Volunteering

Volunteering is a great way to contribute to your community. It provides a variety of benefits, including making new friends, sharing skills, getting job-ready and becoming a part of the local community.

• Volunteering opportunities
• Need volunteers?
• Legal information for volunteers in Queensland
• Resources

Volunteering opportunities

Volunteering Queensland provides information for many volunteering opportunities in Queensland. Visit their website to find volunteering opportunities, or search their database by location or work/skill type.

You can also contact your nearest volunteer resource centre to find out about volunteering opportunities in your region:

• Far North Queensland Volunteers, phone (07) 4041 7400
• Gympie Region Volunteer Centre, phone 0408 992 822
• Wide Bay Volunteers, phone (07) 4151 6644
• Wynnum Volunteering Hub, phone (07) 3002 7641
• Volunteering Gold Coast, phone (07) 5526 0688
• Volunteering North Queensland, phone (07) 4725 5990
• Volunteering Queensland Logan, phone (07) 3002 7600
• Volunteering Redlands, phone (07) 3086 0000
• Volunteering Sunshine Coast, phone (07) 5443 8256

Volunteers do great things across a wide range of sectors. To get an idea of the broad range of programs in Queensland, check out the options below.

Arts and culture

• Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) is supported by volunteers who perform important roles across the gallery, such as volunteer guides and in the curatorial space.
• State Library of Queensland volunteers participate in behind-the-scenes and front-of-house projects including historical document transcription and providing building tours for visitors.

Community services

• Become a Justice of the Peace and act as an objective witness of official or legal documents.
• Volunteer with Homeless Connect, a one-day event linking homeless people with vital services.
• Indigenous Community Volunteers provides Indigenous communities with much needed access to skilled volunteers.
• Australian Youth Mentoring Network links mentors with mentoring programs that work with young people.
• Community Visitors Scheme is a national program that provides companionship to socially isolated people living in aged care homes.

Conservation

• Become a Volunteer for Parks to let your love of nature contribute to conserving our environment.
• Clean Up Australia Day to do your bit for the environment by cleaning up your local area with friends and family.
• Roma Street Parkland Volunteers play an important role in maintaining the beautiful park gardens to world class standards.
• Discover opportunities to help our threatened species including monitoring flying-fox, caretaking and property management of threatened species project areas, talking to the public about koala management, and providing for sick, injured and orphaned koalas.
• Become a conservation volunteer to help with environmental and wildlife conservation projects.

Corporate volunteering

• Companies that engage in employee volunteering actively support and encourage their employees to volunteer their services to a local community organisation. It is one way in which businesses can fulfil their social responsibility.

Emergency volunteering

• Register with Volunteering Queensland’s Emergency Volunteering CREW so you can be linked to organisations requiring volunteer support before and after disasters.
• Find out about opportunities to volunteer for state disaster response.
• If you’re between 12 and 17, you can volunteer with the PCYC Emergency Services Cadet Program.

Health

• Volunteer with the Queensland Ambulance Service to support your local ambulance.
• Help out the community by volunteering with St John Ambulance community services.

Keeping the community safe

• Driver Reviver assists travellers to have a safe journey by providing them with refreshments at rest break sites.
• Volunteer with Neighbourhood Watch Queensland, an informal group that meets to identify and address local issues.
• Work with police through Volunteers in Policing to address customer service, community safety and crime prevention needs in the community.

Online volunteering

Online volunteering allows you to make a difference from the comfort of your own home at a time that suits you. Some interesting opportunities include:

• United Nations Volunteers Online Volunteering connects volunteers with organisations working for sustainable human development.
• State Library of Queensland Digital Volunteers assist the State Library to collect digitised photographs, newspapers and documents online.

Sport

• You might not have an interest in participating in sport, but what about managing fundraising, preparing marketing material, developing websites, setting up campsites or being a mentor? Find opportunities for sport and recreation volunteering.

Tourism

• Grey Nomads provides people who are young at heart with the opportunity to travel to new places and experience volunteering at the same time.
• International Student Volunteer Initiative is a Volunteering Queensland initiative to increase opportunities for international students to volunteer in Queensland.

Need volunteers?

Register with Volunteering Queensland’s free service where you can connect with the volunteers you need. Once registered, you will be able to create your organisation profile, place ads for your volunteering opportunities and interested volunteers will apply directly to you.

Legal information for volunteers in Queensland

Workplace Health and Safety

• Volunteers and organisations that use the services of volunteers have obligations under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011. Further information is available on the Workplace Health and Safety Queensland website or call 1300 369 915.
• Safe Work Australia has developed a range of workplace health and safety resources for volunteers and organisations that engage volunteers.

Civil Liability

• The Queensland Civil Liability Act 2003 protects certain volunteers from incurring personal civil liability while undertaking voluntary community work for a state government agency, local government authority or an incorporated organisation. In order to be protected under this Act, volunteers must act in good faith and their work must be ‘organised’ which suggests formal control, supervision and a registration process. If a volunteer fulfils the conditions set by the Act, they are exempted from all civil liability for their actions.
• The Commonwealth Volunteers Protection Act 2003 removes the civil liability of volunteers performing work in good faith for the Commonwealth, or a Commonwealth authority, to pay compensation to third parties where they may have caused personal injury, property damage or financial loss.

Checks and screening

Volunteers may be required to undergo checks and screening to do particular activities, dependent on organisational and legislative requirements. This includes volunteers who work with children and young people and volunteers who work with people with a disability.

• Find out more about requirements for volunteering with children and young people and any relevant exemptions.
• Find out more about criminal history screening requirements for volunteering with people with a disability.

Resources

On the Volunteering Queensland website, you can find the following resources for volunteer managers:

• volunteering in context
• prepare for volunteer involvement
• recruit and select volunteers
• orientate and train volunteers
• supervise and support volunteers
• ongoing development of your volunteer program
• for community arts organisations.

You can also find general resources on a variety of topics.

More information

• Do Something Near You
• Go Volunteer – Volunteering Australia’s website links volunteers with organisations
• Pro Bono Volunteer Match service
• Seek Volunteer