Sometimes, you have the chance to give back, even from the comfort of your own home. Help others with these diverse, modern, and remote volunteer opportunities.
Even from the comfort of your own home, you can make a difference in your community and in the world. We’ve vetted and researched remote volunteer opportunities and narrowed them down to 15 of our favorites.
Regardless of the skills you have to offer, there are nonprofits and other organizations looking for people like you.
Table of Contents:
The 15 Best Remote Volunteer Opportunities 2024
Mental Health Crisis Hotline
Crisis Text Line The Trevor Project
Samaritans*
Teaching
Learn to Be*
Paper Airplanes
RefuNet
Translating
Tarjimly
Translators without Borders
Global Voices
Archives and Research
Smithsonian Digital Volunteers
Zooniverse
Librivox
Distributed Proofreaders
Bonus
Volunteer with the UN
Be My Eyes
One chance to volunteer from home is by answering calls or texts from people in a crisis.
You can speak with people who are in a difficult place and offer them compassion and guidance.
Answer texts, chats, and WhatsApp messages from people in a mental health crisis.
If someone is hitting rock bottom, it can help immensely just to know that someone is there. You don’t have to be a professional counselor or trained therapist, but your kind words can save a stranger’s life.
The Trevor Project connects LGBTQ youth with adults who will love and accept them as they are. These kids and teens could be facing rejection from their families, leading to homelessness and suicidal ideations. An accepting adult, even a stranger, can convince them to pull through.
*Accepts remote high school student volunteers!
Samaritans sets up training and remote work for volunteers to answer the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. If you are a teen or high school student looking for remote volunteer opportunities, then Samaritans could be a good choice, as they have programs specifically designed for high school students.
If you have a teaching background or even if you think you could tutor kids and be a positive role model, then there are plenty of virtual volunteering opportunities for you.
*Accepts remote high school student volunteers!
We know that students do better when their schools have more funding. And yet, a study by The Century Foundation found that public schools are underfunded by about $150 billion every year. That gap in funding disproportionately affects black and Latino students.
Learn to Be matches tutors with students in underfunded schools. This way, you can be a part of closing the education gap and helping students thrive.
If you are interested in volunteering as an English teacher, then Paper Airplanes could be a good fit.
Paper Airplanes allows you to meet with young people from Syria who are refugees. You can meet with them regularly and help them practice their English skills.
RefuNet is looking for remote teacher volunteers who can work with refugees from Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela, South Sudan, and more. You can help them learn English or even just help them integrate into a new country by talking about local resources and cultural differences.
Language barriers can limit even the most capable and well-intentioned people. But with remote translators, you can phone in for an immigration proceeding, translate someone’s medical documents, or even bring a first-person account of human rights violations to the English-speaking world.
Navigating a medical appointment, immigration problems, or even just getting directions can be overwhelming when it’s not in your native language.
But if you have language skills, you can volunteer as a remote translator and hop on a call to help resolve those tricky situations. Tarjimly lets you act as a translator for people by calling in or Facetiming remotely and translating a conversation.
Translators without Borders will typically ask you to work on translating voiceovers, documents, and text. That way, you can ensure people in remote communities have access to the information that they need.
Global Voices is committed to sharing accurate information all over the world, even when it comes out of communities that might otherwise be ignored or silenced. As a writer or translator, you can bring truthful, critical stories to an international stage.
The academic world is in need of volunteers! Some scientific researchers need humans to identify different plants or animals in photographs. Other organizations work to transcribe old poems and books before they are lost forever to the march of time.
Whether it’s letters written by enslaved people or the diaries of underappreciated women scientists, The Smithsonian needs people to commit these words to digital memory. Volunteer transcribing old documents to ensure that everyone’s voice is remembered.
Zooniverse matches human volunteers with academic research that needs help with various tasks. For example, with Zooniverse, maybe you will listen for and identify whale sounds. Or perhaps you will look for pulsars or read an unpublished novel from 1810. The tasks on this site are sure to be intellectually exciting.
Librivox takes books that are public domain, and volunteers record themselves reading to create audiobooks. This ensures that we record the words written in these books and also makes them accessible to everyone, even those who might have limited sight.
Like Librivox, Distributed Proofreaders aims to preserve books that are public domain. But instead of audiobooks, Distributed Proofreaders focuses on creating ebooks.
These organizations offer more unique or varied opportunities to volunteer remotely.
The UN is often looking for volunteers for remote opportunities in everything from digital marketing to data analytics. Follow the link above to see what humanitarian work is currently available.
Be My Eyes is a unique and special organization that allows people who are blind or who have trouble seeing to call a volunteer with sight who can describe what they see on camera. For example, someone could call you with video and you could help direct them around a new building, or you could help them buy what they are looking for while shopping.
Volunteering with Be My Eyes as a sighted volunteer doesn’t require any particular certification or special skills, but you can still help someone better navigate the world and stay safe.
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