Thank you for your interest in virtual volunteering with Rustic Pathways! Together, we are helping hundreds around the world.
Virtual volunteer initiatives help high school students support causes they support from the comfort of their own home. Rustic Pathways maintains relationships with a broad range of local partners, community leaders, government agencies, nonprofits, and local educators.
We fund initiatives addressing issues that communities deem to be the most pressing. Then we leverage the support of the global Rustic Pathways community for development and implementation of ongoing projects.
The Rustic Pathways Foundation is the philanthropic branch of Rustic Pathways. It is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that amplifies the impact of Rustic Pathways’ community development work around the world. Earn volunteer hours via:
The sites below are external sites where you may wish to seek to be a virtual volunteer. We cannot validate service hours for online volunteers unless they work with Rustic Pathways affiliated programs.
Here are a few other organizations working with online volunteer opportunities:
Address sustainable development challenges. Make a global difference with the United Nations. United Nations volunteers raise awareness for humanitarian organizations around the world. The United Nations Volunteers website lists virtual volunteer opportunities at UN entities, civil society organizations, and governmental institutions. You can sort opportunities by type, such as COVID-19 response, teaching and training, and project development.
Assist during disasters. Help Humanity Road collect, verify and route information online during disasters. Online volunteer to service your fellow human during hard times. High school students only need a valid internet connection.
Be a mentor. Mentor underserved and impoverished youth in South Africa when you volunteer with InfiniteFamily.
Become a peer counselor. Offer counseling to individuals facing challenges by volunteering with EmpowerWork.
Become a translator. Volunteer with Translators without Borders to translate medical texts or translating for crisis response or help subtitle TED Talks for TED Translators. TED Talks offers remote volunteer opportunities for translators to enable others to access their talks in various languages.
Build the map. Read deeds and create a database that will be used by Mapping Prejudice to complete a map of racial restrictions. This is a nonprofit organization working on local and global problems.
Connect with organizations in need. Share your skills with the Costa Rica Corps to help communities in need.
Connect links volunteers with older adults. DOROT, a New York-based nonprofit, offers intergenerational services including Caring Calls, matching older adults and senior citizens with younger volunteers for weekly Zoom calls to combat loneliness and social isolation.
Contribute local knowledge. Edit a community-managed map of the globe on OpenStreetMap.
Donate blood. Ok, so this isn’t really virtual volunteering, but there is a shortage of needed blood and we can’t solve this one with digital volunteers. To find a location near you.
Donate supplies. Find donation sites nationwide or visit your local health department to find out what is needed and how you can help.
Empower students with disabilities. Serve as a narrator, listener or quality assurance volunteer for Learning Ally to help dyslexic, blind, and visually impaired students succeed in school.
Fight climate change with Climate Leaders Fellowship. Only internet access and ability to join a video call needed. Develop your own meaningful projects to solve complex problems.
Give others access to books. Help turn public books into online books for Project Gutenberg, Distributed Proofreaders and Librivox.
Help at-risk populations. Seniors and others may need grocery shopping help. Support organizations like Meals on Wheels, Feeding America or your local food bank.
Help fight antibiotic resistance. Contribute to research projects with Zooniverse through virtual volunteer opportunities.
Help kids obtain winter coats. Organize an online fundraiser for Operation Warm. Online volunteers give others the right to warmth.
Help map vulnerable areas. Map underserved areas where disasters occur for Missing Maps so the maps can be used to improve crises responses in those areas. Missing Maps invites volunteers to map uncharted areas for crisis and humanitarian teams, helping vulnerable local communities and responding to disasters more efficiently. No previous mapping experience is required.
Help people with disabilities access books. Scan, proofread or describe images to support BookShare. Scan and proofread books to make reading accessible for all. Bookshare is an ebook library that makes reading accessible for people with disabilities. Upload books using a scanner, proofread scanned files, and format them in the right way.
Identify wildlife. Instant Wild, a project by the Zoological Society of London, engages volunteers to tag pictures and videos worldwide, aiding conservation efforts and saving scientists’ time with people powered research. ZSL Instant Wild offers an easy way to support conservation efforts by watching videos. Earn hours and tagging animals in images and videos. No prior experience is needed, as helpful guides for each of the many volunteer tasks and opportunities are provided.
Join skills based projects. The American Cancer Society offers skills based online volunteering opportunities, including skills-based projects, fundraising events, and raising awareness online, allowing volunteers to contribute from home.
Judge a stock market game. Help students learn financial education by judging Investwrite stock market games.
Lend your vision. Help blind and vision-impaired people by volunteering with Be My Eyes. Aid the visually impaired. The “Be My Eyes” app connects visually impaired individuals with sighted volunteers. Support others with everyday tasks via live, 1-on-1 video. Perform various tasks like checking food labels or navigating new areas.
Offer a compassionate voice. Help the Red Cross as a virtual volunteer. Share disaster updates and monitor online conversations for affected individuals who need help. Offline and online volunteering opportunities available.
Mentor rising entrepreneurs. MicroMentor connects small business entrepreneurs from around the world with mentors. Provide career counseling and career development for the next generation.
Offer multilingual support. Aid refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants that are in need with Tarjimly. Tarjimly is a nonprofit with a free app connecting immigrants and asylum seekers with multilingual volunteers for on-demand linguistic support via live chat, assisting over 17,000 individuals in various situations. Eliminate the language barriers often found in life.
Preserve historical documents. Ancestry.com is looking for volunteers to transcribe documents into a publicly searchable database.
Sew emotional support blankets. Help a child in need of comfort by volunteering with Binky Patrol.
Share your voice. Drive innovation on your own schedule in voice technology with VocaliD.
Support communities around the world. Support international organizations like Give Directly and The Rustic Pathways Foundation.
Support entrepreneurs in Latin America. Help grow businesses in El Salvador and Guatemala through remote support and mentoring with Bpeace.
Transcribe historical documents. Add keyword tags for future searches with By the People, an initiative by the Library of Congress. Engages your internal citizen archivist.
Track bird populations. Help gather critical data for research, conservation, and education with eBird.
Transcribe documents. Earn virtual service hours through transcribing historical documents for the Smithsonian Institute. Smithsonian Digital Volunteers transcribe and review historical documents and biodiversity data, making them more accessible to the public.
Tutor low-income students. High school volunteers help serve their peers by volunteering online with Upchieve to provide homework help to students.
Walk to support a charity. Pledge to run or walk a certain number of miles for charity donations with Charity Miles.
During these uncertain times around the globe, we cannot help but think of the 200 service projects, hundreds of small businesses, and thousands of lives our programs would have normally impacted this year.
We want to offer a way for you to connect with and support some of the work of our local partners in countries around the world. Please check out these projects you can help support from your home!
Sew rescue wildlife pouches for joeys!
Please read instructions carefully and make items to the specifications.