I know its not even Christmas yet, but the New Year is not far behind. The hearts of many turn to creating a clean slate, or trying something new. The impossible resolutions of the past often make way for the practical. Volunteering for a good cause is sometimes one of them. What prohibits people is often the time or money commitment involved. In the past, I have presented general lists of ways someone can pitch in. However, this year, I am looking to hear from grass roots causes and charities themselves on how people can assist them even if they only have a short amount of time to give.
Volunteer opportunities that are a one time gig, or require a time commitment of less than 2 hours per week are being sought. Also, if the volunteer need not handle currency, that would be a plus. Opportunities that require even less are highly welcome to receive the most amount of volunteer interest possible. Please submit your specific calls for volunteers, with the guidelines in mind. The volunteer opportunity must be able to be filled by someone that fits this profile:
- The volunteer need not have a specific degree or certification.
- The volunteer does not need to own special equipment (i.e., sensor equipment, a dump truck)
- Gender of the volunteer does not matter.
- Age of the volunteer is 16 or over. Upward age does not matter.
- Volunteer opportunity can be fulfilled as a one time gig, or in a time allotment of less than 2 hours per week.
There will be two categories: Live opportunities, where a volunteer needs to appear in person at a site, or needs to be in close proximity. The second category is for virtual opportunities. The volunteer CAN be in close proximity or further away, but the opportunity does not call for meeting regularly in person to fulfill their duties.
Please submit opportunities with the following information:
Name of organization or cause
Type of cause (if not obvious from the name. What are you all about?)
Physical location (city or locality)
Decription of opportunity
Time commitment
Dates of opportunity if applicable
If the opportunity is an ongoing need or at the volunteer’s convenience, indicate it.
Send the following information to: volunteers at gmail.com. The list will be published at the discretion of houndsgood.com. Some opportunities may not be published due to space, complexity of the opportunity, or if the cause conflicts with the mission of Houndsgood.com.
Deadline for submiission but will be rolling, but it would be super nice if you could submit by january 23rd.

From time to time, I receive notices called “DNA” notices. They mean “Do Not Adopt.” Conversely, “DNR” means “Do Not Rescue.” It is to alert other rescues to deny an adoption to someone, or for a shelter to not let a rescue pull from their available dogs and cats. It may be helpful in some cases to alert individuals who may not be aware of legislation against the individual for animal abuse. However, take great care in making the decision to send someone’s name out on a list. Before you consider alerting your friends, please consider the following:
Many animal charities have pet food, old towels, and a variety of other things on their wish lists. Those are easy for the general public to procure. What about vaccinations and other supplies or incidentals?
I was looking for more ideas for auction items for a few upcoming charity auctions, both silent and live. I have been to a few where there were
There have been some gift certificates given for a few charity auctions I have helped organize that entitled the winner to receive a massage. Sometimes, the gift certificate is given by the spa, but many other times, it is given by a very happy client of a massage therapist. They purchase the certificate and donate it themselves. The results are usually overwhelmingly good as far as bids go. They are typically the most popular item in the auction if started at a reasonable price.
Nowadays, website hosting has come way down, so there is little excuse to not be able to pay for a site if you are serious about telling people something, but I think there still is a market for the free site. Not everyone wants a blog site, and besides, what is a ten year old to do when they want to show the whole internet their collection of Pokemon cards? Whoops. Pokemon cards are so out, but chalk that up to my trip down memory lane. At that time they were the big thing. I found out that there is still a place where you can
There are actually few nice features that you can use that makes the old free sites a real far cry. There is a feature where you can disable right clicking on your site. This way, no one can copy your photos onto their hard drive. You may think that it is no big deal, but if you have a personal page with photos of your family, it is a good move. When you get a site, the domain name will have .hpages.com attached to it. While it may not be a good idea for a business, it is perfect for a personal site. Someone can’t randomly type in domain names and find your page if it is something you only want to share with a small group of people. Of course, if people link to it, search engines will find it, but not if no one does. The other nice thing is that you do have access to stats. They may not be as detailed as a paid service, but they are definitely quite adequate for the needs of a smaller site. Of course, I don’t have any stats yet as I just registered to give it a whirl ten minutes ago.
Instead of the buyer and seller or donor and charity exchanging credits, Shop Shield creates a temporary credit card number for the transaction that expires when the transaction is complete. This way, if the information is stolen at the company or charity, the card number will not be valid. Also, it protects you from being looked up or tracked down. The anonymous email that is generated for you prevents you from having to remember what username you created at each site, and also forwards any correspondence to your real email address.
Awhile back, I saw some plaques, like the one at left, at a horse stable. They were emblazoned with the horse’s name on it. Underneath, there was a hook mounted for a halter and lead. I thought it lended a nice touch and made the stable look more high end. Little did I know that some of these horses were rescue horses and when they went home, their plaque went with them to their new barn or stable. I thought this was very nice, sort of sending a rescued dog home with a nice, brand new squeak toy and collar.
When you first open, there are many people who will look at handmade signs and decide that you might last six months. When you take the time to make the front entry inviting, not so ironically, people tend to want to enter! It doesn’t matter what the rest of the resue community thinks about the appearance, the people that matter are the folks that are going to come in adopt, support you, and spread the word in the community. It is important to be respected by other groups for your care and methods, but they are not the ones who are going to be your donor base and provide the homes.
Here’s another cost saving idea for the charity or the individual that doesn’t have unlimited funds (imagine that!). Before you jump into a hosting contract, shop around for web hosting. Don’t just look at the bottom line as far as the actual price, as if you have to spend hours of down time either chasing after a live person in the customer service department, or hours of down time of your site, the expenses of an inexpensive host add up. If you have someone that is extremely committed to the organization, such as a founder, who has unlimited talented when it comes to servers and the internet, then your group is a rare species. You may be able to afford to get a bare bones service. However, what happens if that person leaves?
If you have a charity website, you are often tempted to look for volunteer help and deep discounts to maintain fiscal responsibility. There are some things, however you have to pay for to make sure that there are no breaks in service. Web hosting is one of those things. It is great to get a website that is hosted free, or a local business provides you, but then no one is accountable should your site go down, or the person granting the service leave the company. You may have to start all over.