Our Volunteer Philosophy

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. --Margaret Mead

SpaceShare is a people-project: we're not the creation of a foundation or a rich person, just people that have decided to do as much as we can to help mother earth. We've found that the world of volunteering is often challenging both for the nonprofits we've talked to and also the volunteers.

Many organizations, SpaceShare included, have struggled with having huge numbers of people say they are interested, use time of the few people who do all the work in any organization, and then disappear. Conversely, many nonprofits give volunteers menial little jobs like stuffing envelopes because they've stopped taking their volunteers seriously.

Worthwhile work, infused with joy & community. That is our goal. We welcome you to take the first step.

We ask everyone: if you are considering committing to a project, ask yourself if you can see it through. Commit to something small enough that you can get it done; especially for new volunteers we're much happier to have you do a little than to stumble with a big project. But, we also think that people are ultimately capable of doing amazing things, and volunteer organizations are often the best place to stretch.

The people at SpaceShare are not generally sticklers for rules and procedures, but we've found that a loose volunteer program tends to break down. Our goal is to keep things as simple as possible while still keeping track. If you want to help SpaceShare, we want to give you something more creative and amazing than anything else you've ever done. Putting in the energy to help you get started means we need to know your committment is real.

• Commit to a schedule.
• Start with a small project. Let us know that you are serious.
• Please recognize that we have a lot of people who express interest, and it can be overwhelming to take everyone by the hand. Tackle a little role, tackle it well, and we'll know you're serious.
• Once we know who is really showing up, together we can do amazing things, and we will invest the time to give you interesting projects.