Paying to volunteer

You are offering your time, skills and enthusiasm for free, not to mention considerable cost – so why do you have to pay to volunteer?

It is a question many volunteer organisations are asked time and time again. There is no hard and fast rule, and each volunteer should consider it their own responsibility to ask organisations questions such as: where their money goes, whether the host organisation overseas is being charged and how much of the volunteer’s money is actually sent overseas. But in theory it is a relatively simple question to answer. If the volunteer themselves doesn’t pay, then who does?  

Some volunteer organisations are run as non-profit organisations, and others are business ventures. However the reality of the situation is this – it costs money to run any organisation and running costs must be covered by someone. Wages, office space, phone calls, training courses, materials must all be paid for. 

Usually, the volunteer organisation will charge you a fee prior to departing. In return the volunteer agency provides volunteers with an organised and supported volunteering placement overseas. This should, in most cases pay for the service they provide and cover pre-departure training, advice and support, the volunteer support should continue throughout the placement, as well as the provision for food and accommodation whilst overseas.    

So its not all give, give, for the volunteer. Although paying for a volunteering experience by no means guarantees a successful placement overseas, there are many benefits of working through an organisation. You are given access to a wealth of advice, experience and support. Pre-departure preparation is generally an integral part of the service – covering important issues such as culture, language, your work environment, accommodation, what to pack, what to do if something goes wrong. Managing everyone’s expectations is also an inportant  part of the service.  

Admittedly, there are a loads of issues to consider when arranging an overseas volunteering experience If you sit down and actually work out how much it would cost you in time and money to find your own volunteer placement overseas, communicate with them to organize and arrange a role for yourself, phone and email them to develop a relationship, set up accommodation,  organise transfers from the airport when you arrive…the list goes on and on and on…you might actually be surprised by how little the difference is between travelling to a country on your own and the cost of participating in a program through a volunteer organisation - saves you a lot of hassle, not to mention time and money. 

In summary then - you pay to volunteer because of the following, not exhaustive list:

STAFF: Your volunteering fee pays for the organisations staff, and the services they provide. 

PROJECTS: It does cost quite a bit of time and money setting-up volunteer projects and programs overseas  

SAFETY NET: This is the biggest difference between paying to volunteer and going it alone - the organisation ought to have a safety net and procedures in place to help you , should you experience any difficulty whilst volunteering overseas. 

SETTING-UP COSTS: It takes a lot of time and money for an organisation to set up an infrastructure of projects and programs overseas . So at the end of the day, it is fair that they charge you are program fee - after all, they invested heavily before you came along.