Volunteering is an Integral Way to Support Your Community

By Nat Leinbach

Mission-driven organizations rely heavily on volunteering to support the delivery of critical services in local spaces. From collecting and distributing food, to conducting scientific research, to disaster relief, volunteer efforts are crucial. Where nonprofits and community organizations lack sufficient funding, teams of volunteers are often ready to step in.

As we experience compounding challenges in the face of federal funding cuts, volunteers are necessary to environmental conservation. Green space in and around the District is a vital resource with many benefits for people in our communities. Keep reading to learn about some of the important work that volunteers support in our region and why you should make a habit of volunteering.

People-Powered Initiatives

Volunteers can serve individually on a regular schedule or participate in groups during planned events to accomplish specific activities. In the environmental conservation space, volunteer events often target routine initiatives that require a lot of resources – more than most full-time staff teams have on their own. One of those initiatives is invasive species management, a pervasive problem and a significant undertaking.

Invasive species stifle out native plants and animals by outcompeting them in local habitats. So human intervention to manage and prevent the spread of invasive species is vital to protecting the biodiversity and health of public lands. Invasive plants spread through many different ways so it’s hard to prevent. Controlling this problem requires planned removal, constant monitoring, and huge amounts of labor. 

This constant plant management can be all-consuming as invasive plants grow fast and are widespread. It’s impossible for small teams to manage them consistently without support, especially at National Park sites like Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, where there are many other important duties to juggle in order to maintain facilities. At our monthly volunteer events (April – October), groups are taught to identify one or two invasive plants and everyone helps pull these plants out to prevent further spread and nutrient drain. Most organizations focused on land conservation or resource management share these kinds of needs and rely on volunteer-powered efforts to support them.

Collaboration Through Citizen Science

Another important category of volunteerism is citizen science, the practice of public participation, facilitation, and collaboration in conducting scientific research. It’s a highly valuable tool for answering scientific questions that require widespread data collection especially for wildlife surveying. 

From planned coordinated initiatives like the Great Backyard Bird Count to recording your observations on iNaturalist, scientists use public information to monitor migration patterns, ecosystem health, and wildlife populations. In a recent NOAA seminar, assistant professor of Global Ecology at the University of Florida, Corey Callaghan, found that “community science has contributed to more than 80% of data in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility” since 2010.

In the District, the Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) relies on citizens to monitor our natural resources. For example, from 2018 to 2021, DOEE spearheaded the citizen science water quality monitoring program in partnership with Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, Anacostia Riverkeeper, Audubon Naturalist Society, and Rock Creek Conservancy to monitor water quality at various locations throughout the city. With about six years of data collection, a report was published which can be used to influence local water quality policy.

Programs like Save Our Streams and Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative seek to get people involved in citizen science with specialized training and regular participation. But for many of us, volunteering may be something we can only do once or twice a year. That’s why the National Park Service participates in programs like BioBlitz. A bioblitz is a field-study event focused on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area over a short period of time. Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens was actually the site of the first “bioblitz” event in 1996.

These volunteer events inform scientists about habitats across the country in our national parks. Sometimes entirely new species are discovered! These events also help encourage residents to get outside, discover what lives in their backyards, and support the protection of these spaces.

Individual Benefits to Volunteering

It’s clear that nonprofit organizations need volunteers. But what’s in it for participants? Those who aren’t used to dedicating time to service may wonder what the personal appeal is. For starters, volunteerism is a great way to develop your skill sets and career.

If you are interested in working in a particular industry, volunteering is a great way to try it out. It allows you to develop experiences in an industry you may not have worked in before. You can leverage volunteer experiences the same way you leverage job experience. Volunteering is also a great way to make connections or network with industry professionals. It can even enhance your present career by exposing you to new skillsets to apply in your workplace. Further, volunteering will help you develop a broader, more intersectional understanding of how your industry fits into a greater tapestry. 

Participating in impactful conservation activities can even improve your personal health. Ever heard of the helper’s high? Service has been proven to improve personal health and wellbeing including reduced mortality, and increased functioning, quality of life, and motivation. According to the Mayo Clinic Health System, research has even shown that physical health improves because “volunteering leads to lower rates of depression and anxiety, especially for people 65 and older.”

Despite these benefits, it’s true that not everyone can afford to “work for free.” You may love the idea of everything above, but need a paycheck in exchange for your time. The best kind of volunteering is the kind that suits your lifestyle and personal capacity, even if it’s a few hours a month. And, if you’re able to volunteer, you will find there’s more to it than individual and organizational benefits. It’s important to reframe the way we think about volunteerism. It’s not just about free labor, it’s about something bigger – community.

Volunteering Has High Civic Value 

Many opportunities for service are hyper-local. Dedicating your time to organizations focused on local resource access for everyone facilitates building community connection, purpose, support, trust, and healing. Volunteerism has long been the backbone of underfunded efforts and through this participation, it reminds us that we’re stronger together. Especially in underserved areas facing the effects of historic divestment. Through volunteering we are teaching and learning social and civic responsibility.

Volunteer opportunities are chances to demonstrate our support for our neighbors, maintain our public lands, and connect with people who live near us. When we volunteer alongside our neighbors, we learn about how we are the same and different from the people who live next door, down the street, and around the block. Building this social trust through collective service is an important blueprint to community resilience.

As we develop a new sense of scale and empathy for people with varying experiences, we’re uplifting essential, underfunded programs together and simultaneously increasing our social awareness. Participating in volunteering can lead to broader public awareness campaigns. Outreach around specific efforts can lead to concrete action. Causes with organized support, like access to National Parks, showcases real demand for funding. And sometimes, our representatives listen.

Volunteer Engagement Trends Demonstrate A Need for Funding

The necessity for volunteers stems from a greater demand for support from nonprofits that prioritize access to food, shelter, and nature. While volunteers have proven to be dedicated to supporting these necessary causes, these programs also reveal a severe lack of funding. Nonprofit organizations do their best to provide much-needed services but they are struggling to engage the volunteers to support their work. There is not a lack of people to serve – there is a lack of funding to support them.

It’s clear that organizations can have a greater impact when their work is expanded. But it’s essential for donors to fund volunteer engagement. We’re facing a cycle of underinvestment. Volunteering involves coordination, management, and resources, not just good intentions. But without an initial investment, it’s difficult to engage volunteers or collect strong data that funders require. And so the cycle continues. With proper funding, nonprofits can effectively fill the gaps in private and federal resources.

As we’ve seen, volunteerism is creating systems of care – for the environment, for communities, and for individuals. Whether you are participating in direct mutual aid or organized volunteer events, you are taking action to uplift others through widespread, collective resource sharing, knowledge building, and problem solving. Through volunteering, you’re filling the gaps.