If you are wondering what you can contribute to invigorate society, just look around you. Whether you want to impact politics, social causes, your church, culture, the environment, arts and culture, animal rights, youth, your profession, or anything else, there are plenty of opportunities for you to help causes you are passionate about that suit your availability, skills, money, and circumstances. In your working years, you may have had less time to dedicate to worthy causes, but in retirement, when this changes, you can offer needed help, gain a little structure for your time, and feel good about how you are spending it. Giving back to society rewards you, too.
How do you get started? If you have been involved in something over the years, you might consider starting there as you know the needs of your group. Most organizations need help to man the phones, do clerical work, work with clients, make calls, or do specialized things like website or social media work, accounting, consulting, or other administrative tasks. While organizations need committed volunteers who will show up when they promise, you can find a way to help for a day, a few hours a week, or every day if that fits your desire and schedule. Some volunteer opportunities are even available online where you can make your contribution from home.
Needless to say, there are plenty of volunteer activities in your local area. Your police and fire department might have auxiliaries in need of help, while local schools often need help in or out of the classroom. Hospitals might want volunteers to work in gift shops or read to patients. If you have a business skill you want to share with youth or start up businesses, a quick call to your chamber of commerce should match you up with volunteering opportunities. Of course, political candidates and committees organized to promote local issues always need volunteers in many capacities.
If you are unsure of what to do, some internet searching should point out a few places to start. You can look at the types of things they do and see where they need help. Once you make contact with the group, you can try it out to volunteer there. If you don’t find the organization is a good fit after a few contacts, you can try something else.
Here are a few places you might look:
The Salvation Army: Familiar to many for its red kettle collections at Christmas, the Salvation Army works to make a difference through many programs that fight poverty, combat addiction, and serve all segments of the community from children to the elderly. A world-wide organization, the Salvation Army needs help in virtually all locations. They are experts at matching up talent with a desire to help.
The Red Cross: Committed to helping people throughout the world recover from natural disasters, humanitarian emergencies, and heath crisis, the Red Cross depends on it’s current 13 million volunteers. The organization needs help in local communities as well as abroad, so it is always seeking volunteers and employees. This could be your chance to go abroad to help people around the world if you are interested in being on an international team.
Koodonation: Popular in both the U.S. and Canada, the online site Koodonation is an online micro-volunteering community that makes it easy and convenient for busy people to lend their skills to non-profits, all in their spare time. Volunteers can help any cause they are interested in with no commitments and can even weigh in which solutions the non-profit uses.
With so many things that need doing and so many ways to contribute to invigorate society and give back, you can make a difference in your retirement years. A few phone calls or a little internet searching will get you on your way.
Using the very principles she teaches, Tracey Fieber went from a corporate executive in a financial institution to a retirement filled with adventure, passion and purpose, in less than 8 months at 44 years old!
Tracey Fieber is the founder of NewFaceOfRetirement.com and creator of The Secrets to Retirement Success System™, the most complete one-on-one Retirement Transition training program for corporate executives and small business owners in
North America.
Tracey is known for combining a unique blend of innovative, straight-shooter, nofluff strategies that really work, with an endless compassion for corporate executives and small business owners that are rarely seen together.
Her high-energy, get-down-to-business style keeps her audiences interacting and taking numerous notes. Tracey’s motto about planning one’s retirement quickly is,
"Why take a long time, I’ve got a life to live: places to go, people to see!" and her unique ability is getting people who’ve never had real success in planning for life stages to take immediate action on a systematic basis to produce a full retirement life they want to live, with more fun, in record time, every time.
She is a well known and respected expert on retirement coaching for small businesses and speaks internationally to audiences whose members are looking for more fun, in record time, every time.
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