An update on volunteer time and charitable giving. As I started to enter my volunteer time into my companies giving portal I realized I had put in a healthy number of hours as a volunteer already this year with more yet to go. (>30 hours) For any readers that do volunteer time with charitable organizations, make sure to look into whether your company offers any matching programs. My company will match personal monetary donations, but also will let you enter time donated and once you reach 30 hours in a year they will deposit $500 in a giving account to be donated as I please. This effectively means my organizations of choice this year will get paid twice in many cases.
I still have volunteer efforts coming up with a November 3rd bird walk guide effort at Carpenter Nature Center starting at 9AM (filling in for the always excellent Kevin Smith) and then the next week on the 10th I’ll guide a North-East Metro Sea Duck trip with Peter Nichols for the MOU. (See the MOU Facebook page for details on the event and remaining open spots.)
My main point on this post is to note that it pays to pay attention to what programs your work may offer relating to volunteer efforts. I now consider it a serious benefit from my company that my volunteer time can pay up to $500 for donating to the same organizations I put my time into, creating a double-bonus.
With my cash donation memberships in some of these organizations coupled with the $500 earned donation money I’ve help bring in…
$250 to Carpenter Nature Center
$250 to Hawk Ridge
$246 to Friends of Sax-Zim Bog
On top of the 30 hours + 7 more hours planned this year yet that I’ll volunteer.
