Volunteering From Home

Conservation organisations can’t run on practical work alone; there’s a vast quantity of work that needs doing behind the scenes, from administration to communication. In today’s broadband world, there’s no reason why you should need to travel to an office to help out with it either.

Want to help nature without leaving your home? Think you can’t achieve anything for conservation whilst safe and warm inside with a cup of tea and plate of biscuits? Well, read on! Not that I’m trying to dissuade anyone from taking a leap into the great outdoors. I wrote last week about the joys of volunteering on nature reserves across the country.  Many past posts on this blog have been from people sharing their incredible experiences during longer stints abroad.

But if you are looking for environment jobs and could both add an extra layer of shine to your CV, while making a genuine difference to wildlife, even when you find yourself shut inside, wouldn’t you jump at the chance? Conservation organisations can’t run on practical work alone; there’s a vast quantity of work that needs doing behind the scenes, from administration to communication. In today’s broadband world, there’s no reason why you should need to travel to an office to help out with it either.

There’s another way you can use an internet connection to nature’s advantage. You’ll have seen viral videos and the like online, which are often started as marketing campaigns. What I’m talking about is sending nature virals; like that spellbinding starling murmuration film that has been everywhere recently. It isn’t quite the same as engaging people with real wildlife, face to face, but it can only help to raise the profile of the need to conserve such marvels. Or, signing online petitions and writing letters to your MP can be hugely effective, when you take into account the potential weight of numbers.

If this all sounds a bit vague,well, nature conservation is starting to get organised; I recently signed up as a ‘campaign champion’ with the RSPB. It’s a lot less grandiose than the undeserved epithet makes it sound. Really I’m just doing the kinds of things I already did. But now I have a volunteer role to go with it, and a link to the RSPB’s support and training network. That gives me an incentive to raise my game in return and see what bigger steps I can take for nature, as well as the chance to eventually get involved in some campaigning face to face out in the ‘real world’. But the good news is that for conservation, charity really can start at home; there’s almost certainly something you could get started with right now.

Tags: conservationvolunteering