What is Skills-Based Volunteering?
Taproot Foundation
Taproot connects social change organizations with passionate, skilled volunteers for high-quality pro bono engagements.
When you think of volunteering, images of cleaning up your local park or working in a food pantry may come to mind. While hands-on volunteering is critical to fulfilling some nonprofits’ missions, other forms of support can help all organizations. Most nonprofits don’t have access to the resources, funding, or qualified talent to function effectively. A donation of professional expertise can help an organization fill those gaps.??
Donating one’s professional expertise is called skills-based volunteering, or SBV.
This form of volunteering includes sharing your skills and experience with social change organizations. A nonprofit might need help designing its website but doesn’t have the staff, time, or money to do so. That’s when a professional trained in web design could take on those tasks and support the cause.??
These trained professionals, or skilled volunteers, apply knowledge gained on the job to a cause they believe in.?
Skills-based volunteering makes a difference
We created this table showing the wide range of volunteer opportunities. They’re grouped by the common types of nonprofit support.?