Many people want to volunteer as a team or group, from five people to 500 - even more. They can be employees from a particular company, members of a club or association, a group of friends who would like to spend time together at a volunteer activity, or an individual who wants to meet people via group volunteering. They may be adults, teens, or pre-teens. A group may also be a family.

People that want to participate in a group volunteering activity want the activity to take from two to seven hours. If the group already knows each other, or if its a volunteer looking to meet others, then they want to work with others as much as possible, to socialize throughout the experience - they don't want to be isolated from each other individually (though they are usually willing to be broken up into smaller groups). And they usually don't want to have any obligation beyond that one-time volunteering experience; they want the experience to feel like they show up, they volunteer, they have fun, they make a difference, and then they leave and never have to help again (though they often welcome invitations for further involvement, as part of a group or regarding individual volunteering).

Unfortunately, volunteering opportunities for groups are very hard to find. That's because, while nonprofits often have a lot volunteers could do, they don't have much that a large group of volunteers can just show up and do in a few hours. Also, many of the things they have that need doing are best done by a few volunteers over several days or weeks or even months, like putting together a web site or mentoring a young person or taking care of animals or supporting people who are experiencing domestic violence. It's simple to create volunteering activities for individuals. It's much harder to create activities that an entire group can do together, all at once, that the organization really needs.

The larger the group trying to find an opportunity they can all do together, the harder it is to find opportunities. The more people under 16 in the group, the harder it is to find group volunteering opportunities. Finding a group volunteering opportunity for six people is much easier than finding a one-day opportunity for 150 people. Finding group volunteering opportunities for a group of people over 18 who all work for the same company is much easier than finding opportunities for a group of students from different high schools who are under 18.

So, that's why it's hard to find group volunteering opportunities. But these activities do exist. Some quick advice for such:

Do not wait until the last minute to try to volunteer in a group! You will probably need to call many, many, many places just to get an appointment for an interview! It may take a few months before you get your group booked for a volunteering activity even if you start calling right away!

If there are several shifts offered, sign up for the earliest shifts. If the volunteering is one day, sign up for the first morning shifts. If the volunteering is for a week, sign up for the first day. Why? Because very often, volunteers run out of things to do as the end of the time given for their activities. By signing up for early shifts, you are more likely to actually get to volunteer.

If you want to participate in a group volunteering activity and you aren't already a part of a group - you are looking to volunteer as a way to address your loneliness, depression or other mental health issues, here is special advice especially for you.   

What Do Volunteer Groups Do?

Here are ideas for group volunteering activities (note that you should NOT do any of these without coordinating with the target organization several weeks, even months in advance!):

• Present some kind of entertainment or educational show to children, peers or another audience (singing, dancing, a short sketch addressing some social issue, singing just to be entertaining, etc.)
• Bring, prepare or serve food at a homeless shelter, clinic for those with addictions, shelter for victims of domestic violence, etc., on one designated day. If your group is huge, could you do this for multiple organizations on one day?
• Prepare and pass out educational information packets at an event to educate the public or event attendees about a service or issue
• Clean up a park, trail, camping area, beach or other outdoor site (removing trash, planting trees, building new trails, etc.); this will take coordination with both nonprofits as well as city, county and state governments
• Simple landscaping/gardening for a community garden (pulling weeds, digging, raking, spreading mulch, hoeing, planting, transporting yard waste into compost piles, stirring compost piles, putting together boards for raised beds, cutting grass, simple pruning, etc.)
• Moving an entire office or organization. For instance, a public library often needs to move in one day or one weekend from its old facility to its new facility.
• Glean a field
• Clean up or decorate a room in a facility serving youth, seniors, patients, etc.
• Clean up and provide basic landscaping (mowing, weeding, pruning, raking, etc.) for a nonprofit
• Paint numerous items (furniture) or several walls
• Staff an event, such as ushering people at a live theater event, staffing activity stations at a special event for children, serving food and drinks, staff a charity run or walk like a local Team in Training or Relay for Life or Special Olympics event, etc.
• Sort a vast amount of information or items (boxes of photos or boxes of clothes that take up an entire room)
• Distribute a vast amount of information or items to hundreds of people (shoes, clothes, gift baskets, information folders, etc.)
• Pick up and sorting items from a food, clothing, book or recycling drive
• Build something (a house, a school, a water well, a dam, etc.)
• Sew, crochet, embroider or otherwise create simple handicraft items (small toys, pillow cases, hats) in a group setting, items that can be finished in one day, or the days the group wants to get together, and then donate the items as appropriate (to children at a hospital? to children in a shelter? to seniors in a low-income housing space?)
• Any activity that can be done by simple, repetitive action, like cutting fabric or paper from a form, putting stickers on something, gluing different pieces together or coloring paper, such as making greeting cards for a particular group (children in a hospital's pediatric unit during the holidays, soldiers, patients at a VA hospital, etc.)
• Hold a one-day computer tech event, like editing Wikipedia pages, building web pages, scanning and tagging vast amounts of paper or photos, or other hackathon-type activities to benefit a nonprofit, or several nonprofits.
• Serving food and cleaning up dishes in support of any of the aforementioned activities.

Before you begin to search

If you are a part of a group that wants to volunteer - a group of volunteers, a group of students, a group of seniors, etc. -one person from the group will need to be the primary group contact and deliverer of information. This person will receive all communications on behalf of the group regarding volunteering, and will be responsible for communicating with all group members. This person will also attend any orientations required before volunteering, and communicate information from this orientation to other members.

The group's leadership needs to take an assessment of all group members' availability for, interests in and goals for a group volunteering activity. This will help you in choosing a group assignment, and ensure that everyone has a positive experience and that their expectations will be met. For instance, the group may interested in environmental issues and members may be available to volunteer only on Saturdays after 8 a.m.

Does your group want to be engaged in the same activities during the entire group volunteering endeavor? Or, would your group be willing to separate at the event or location to engage in a variety of tasks; for instance, at a community center, one person reads to an elderly person while others help at an activity for youth and others help re-organize the center's stock room.

What talents and experiences are volunteers interested in sharing in this group effort? For instance, the marketing director may not want to help with marketing efforts as a volunteer but, rather, share her talents at basic home repair.

Do members of your group want to bring family members along to volunteer? The nonprofit you assist will tell you if this is acceptable (it probably will NOT be; you may need volunteers to provide childcare for other volunteers).

Someone in the group needs to have the responsibility to fill out application forms, and ensure all individuals in the group have filled out appropriate forms; often, volunteer hosting organizations require the completion of such forms not only for the group as a whole, but for every individual that will participate. A representative of the group or just one member may be asked to complete a Waiver of Liability form.

If you are participating in an employee-based group volunteering activity on company time, or if you are taking vacation time to volunteer on behalf of the company, make sure you have permission and support from your immediate supervisor.

If you are volunteering on behalf of an organization (such as a school) or company (such as your employer), you must make sure the organization or company supports the group volunteering activity and all the responsibilities such entails. Also, ask the organization or company how it wishes to be represented within the group volunteering activity. Sometimes, schools or companies don't wish to be represented officially, other than by their students or employees engaging in the group volunteering effort; others want their students or employees to wear the same t-shirt with an official logo on it while volunteering, and still others may want to publish a press release highlighting the volunteer activity.

Most people want to volunteer for nonprofit organizations. Registered nonprofits based in the USA have a federal tax i.d. number. If you aren't sure if an organization based in the USA is a registered nonprofit, ask if they have a federal tax id number, or look up the organization on Guidestar.org, a database of all registered nonprofit organizations in the USA.

Your group will be responsible for its own transportation to and from a site. Start thinking about that now: will you take mass transit? Ride a bicycle? Walk? Car pool?

If any members of the group are under 18, each will have to get a parent or guardian to sign a permission slip that affirms he or she is permitted to volunteer. You will get this permission slip from an organization that wants you to volunteer.

Make sure all team members understand that they must be on time for a volunteering event, and that they understand that they must follow the policies of the organization.

Group Volunteering Is Expensive -- But Who Pays Those Costs?

If you are a part of an already-established group that is going to volunteer together, your group may be asked to cover some of the costs associated with your group volunteering experience, especially if this group volunteering experience is being created especially for your group. A staff person from a nonprofit, or more than one, may have to spend a lot of time coordinating this group volunteering event for you. Who is going to pay for that person's time to do all of the coordination needed? There may be equipment needs as well: bags, tools, gloves, trucks, gas for those trucks, etc. Who is going to pay for all that equipment and materials? Talk with the organization about how many hours they will spend coordinating this activity for you, and what equipment and materials will be needed, and consider how your group could cover some or all of these costs.

Where to Find Group Volunteering Opportunities

There are many web sites that post volunteering opportunities in the USA, and some of these assignments can be done by groups:

VolunteerMatch

Idealist/Action Without Borders

All for Good

Do Something

WomenOnCall.Org

Ask group members to contact nonprofit organizations they have a relationship with to ask about potential group volunteering activities as well.

Go to a search engine such as google.com and type in:
how to volunteer in a group
You will generate a long list of group volunteering opportunities all over the USA. If you aren't lucky enough to be in the same city as the ones you generate, have a look at them and consider if local organizations in your area might welcome similar group activities, and call those local organizations and propose your idea.

You can also call organizations directly, based on your group's interests.

Nonprofit theaters and performing arts centers are often in need of ushers in the evenings and on weekends; you not only get volunteer hours, you get into a show for free! Call local nonprofit theaters, including community theaters, to see if they need ushers and when your group could participate. Local, non-professional/amateur theater companies welcome volunteers in a variety of roles, from selling tickets to performing on stage.

Volunteer as a group to support UNICEF. UNICEF's online Volunteer Center provides activity toolkits and speaker resources to help you conduct awareness-building and fundraising activities in your community.

Establish an American Red Cross Club at your high school or association to help specifically with emergency shelters, including emergency warming shelters for the overflow from homeless shelters on days and nights that are at or below freezing (and unlike most homeless shelters, these often allow the homeless to bring their pets). All members would go through the volunteer orientation for your local chapter of the Red Cross and the training to help with emergency shelters. Find your local chapter of the American Red Cross and look at their web site for information about volunteering.

Animals
If your group wants to volunteer with animals, call your local animal shelters, animal/wildlife rescue organizations, and, if you live near such, a nonprofit zoo.

Call your local or state historical society and/or the government department that is in charge of cemeteries and ask if there are rural cemeteries or neglected historical cemeteries your group could help clean up. There are thousands of such cemeteries all over the USA, and it's very likely there is at least one in your country. Do not clean up any cemetery without the express, written permission of the appropriate government office.

Call nearby city, state and national parks and ask if there are volunteering opportunities for groups. Or visit your city or state park and look for something that needs to be done, and then contact the park to propose the idea (never undertake a volunteering activity without the park's permission!). State parks often have one-day volunteering opportunities throughout the year. Call your nearest state park for more information. You can also create your own volunteering activity and propose it at a state park. For instance, you could organize a large group of volunteers to remove invasive plants in a designated area, working with your county extension office or city or state parks officials (always get permission first!). Volunteers should receive a briefing on why invasive plants are bad and what they can do after the event day to help keep invasive plants out of the community. Another example: when I was at the Lewis and Clark Trail State Park in Washington state, I noticed an information panel behind the park's camping facilities, and on closer inspection, it turned out to be information for the start of a small hike to show the edible plants in the park. But the information was quite faded, and the information needed an update. What a great opportunity for a group of volunteers! And what about creating such a trail and display in a state park near YOU? Call or stop by your local state park and propose the idea.

Contact the Girl Scouts of the USA council office that serves your area and see if there is a Girl Scout day camp or single event in your area that your group could help with as volunteers. Each group member would need to register as a volunteer on the web site for your local council, and then you need to look for day camps or single events where you could volunteer. You need to sign up to volunteer at least two months in advance for many events -- sometimes more. Day camps need people to lead hikes, lead or help with craft-making (the crafts are usually already defined, but your recommendations would also be welcomed), lead singing, cook, make posters for the event (with song lyrics, directing girls to craft tables, telling them how to clean up after the event, etc.) and staff the registration table at the start of the event, among many other activities.

Your group could put together a "badge day" event so that Girl Scouts in your city could earn a badge in one day, in just a couple of hours. You would need to

• read one of the Girl Scout badge books (for Junior Girl Scouts, for instance) and pick one of the badges to focus on
• design activities that could be done in one site, within two - three hours, in shifts by the girls, each lead by a volunteer, that would fulfill at least the minimum of the activities necessary for that particular badge (minimum is six of the 10 activities)
• contact the Girl Scout council office that serves your area to tell them your idea, to set up a meeting with them to propose the idea and to show you are capable of pulling it off
• have all of the volunteers that will be involved in the event in any way go through the Girl Scouts criminal background check and any other screening and training that may be required
• secure an appropriate place to hold the event (you will have to pay any rent required, or get the site donated, and the Girl Scouts would need to visit the site and approve it; schools, library meeting rooms and church fellowship halls are good places to look)
• decide who will be in charge of each activity station; it's best if there can be two volunteers leading each activity
• gather all materials for the event (buy them or get them donated or work with troops in your area to see what they may have available already; do not ask Girl Scouts to pay the costs)
• schedule volunteers for the event
• put together some healthy snacks for the girls
• meet with at least one local Girl Scout troop that might be interested in the event and help you put it together,
• follow all policies of the Girl Scouts, including those regarding taking and posting photos of girls
• keep track of all your hours (including all meetings and training), so you know how much time you actually volunteered

If you feel mistreated as a volunteer, here is advice for volunteers on how to complain.

Also see

Advice for family volunteering - volunteering by families with children and, related, advice for teaching children compassion & understanding instead of pity with regard to poverty.

Home-Based (in your own home) Volunteering Where Your Service is NOT via a Computer or the Internet (at least not to actually DO the volunteering service, but you may need to report your work online).

How to Find Volunteering Opportunities, a resource for adults who want to volunteer

Finding Community Service and Volunteering for Teens

Creating or Holding a Successful Community Event or Fund Raising Event.

Using Your Business Skills for Good - Volunteering Your Business Management Skills, to help people starting or running small businesses / micro enterprises, to help people building businesses in high-poverty areas, and to help people entering or re-entering the work force.

Volunteering In Pursuit of a Medical, Veterinary or Social Work degree / career

Advice for Finding Volunteer Activities During the Holidays

Volunteering with organizations that help animals and wildlife.

Volunteering on Public Lands in the USA (national parks, national forests, state parks, wetlands, etc.)

Advice for Volunteering to Address Your Own Mental Health (loneliness, depression, anxiety, etc.)

Volunteering with Seniors

Volunteering To Help After Major Disasters

Tax credits for volunteering (for residents of the USA)

How to Make a Difference Internationally/Globally/in Another Country Without Going Abroad

Details on how to quickly fill a community service obligation from a court or school

Ideas for Leadership Volunteering Activities
These are more than just do-it-yourself volunteering - these are ideas to create or lead a sustainable, lasting benefit to a community, recruiting others to help and to have a leadership role as a volunteer. These can also be activities for the Girl Scouts Gold Award, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award (U.K.), a mitzvah project, or even scholarship consideration.

Donating Things Instead of Cash or Time (In-Kind Contributions)

Ideas for Creating Your Own Volunteering Activity

How to complain about your volunteering experience.

How you can advocate for an issue important to you

Fund Raising For a Cause or Organization

Group Volunteering for Atheist and Secular Volunteers

Helping People Address Their Problems with Plastic
How to mobilize a community to clean up plastic bottles, plastic bags and other plastic waste from their environment, and how to reduce their use of such items in the future

Ideas for Funding Your Volunteering Abroad Trip

Details on volunteering abroad (volunteering internationally)