Volunteer Matching Programs

Find a skilled volunteer the easy way

May 3, 2000

Finding a local volunteer with the right technical skills can be a challenge. Defining the volunteer project, writing a work plan and ensuring that the project is successful require a substantial investment of your time and energy. A volunteer matching program can relieve you of much of this burden by overseeing the whole process. A good matching program will screen volunteers with your needs in mind, help you to define the scope of the project, and check in with you on the volunteer's progress. Matching programs may charge a small administrative fee for these services, but the savings in terms of your time will usually outweigh the expense.

CompuMentor, the organization which sponsors TechSoup, was the first full-fledged technical volunteer matching program in the U.S.. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, CompuMentor now provides matching services to nonprofits in many areas across the nation, such as Los Angeles, New York City and Washington D.C.. CompuMentor's program takes care of many of the management issues TechSoup describes. The mentor matching staff will help you define the project, write a work plan, and find a volunteer with appropriate skills. This help significantly reduces the burden on you and your staff. To see testimonials from nonprofits who have worked with CompuMentor, see CompuMentor Success Stories .

To see if CompuMentor serves your area, fill out the short questionnaire and you will hear from the mentor matching staff within a week. See CompuMentor's Mentor Matching homepage for more information.

Seattle's Npower, New York's New York Cares, Voluntech, and Chicago's Information Technology Resource Center all host regional volunteer matching programs.

For a full list of programs, see TechFinder forour Volunteer Matching Organizations resource list.

If you cannot find a volunteer matching program that serves your area, your options are to post a call for volunteers on a volunteer listing service, or recruit and manage a volunteer completely on your own. See the articles on Volunteer Listing Services and Recruit a volunteer on your own .

Copyright © 2000 CompuMentor. This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.