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Key Findings from the “Listening Post Project,” a national survey of Nonprofit Organizations done in partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service. July 2009. www.VolunteeringInAmerica.gov. Accessed May 2010.
Corporation for National and Community Service, Office of Research Policy and Development. The health benefits of volunteering: a review of recent research. Washington, DC: CNCS; 2007.
Liaison Committee on Medical Education. Functions and Structure of a Medical School: Standards for Accreditation of Medical Education Programs Leading to the M.D. Degree. June 2008. http://www.lcme.org/functions2008jun.pdf. Accessed 4 June 2010.
Campus Compact. 2008 Service statistics: highlights and trends of campus compact’s annual membership survey. Boston: Campus Compact; 2009.
Examples of Resources
National Organizations:
http://www.ama-assn.org/: The American Medical Association website provides ways for students, residents, and physicians to become involved in particular issues.
http://www.nationalservice.gov/: The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that oversees Senior Corps and AmeriCorps and a variety of special initiatives. Their website provides ample information about volunteering and offers a wide range of links from funding information to other service-related topics. It also includes the Learn and Serve America Program that provides grants to schools, higher education institutions, and community-based organizations that engage students, their teachers and others in service to meet community needs.
http://www.compact.org/: A national collaboration of over 1,000 colleges and universities located in 35 states that focuses on service, service-learning, and civic engagement in higher education. The Campus Compact VISTA program joins the missions of Campus Compact and AmeriCorps*VISTA through projects that build community–campus partnerships to fight poverty.
http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/index.html – Community–Campus Partnerships for Health is a nonprofit agency that works to promote health by linking academic institutions and communities. They maintain an extensive website, online newsletter, on-line discussion groups and provide access to a broad range of resources for students, faculty and staff.
http://www.servicelearning.org/resources-parents-how-get-your-child-started-service-learning#where: The National Service-learning Clearinghouse supports schools (higher education and K-12), community-based agencies, and tribal programs to strengthen local communities through service-learning projects. It provides information on syllabi, jobs, publications, and volunteer opportunities.
National health-related organizations with state chapters: American Heart Association, American Red Cross, American Lung Association, etc.
Fellowships, Grants, and Awards
http://www.schweitzerfellowship.org: The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship is a national program that provides stipends to students in the health professions who seek to “turn idealism into action,” with an emphasis on creating leaders in service for a lifetime. It has sites in Boston, Baltimore, the Bay area, Chicago, Houston, greater Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New Hampshire/Vermont, New Orleans, North Carolina, and Pittsburgh. Their website has a listing of possible volunteering sites in each city.
http://www.aamc.org/about/awards/cfc/start.htm – The American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) Medicine in Community Grant Program provides funds for student-led community programs.
http://www.aauw.org/learn/fellows_directory/community.cfm: The American Association of University Women (AAUW) provides Community Action Grant Awards to female students providing service in community sites.
http://www.usg.edu/carteraward/: The Jimmy and Roslyn Carter Partnership Award. This award honors a recipient where the partnership program addresses critical areas of public need undertaken by a college or university in partnership with a community group.
http://www.atpm.org/pasp/index.html: The Paul E. Ambrose Scholars Program (given annually through the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research) is a Washington, D.C.-based program that familiarizes health professions students with influential public health professionals and prepares them to become leaders in public health through advocacy and service.
http://www.compact.org/initiatives/campus-compact-awardsprograms/: Variety of awards such as the Frank Newman Leadership Award which recognizes students with financial need and civic leadership potential and provides financial support and mentorship to help them achieve academic and civic goals. The Thomas Erlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award recognizes one faculty member each year for exemplary engaged scholarship and enhancing higher education’s contributions to the public good. Student Leaders in Service is an AmeriCorps Education Award Only program, which engages college students as part-time AmeriCorps members.
http://www.neche.org. The Ernest A. Lynton Award for Faculty Professional Service and Academic Outreach: An annual scholarship to a faculty member who connects his or her experience and scholarship to community outreach.
http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/: National Health Service Corps (NHSC) scholarship and loan repayment programs. Scholars must serve one year for each year they receive a scholarship (minimum two years) and work in a health professional shortage area in a primary care field. NHSC also recruits primary care clinicians who are dedicated to providing care in NHSC-approved sites for underserved people.
Where to Find More Information and Local Opportunities
Your colleagues.
Hospital-based Community Benefits and Community Outreach Offices.
State and city affiliates/chapters of national organizations.
United Way affiliates.
Campus Compact state offices.
Community Health Centers and statewide associations of health centers (For instance, http://www.massleague.org has information on sites, careers, loan repayment and more).
Schools: pre-school, K-12, charter and pilot schools, community colleges, colleges and universities, graduate programs.
Faith-based, arts and cultural, and neighborhood organizations.
YM/YWCAs.
Mentoring, tutoring, and after school programs.
Large agencies such as the Red Cross, American Lung Association, American Diabetes Association, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, and other disease-specific programs and events.
Local public health departments or state departments of health in your city; health education and public health programs.
Healthcare policy and advocacy organizations on the local, state, and national level.
Adult Education, GED and ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) classes, health literacy organizations or projects, libraries.
Population specific agencies such as those that work with immigrants and refugees, teens, English-language learners, specific races and ethnicities, women, at-risk youth and others.
Economic and neighborhood development organizations.
Health-related (broadly defined) agencies such as Habitat for Humanity, healthcare organizations and shelters for the homeless, literacy agencies, programs in sexual health for teenagers, rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters, elderly organizations, sports-related organizations, housing, food and nutrition, and more.
Sample Volunteer Databases
Volunteer Solutions is a program of the United Way that matches individuals to volunteer opportunities in the community. They are at http://volunteer.united-e-way.org/.
Volunteer Match has opportunities around Boston and the entire country. They can be found at http://www.volunteermatch.org/; http://idealist.org/ has opportunities locally and internationally; http://servenet.org/ is an extensive site with information about volunteering locally and nationally. It has information on how to get involved, how to help nonprofits and other volunteer resources.
Find a way to be a mentor through the National Mentoring Partnership (and their state affiliates) at http://www.mentoring.org. http://www.dosomething.org helps you find information by cause, zip code, length of time, etc. (youth-focused action site).
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Hess, J. (2012). Volunteering in Your Community: Think Globally, Act Locally. In: Urman, R., Ehrenfeld, J. (eds) Physicians’ Pathways to Non-Traditional Careers and Leadership Opportunities. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0551-1_32
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