way you both see, and interact, with the world around you!

Top 10 Ways Families Can Volunteer and Travel

28 February 2010
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Have you ever dreamed about taking your family on a volunteer adventure of a lifetime? Globe Aware, the nationally recognized international volunteer vacation organization that has worked with family groups since its inception, offers up ten tips to help you make the most of your family volunteer vacation:

  1. Search for a volunteer organization that is family friendly. Are projects safe and are there a variety of projects available that are suited to the various ages of your family members?
  2. Choose a location as a family. Allowing everyone to research and discuss possible locations for your volunteer vacation ensures that everyone is excited about the experience.
  3. Consider how much time you have to devote to a volunteer vacation as a family. If work and school schedules are tight, consider a one week volunteer vacation that coincides with a holiday.
  4. Do some “cultural homework” as a family before your volunteer vacation. Have your children read age appropriate literature about the country you are going to visit and give each other informal reports on information learned.
  5. Talk about the importance of serving others. Does your family volunteer in your local community? Talk with each other about what it means to be a global citizen.
  6. Don’t pack electronics. Nintendo DS, iPods, and the like should be discouraged. Try to unplug from these “Western Necessities” for the duration of your volunteer vacation.
  7. Do pack some snacks. A jar of peanut butter and a box of granola bars can be a lifesaver, especially if you have a finicky eater!
  8. Journal about the experience as a family while on your volunteer vacation. Have each family member take turns expressing themselves in the journal (even if the contribution is only a drawing).
  9. Remember that the ideal volunteer vacation mixes fun, cultural experiences and meaningful work projects. Make sure you encourage one another to spend downtime with the locals and really absorb the local culture.
  10. Post-vacation take some time to create an album to remember the trip. Online sites like snapfish.com make it easy for you to make high quality scrapbooks or albums with text and photos. Preserving your experience like this ensures that your family volunteer vacation memories are safe for years to come.

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