Opportunities to Volunteer as a Designer?

Design Discussions general design discussion
1

Hello friends,

I am curious if anyone has been able to apply their design skills or profession as a designer to volunteering opportunities? If so, how do you go about sourcing opportunities?

2

Helping to teach a group of young people or students as part of a STEM curriculum in schools is a gratifying experience. For instance U-Washington has a couple of sessions teaching design thinking or sketching or model-making to high school kids, which is a good way for the grad students to research their design questions as well.

3

There are definitely opportunities all around, but since it is not the rational type of volunteering, you might have to work a bit for it. A few things I’ve done:

  1. STEAM. As Sean pointed out, schools ar actively trying to integrate creative thinking. In a lot of school the acronym now has an A in it for Art. I’ve done a few workshops with grade schools and it can be really fun. They usually have great questions.

  2. Branding for non profits. Local non profits often run on a shoe string. Spending money on branding is usually the last thing they want to do.

  3. Serving on the board of an arts non profit. Usually this involves some fundraising and event project management.

  4. Serving as an officer in your local IDSA chapter.