Finding a way to give something back to your local community has so many benefits: it can boost your self-esteem and make you feel good about yourself; it can help you find something you’re passionate about; you could even gain new skills and discover a new talent. Here are five ways you can engage with your local area and give something back.
1) Volunteer
Find a cause near you that you care about and are willing to spend your time to help. There are numerous ways to volunteer. You could use it as an opportunity to develop a skill to put on your résumé later on—organization, communication, working with people, for example.
You could also offer skills you already have. Maybe you’re an excellent writer; help a charity by updating their website copy or creating social media posts to encourage donations. If you had a particular set of skills or a certain charitable idea, you could even begin by setting up a charity of your own to volunteer with. This can be an exciting option, and gives you a degree of control over what you’re doing. It will come with a set of responsibilities however when it comes to managing your team, but fortunately you will be able to make use of volunteer management solutions to make this task much easier.
Regardless of how you do it, volunteering your time is a great way to give back to your community as it’s good for your social life and can be very rewarding. Look for volunteering opportunities near you, or consider beginning a project of your own.
2) Donate
As well as donating your time by volunteering, you could donate any money you have leftover at the end of the month. Charities always need extra funding, so however much you can afford to give will be hugely appreciated by any causes near you.
You could set up a monthly direct debit to make regular donations to your favorite charity or send one-off payments to a few different charities. Just give whatever you can afford!
3) Raise Money
Not everyone is in a financial position to donate their own cash, so if you’re not, why not donate your time to help a charity or a cause with their fundraising efforts?
There are so many ways to raise money for a charitable cause—check out these great fundraising tips from Fundraising Brick for a few examples.
4) Clean Up Your Streets
Did you know that by the year 2050, the ocean will have more plastic in it than fish? Everybody needs to play their part in keeping the streets and oceans clean and free from waste, and the best place to start is your local area.
There are plenty of ways you could do this. Organize a trash walk in your town or neighborhood, encouraging everyone to go out for a walk at the same time and pick up every piece of garbage they see. You could assign everyone something specific to collect, so all the trash gets sorted into recyclables and landfill as you go.
Alternatively, you could make it your personal goal to pick up every piece of litter you see whenever you leave the house. Depending on how clean your local streets are, this could be a big or a small job!
Spread the word about what you’re doing to get more people involved in cleaning up the streets.
5) Get Involved in Politics
If you’re passionate about a number of issues, you could always start getting involved in local politics. Whether you want to campaign for someone else, petition your local government to address certain issues, or channel your inner Leslie Knope and run for local office yourself, there is a lot you can do to get involved in making your local area a better place to live. If you do decide that you would like to run for your own local elections you will want to make sure you have a strong team behind you and a great understanding of campaign and election law. You will want to look into collaborating with specialist lawyers from companies like Dhillon Law to make sure your campaign operates ethically and transparently – giving you a foot up on the competition.
These are just five ways you could get involved in making your community better—there are hundreds more. Figure out how much time you want to commit, and start making the world better!
