Madison Wisconsin Offers a Wide Array of Volunteering Opportunities
Ready to Volunteer and Help your Community?
Within 15 miles of Wisconsin’s state capital are over 200 different opportunities to volunteer and make a difference in your local community!
Volunteers as young as 8 years old can contribute at the Madison Children’s Museum. Adults with business skills can mentor or share expertise with students through Wisconsin Business World. Scientists and non-scientists can contribute to the conservation efforts of Wisconsin’s Green Fire. All are welcome to help operations at Badger Honor Flight, which brings veterans to visit memorials that have been erected in their honor.
From gardens to museums, the arts through the outdoors, seniors, youth and everyone in between, there are so many ways you can have an impact on your local community. Examples include:
- Harvest and prep produce like rhubarb and strawberries in support of Chrysalis, an organization that provides meaning, purpose and employment for people in mental health and substance use recovery.
- Make a difference in the lives of seniors at Oakwood Village. Activities include setting up movie and documentary viewings, facilitating a special interest group, leading a sing-alongs, sharing your musical or artistic talents.
- Contribute administrative or youth programming support at the East Madison Community Center.
- Assist Custom Canine’s Service Dog Academy – professional or administrative services, event support, or (of course!) puppy time.
- Love the theatre? Box office and back stage volunteers are needed at the Bartell Theatre, the Madison Ballet, the Fresco Opera Theatre Company, and the Madison Opera.
- Support programming for Latinx youth at Centro Hispano.
The Best Volunteer Activities for Families, Teens and Children
Whether you want a one-time activity for the family or an ongoing but manage-able commitment, Scout can point the way to a variety of volunteer options. Museums and food pantries offer indoor opportunities.
Interested in being outside and supporting your natural environment? Check out the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum. From gardening to ecological restoration, volunteers at the UW Arboretum not only have a visibly positive impact, but also benefit from deepening their knowledge of Wisconsin’s native plants, animals, and ecosystems; connecting with like-minded individuals; and enjoying the beauty of working outdoors in a stunning natural environment. Madison’s park system also offers a range of options at all of your local parks, gardens, ice rinks, dog parks and disc golf locations!
200+ Activities!
Find them through Scout’s Search
Using the Samaritan Scout search platform, you can write keywords or select filters such as ’cause’, ‘skill’, location radius and minimum age. No other website or search engine gives you such an easy, comprehensive lay-of-the-land of volunteer opportunities near you.
The pre-Scout leading website, (VolunteerMatch), for example offers 61 ‘results’ for Madison, WI, although 13 of those results are not in Madison and another 10 are not even in Wisconsin. Five (5) are about becoming a student exchange host.
Why Scout’s your go-to for volunteering
Unlike directory websites that burden nonprofit organizations, requiring them to create and submit ‘listings’ to appear on their platform, Scout is a search engine that crawls the Internet — like all search engines these days. But, unlike search engines that seek out the most modern, sophisticated sites and display a high proportion of sponsored content/advertisements, Scout just seeks out the sites of nonprofits. Scout then leverages AI to convert the text on websites into pithy summaries, example below:
From the Extended Hands Pantry About page and the Get-Involved page, Scout can determine the Causes, Skills, location and Volunteer activity description!
Equity and Volunteering in Madison, Wisconsin
Scout’s AI aims to bring you the best possible volunteering opportunities in Madison, Wisconsin and all the locations we currently serve. In addition to seeking out all the organizations ‘doing good’ near you, our AI looks for activities that do not require volunteers to spend money (no membership requirements), or buy items (no ‘drives’) or ask friends and family to spend money (no walk/run-a-thons). We all have skills and enthusiasm that have tremendous value and Scout aims to connect souls to service, regardless of our finances. Learn more about Scout here. Better yet, start looking for your next volunteer activity now!