Find a Volunteer

I moved here from Kraków in 2018 with about four hundred pounds and no fixed plan. The reason I did not end up in serious trouble is a Polish community group in Ealing that helped me with my national insurance number, found me a room, and explained how a tenancy deposit is supposed to work, which I did not know and would have been taken advantage of over. I have a decent job now and my English is fine. I want to do the same for someone else, and not necessarily for Polish people specifically, because I remember it being about someone bothering rather than about nationality. I can help with practical settling-in things, paperwork, and translating. Evenings and Sundays. I know how the systems work from the outside, which is useful.

I am doing a masters in social policy at LSE and I am increasingly aware that I have read about two hundred papers on how funding reaches people and have never once watched it happen. My dissertation is on local authority commissioning of voluntary sector services, which is a very grand way of saying I want to know why small organisations keep losing contracts to large ones. I would like to volunteer somewhere that is on the receiving end of that, both because I want to be useful and because I think my work will be worthless otherwise. I can do two days a week until September and one after that. I am happy to do genuinely menial tasks, I am not expecting a research placement.

I have a D1 licence, which lets me drive a minibus, and I know from experience that this is one of the harder things for an organisation to find. I got it fifteen years ago for a job and have kept it current. I am free during the day on Mondays and Fridays and most weekends. I am happy to do day trips, transport to appointments, taking groups to activities, or anything else involving driving people about. I am patient with passengers who need extra time getting on and off, which I gather is not universal. I have a clean licence, no points, and I am comfortable with a tail lift if there is training. I am in Croydon but I will drive to wherever the vehicle is kept.

I sat with my grandad every Tuesday afternoon for the last three years of his life, from when he stopped being able to get out on his own until he died in 2023. Mostly we watched racing and he told me the same four stories, and I would not trade a single one of those afternoons. I know exactly how much difference it makes to have someone turn up, and I know that a lot of people have nobody who does. I would like to do visiting or a lunch club or anything where the point is company. I am free Tuesday and Thursday afternoons because I work early shifts. I am in Finchley and I can get about on the bus easily enough.

I run a small building firm in Whitechapel, seven of us including me, and we do mostly domestic refurbishment work across east London. I am interested in two things. Firstly I would like to sponsor something, because we have had a decent couple of years and I would rather it went somewhere local than to my accountant's suggestions. Secondly, and I think more usefully, I can do actual work in kind. Access ramps, safety work, small repairs, fixing up a space that a group is trying to use. Materials at cost and labour free, within reason and within a few miles. I would want to understand where the money goes before committing, and I would want a proper conversation rather than a form.

I hold a current FAW certificate, three day first aid at work, renewed in April and valid until 2029. I am also a trained mental health first aider through my workplace. I am offering to cover events, because I know insurers increasingly want a qualified first aider on site and that this is a genuine blocker for small organisations putting things on. I am happy to just stand at the side of a fun day with a bag for six hours and hopefully be entirely unnecessary. I can do most weekends with a few weeks notice. I am in Greenwich but I will travel anywhere in London for this. I can bring my own kit or use yours, whichever suits.

I am part of a church in Croydon with about two hundred members and we already do a fair bit locally, a warm space in winter, a toddler group, some debt advice through a partner organisation. What I keep noticing is that there are three or four other groups working within half a mile of us doing overlapping things, and none of us really talk. Everyone is protective of their own patch and there is a lot of duplicated effort and some gaps that nobody covers. I would like to help join some of that up. I can speak for our lot and I have decent relationships locally. I am free Wednesdays and I can pull people together for meetings if there is something to meet about.

I care for my mother, who has vascular dementia and lives with us, and I have carers coming in twice a day. That means my availability is genuinely restricted and I want to be upfront rather than sign up and then let someone down. I can do evenings after seven, most days, and Saturday afternoons when my sister covers. Within that I am extremely reliable, because my whole life runs on a schedule now. I would be looking for something that is not physically demanding and preferably not too far from Ilford. I can do phone-based work, admin, or anything from home. I am aware that caring has taught me a lot about the health and social care system that might be useful to someone.

I would like to volunteer alongside my daughter, who is fourteen. She has been asking to do something for about a year, largely because of a school project on homelessness that clearly got to her, and I would rather do it with her than send her off on her own at that age. So I am looking for something that can accommodate both of us and that has a role suitable for a young teenager, which I appreciate narrows it considerably given safeguarding. Weekends, either day. She is sensible and hard working and not squeamish. I work in logistics so I am useful with anything organisational. If it is easier to have her helping alongside me rather than as a volunteer in her own right, that is fine.

I have organised three charity runs, a 10k twice and a half marathon once, raising somewhere around sixty thousand pounds in total for a hospice in south London. I know how the logistics work, which is to say I know about road closures, council permissions, insurance, marshalling, water stations, timing chips and the fact that the thing that goes wrong is always the toilets. This knowledge took me about two years and a great deal of stress to acquire and I would like to save someone else from that. I can help plan an event, or run one, or just be on the end of a phone for someone attempting their first. I am free most evenings for planning and I would block out the event weekend properly.

I saw a post about a community centre in Hackney a few weeks ago, I think it was on Instagram, and it has stayed with me since. It was about a place that runs on almost nothing and has a waiting list, and the thing that got me was a line about them turning people away. I grew up two streets from somewhere similar in Bethnal Green and it was where I did my homework for about four years because our flat was too crowded. I would like to help that specific centre if possible, or somewhere like it. I can do Saturday mornings and Tuesday evenings. I am a project coordinator so I am useful with organising, and I can also just make tea and stack chairs.

I am a solicitor at a mid-sized firm in the City, six years qualified, doing commercial contracts and some governance work. My firm has a pro bono policy that I have never used, largely because the schemes they offer are all corporate and I found them uninspiring. What small charities actually need is someone to look at their lease before they sign it, tell them whether their trustee arrangements are compliant, and check the contract the council has sent them that they do not understand and feel unable to question. I can offer around six hours a month. I would need to be clear that this is advice given personally and within my competence, and there is some paperwork on my side to sort first.

I want to be honest that part of my reason is selfish. I am quite shy and I have got noticeably worse at talking to people since university, to the point where I dread anything involving a group of strangers and have started declining invitations. I have been told, sensibly I think, that avoiding it makes it worse. Volunteering seems like a way to be around people with a purpose and a script, which is far easier than a party. I am aware this sounds like I am using a charity for therapy, and I do not want to be a burden on anyone, so I would rather start somewhere I am genuinely useful and the social side is a byproduct. I am reliable and I work hard. Weekends and Wednesday evenings.

I have cooked professionally for eleven years, currently a sous chef in a restaurant in Soho. I have Sundays and Mondays off, which are exactly the days nothing is on, but I would happily commit to a community meal one Sunday a month if there is a kitchen I can use. I can cook for a hundred people from scratch for around a pound fifty a head, which people never believe until they see it. I have a Level 3 food hygiene certificate and I am used to working within EHO requirements. I would need a proper kitchen with a decent oven and some help with prep and service. I would also be happy to train volunteers to do it without me, which is probably more useful long term.

I have been following Help2Fund since about March, when a friend of a friend shared something about it. The reason I am signing up here rather than through one of the bigger platforms is the zero fees thing, which I think matters more than people realise. I used to give through a well known site and when I actually looked into the deductions I was fairly annoyed. I like that this is being built by someone who is a student rather than a company, and I like that it pushes volunteering as much as donating, because I think the assumption that support means money puts a lot of people off. I am in marketing, I have Wednesdays free, and I am happy to be pointed at whatever is most useful.

I moved to London from Sheffield about fourteen months ago for work and I have found it much harder to meet people than I expected. I go to the office three days a week, I know my flatmates, and that is genuinely about it. A colleague mentioned she volunteers at a food project near her on Saturdays and it stuck with me. I would rather spend a Saturday morning doing something that has a point to it than scrolling on my sofa feeling sorry for myself. I am free most weekends and I am happy to do the unglamorous parts, setting up, carrying things, washing up, sorting donations into boxes. I do not need to be given anything important to start with. I would just like to be useful and to be around people who are doing something.

I have worked as a graphic designer for eight years, mostly for agencies doing brand work for companies that do not really need it. Over the past year I have started noticing the flyers in my local library and the posters in the community centre window, and a lot of them are made by people doing their best with Word and no budget. The organisations behind them are doing genuinely important things and the materials make them look amateur, which I think costs them donations and volunteers. I can offer maybe six to eight hours a month. I can do posters, leaflets, simple logo work, and I can set up templates so someone non-designy can keep using them after I am gone. I would prefer to help two or three charities properly than twenty badly.

I am in Year 12 and I need a volunteering placement for my Duke of Edinburgh Gold, so I will be upfront that there is a self-interested reason I am here. That said, I did my Bronze at a charity shop and I liked it far more than I thought I would, and I carried on for four months after the requirement was finished. I am interested in anything involving events or working directly with people rather than sitting in a back room. I can do Saturdays and most of the school holidays. I have my own travel card so I can get anywhere in London easily enough. If it goes well I would want to continue past the three months the award needs.

I run a small Instagram account about cheap food in south London that has grown to just under nine thousand followers, which is nothing enormous but it means I have learned a fair bit about what actually gets seen. I shoot and edit on my phone, I can do reels, and I understand how to write a caption that does not sound like a press release. Every time I see a charity post I want to help, because they are usually posting a photo of a cheque being handed over with a paragraph of formal text and getting eleven likes. I could help with content days, filming volunteers and beneficiaries properly with permission, and building up a bank of material so they are not scrambling every week. Evenings and weekends work for me.

I have a Transit van for work and I am free most Sundays and often Saturday afternoons. I know from a mate who volunteers that transport is one of the things small charities constantly struggle with, because everything needs moving and nobody has a vehicle. I am happy to do deliveries, collections, house clearances, moving furniture for people being rehoused, taking things to the tip, picking up donations that someone cannot bring in themselves. I am insured for business use and I have a clean licence. I am not looking to be on any kind of committee and I would rather not do anything involving a computer. Give me an address and a time and I will turn up.

I speak Bengali and English and I have been interpreting informally for my mum and my aunts since I was about eleven, which is a fairly common experience round here. I know how much gets lost when someone cannot explain their situation properly, and how often people give up on getting help because the form is in the wrong language or the person on the phone is rushing them. I would like to help charities reach people in my community who are currently invisible to them. That could be interpreting at sessions, translating materials, or just advising on why an outreach approach is not landing. I am at university in London and I have Tuesdays and Fridays free, plus weekends.

I am going into my final year studying politics and I want to work in the charity sector afterwards. I am aware that saying that is not unusual and that a lot of people say it and then go into consultancy. I would like to actually understand how a small organisation runs day to day, because everything I have read is about large national charities with communications departments and I do not think that reflects most of the sector. I want to see the funding applications, the trustee meetings, the bit where someone has to decide what not to do because there is not enough money. I am happy to do admin, minute taking, research, anything. I can give two days a week over the summer and one during term.

I have been a bookkeeper for fourteen years, mostly for small businesses, and I am AAT qualified. I have a fairly strong suspicion that a lot of small charities are sitting on a shoebox of receipts and a growing sense of dread about their annual return. I can help with reconciliations, getting things onto proper software, setting up systems that a non-financial person can actually maintain, and preparing figures for the accountant so the fee is smaller. I am not looking to be a treasurer or a trustee, at least not yet. I can do about four hours a week, usually Tuesday and Thursday evenings, remotely or in person. I am in Ealing but I can travel across London if needed.

I am eleven months into a career break after nine years in project management, mostly infrastructure. I am not planning to go back until next spring and I am aware that skills go stale and that I get restless. What I can do is take something that exists as a vague intention in someone's head and turn it into a plan with dates, owners and dependencies, and then chase people politely until it happens. That is genuinely most of what project management is. I would like to help a charity deliver something specific with a start and an end, rather than being on a general volunteer list. I can give a day and a half a week. I am in Greenwich and happy to travel or work remotely.

I write a column for a local newsletter in Walthamstow that goes to about two thousand households, mostly about planning applications and things closing down, which is more interesting than it sounds. Through that I have interviewed a lot of people running small organisations and the consistent thing is that they cannot talk about their own work. They will describe a project that changed forty lives in the flattest possible terms and then apologise for going on. I can interview people and write it up properly, in a way that sounds like them rather than like a grant application. I can do two or three pieces a month. I would want to actually visit and spend time rather than doing it over email, otherwise it reads like nothing.

I am nineteen and I have never volunteered before, so I want to be honest that I do not really know what I am offering. I finished college in June, I am working part time at a supermarket while I work out what I am doing, and I have a lot of time and not much direction. I am not going to claim I have skills because I do not think I do yet. What I can say is that I turn up when I say I will, I am fine talking to strangers, and I do not mind being told what to do. If someone is willing to train me on something I will take it seriously. I can do three or four days a week around my shifts, which I get two weeks in advance.

I helped set up a repair cafe in Peckham three years ago that now runs monthly and has diverted a genuinely surprising amount of stuff from landfill, mostly kettles, lamps and bikes. I am interested in the sustainability side of what Help2Fund does. I think there is a lot of overlap between environmental projects and community projects that neither side takes advantage of, because the environmental groups are mostly middle class and the community groups are mostly not, and they operate about four streets apart without ever speaking. I can help start something similar elsewhere, or connect existing projects. I am free Saturdays and Monday evenings. I would want to be involved in shaping something rather than just staffing it.

I have built websites for fourteen years, currently freelance, mostly React and Webflow depending on what the client needs. Every single small charity I have spoken to socially has the same problem, which is a site built in 2016 by someone's nephew who has since moved to Australia and cannot be contacted. They cannot update it, it is not secure, and it does not work on a phone, which is how basically everyone is looking at it. I would like to properly fix this for a handful of organisations, meaning build something they can actually maintain themselves and then train them on it. That takes me about three weeks part time per site. I can do maybe three a year alongside paid work. Remote is fine.

Adur area, helping older people.

I want to volunteer for Help2Fund because I care about giving back to the world and using my time to make a positive difference to other people. I really like the idea of spending a day doing something meaningful and enjoyable while helping a good cause. I also have practical and useful skills that I would like to put to use rather than simply keeping them to myself. Volunteering would give me the opportunity to contribute directly, meet new people and see the impact of my work. I would find it very fulfilling to know that my efforts were helping others.

I want to volunteer for Help2Fund because I am very enthusiastic about making a positive difference in my community and supporting people who are working towards meaningful causes. I am passionate about helping others, particularly smaller charities and fundraisers that may not have the resources or visibility of larger organisations. Volunteering would give me a real sense of fulfilment, as I would know that the time and effort I contribute could have a genuine impact. I also have free time that I would like to use productively, and Help2Fund would allow me to spend it supporting worthwhile projects and communities.