Volunteer

March 1, 2009

Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

Volunteer jobs available at Mercy Corps' U.S. headquarters in Portland, Oregon, are as diverse as our array of paid positions - and only slightly easier to land. One important exception: no volunteer positions are available overseas.

About half of our volunteers perform office work in the agency's operations division; others conduct research for program staff or help out with general office tasks in finance, human resources or another department.

If you are interested in helping out at Mercy Corps, please download, complete and return our volunteer application. We will share your background, skills and availability with our Portland-based staff. If your qualifications meet the requirements needed to fill a specific volunteer position in their area, they will give you a call.

If there is not an appropriate position available and you do not receive a call, please contact us one month after sending in your application and we will post the information again. We will keep your resume and application on file in an ongoing volunteer pool.

You are encouraged to contact us once a month so we can repost your application. This increases your chances of matching with new positions as they arise.

Volunteer positions at Mercy Corps are unpaid and there should be no expectation of future employment when volunteering for Mercy Corps.

Please mail or fax your application and resume to:

Mercy Corps
Attn: Volunteer Coordinator
45 SW Ankeny St
Portland OR 97204
Fax: 503-896-5011

At this time, we do not have a formal overseas internship or volunteer program. When this kind of opportunity arises, it will be posted in the Jobs section of our website. The only volunteer opportunities at Mercy Corps are at our Portland, Oregon headquarters.

If you are interested in volunteering overseas, we suggest you contact Interaction, an "umbrella" agency with about 160 member non-governmental organizations. Although InterAction does not hire for positions with any of their members, they publish a useful book entitled Interaction Member Profiles. This guide lists their members, with information about scope of work, geographical locations and contact information.

Thank you again for your interest in volunteering with Mercy Corps. We look forward to working with you in the future.

• Volunteer Application
  PDF Format, 92.81 KB