Volunteering: Position Description
Volunteers are the backbone of the Make-A-Wish Foundation®. Only through the hard work and commitment of more than 25,000 volunteers around the world and thanks to the help of over 80 volunteers in the Tri-Counties, the Make-A-Wish Foundation is able to continue granting more wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions each year.
We are always in need for volunteers to help in the main following areas:
Board Members
Members serve without compensation for three year terms. Board meetings are held quarterly in Santa Barbara. The Board enunciates the Foundation’s mission and create by-laws, articles and Board policy to support it. The Board hires and/or fires the CEO, ensures that the staff meets the criteria the Board has set, and nominates, elects, and dismisses members to the Board of Directors. The Board is the legitimizing connection between the community and the organization. The Board provides resources for the organization to fulfill its mission. All board members make a significant financial commitment to the chapter.
Community Representatives
They help us share the Foundation’s mission with different constituencies. Volunteers in this position will be asked to staff information tables at community events, accept checks on behalf of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, talk to people one on one about the Make-A-Wish Foundation, speak briefly to larger groups when accepting checks and provide support with public relations activities for the chapter. Community Representatives with the interest and ability may also make 5-15 minute public presentations for the chapter.
Wish Granters
They are the heart of the Foundation. Wish granters meet with the wish child and their family to learn the heartfelt wish of the wish child. They go out in teams of two to work with a wish family. All wish granting volunteers must go through fingerprinting and background checks as well as 8 hours of training. This position requires a strong commitment to the mission of the Foundation and a broad set of skills that cross into several areas including: fund development, finance, wish granting, and communications. Maturity, compassion, strong communication skills - particularly with children, positive attitude, ability to be resourceful, creative and reliability are absolutely essential. The amount of time required to fulfill a wish varies, depending on the child’s wish and the amount of preparation the volunteer needs to do to create the magic for each wish. Wish Granters must have dependable transportation.
Office Volunteer
Office Volunteers work at the Wish Center and are responsible for assisting with data entry, answering phones, photocopying and sorting and sending correspondence. Since we have no secretarial staff, this is a critical budget relieving position. The position requires extremely dependable self-starters who will be ready to do whatever tasks are the most needed. They must maintain confidentiality of all information received.
Internships
We offer unpaid internships to provide an opportunity for students and recent graduates to receive academic credit and valuable work experience in the nonprofit field. Our internship program aims to recruit and to cultivate students from many fields and disciplines. We offer interns a substantive learning experience, that allows them the opportunity to contribute to our work, and the knowledge, skills, and tools they will need to continue in non-profit administration.
As a complement to their individual departmental placement, interns are collectively engaged in a comprehensive program that explores MAWTC’s mission and structure as a whole and its role in the wish children’s lives. This means you will have a focus area but you will also be cross-trained to some degree in other areas.Throughout the academic year, roughly 85 percent of our interns earn academic credit for their MAWTC internships. These include students from local colleges and universities as well as those participating in academic internship programs in our area sponsored by schools from around the country.
Interns are accepted on a continuing basis throughout the year. There is a minimum of a 10 week commitment of at least 8 hours each week.
In addition to the volunteer application, please submit a writing sample to be considered, along with the time frame you are available and any curriculum requirements that you must satisfy.
All of MAWTC’s internships are unpaid. Applicants in need of financial aid to support their internship are encouraged to explore potential funding sources through the career services or alumni offices on their campus. Many colleges offer their students scholarships, stipends, or off-campus work-study to facilitate participation in public interest internships.
We offer three categories of unpaid internships as follows:
- Fundraising Interns focus on fund raising, with possible experience in event planning, solicitation, data management, and individual and corporate donations.
- Wish/Program Interns focus on Wish Granting, with services to and for our wish children and their families.
- Communication Interns focus on media relations, all public relations for wish children and events, and the visual media library and data management.
These are posted on www.wetfeet.com, www.lmu.com, www.idealist.org, Pepperdine - Seaver and Graziadio, and Westmont.
Download a Volunteer Application [Word Document] and a Live Scan Background Check [Word Document], and follow the instructions in each form. Or click here to request an application packet to be sent to you via e-mail.
To learn about upcoming volunteer training dates or other local events, go to our calendar of events.
