The eleventh instalment in a year-long series of posts by RFF Founder & Executive Director, Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes, on the origins, mandate and work of the organization.
Why is volunteering important and why should you volunteer?
Volunteers are vital to keeping RFF moving forward (and other organizations, as well, of course)
The spirit of volunteering involves selflessness and passion. According to Statistics Canada, in 2018, almost 12.7 million Canadians engaged in formal volunteering, with a total of approximately 1.7 billion hours of their time given to charities, non-profits and community organizations—equivalent to more than 863,000 full-time year-round jobs.
Today, Canadians are courageously volunteering in the midst of one of the largest health, economic and social challenges of our lifetime. The pandemic has had a series of impacts that vary depending on the type of volunteer organization. Physical distancing and necessary health protection measures quickly affected the provision of face-to-face services, events and meetings involving gatherings of people. At the same time, recent media reports have highlighted many examples of individuals directly assisting others, including picking-up and dropping-off groceries and other supplies in the community, cooking meals, sewing non-medical masks, sharing information and providing emotional support via online social media platforms.
People who volunteer do so for the following reasons:
Over 90% want to contribute to the community,
77% want to use their skills and experience,
60% are personally affected by the cause they volunteer for,
About half of Canadian volunteers do it to improve their sense of wellbeing or health, explore strengths, and network with or meet people.
About 35% want to support a cause and
23% want to improve job opportunities
In terms of specific skills gained through volunteering, 63% of volunteers feel that getting involved has improved their interpersonal skills. Improved communication skills and organizational or managerial skills are also noted by about two-fifths of volunteers. A diverse group of volunteers can help to expand everyone's perspectives and ideas. Volunteers help to round out staffing of organizations like ours and bring different and unique skill sets.
There are many benefits to volunteering, it:
Improves mental health
Forms meaningful connections with others
Gives you a sense of purpose
Gives you a career boost
Has many different areas, you can likely find a cause you’re passionate about and an area that matches your interest and skillset
Provides an opportunity to learn new skills and get more experience which looks good on your resume, might help you with your career development and future job opportunities
Can help you with character development
May help you to decide what you want to do with your life
Gives you the opportunity to join a strong network of people where you can make new friends, connections and references for job opportunities
Gives you experience working with a team
Gives you a broader perspective on life
Usually has lower stress levels than a paid job
Gives you opportunities to go abroad or help remotely - there are many remote volunteer opportunities, especially during the pandemic
So I encourage you to find a place to volunteer. There are many causes and opportunities, including Rainbow Faith and Freedom. Volunteers are crucial to the work we do and to the ultimate success of RFF achieving its mission and vision. Our values are learning, respect, compassion, teamwork and results.
LGBT activists all over the world say that religious-based discrimination, especialy religious-based homophobia and transphobia are the main obstacles to full inclusion and human rights for LGBT people. RFF is uniquely placed to address this. In every country in the world, LGBT people and their families face religious opposition in one form or another. In some of those countries it shows up as criminalization and in other countries we’re being kicked out of families and faith communities. With your help we can do something about that. Thank you for helping us. While this work is very serious, we are also committed to having fun along the way, to building meaningful relationships and to taking care of ourselves as we do this. How we are with each other is just as important as the work we’re doing.
We are always looking for good volunteers with varying skill sets for our Communications, Community Outreach, Finance, Fundraising, IT, Multi-Faith Resources, Canadian programming and Volunteer Teams. We have an established volunteer onboarding system, a volunteer handbook, and a code of conduct.If you would like to volunteer with Rainbow Faith and Freedom, please contact us at volunteer@rainbowfaithandfreedom.org.