Nonprofit, faith-based organizations and city agencies

With our Community Service Volunteers program, we place hundreds of volunteers each year with partner nonprofits and city agencies. These volunteers perform a wide variety of tasks such as office help, cleaning, landscaping, painting, serving customers, organizing donations, taking photos, writing newsletters, and so much more. 

We make volunteer placements that work

• A simple process. Our program is easy to understand and navigate, resulting in a very high success rate with our clients.
• Saves you time. We’re a one-stop connection with partner organizations can easily accept and train community service volunteers.
• Saves money. We track hours and court dates, and we document completed hours, which helps avoid multiple court dates.
• Good matches. Volunteers are placed based on skill, hours, and/or location. Volunteer Alexandria places over 200 community service volunteers in local nonprofits and city agencies throughout the year. This represents around 15,000 hours of community service valued at over $450,000.

We always need more partners to host community service volunteers. Volunteers are referred from courts, parole officers or attorneys, mostly due to a minor infraction. We place pre-screened unpaid volunteers to perform community service hours on a variety of projects with matching nonprofits and public agencies. Some volunteers are skilled professionals who can help with innovative assignments. 

Our process

1. Make sure you're eligible! We work with 501(c)(3) and (6) nonprofits, community-based agencies, schools, and city agencies in Alexandria and nearby counties in need of volunteers. For more details, see our Partnership Policy.

2. Check our database. We may already have a profile for your organization. Check our Nonprofit Partner Directory.

• If your agency is on the list, contact us to update your profile. Each individual person accesses the site with their own account. 
• If your org isn’t on our list, apply now! We will be in touch once we review your application to move forward with solidifying the partnership. Once you're approved, we'll grant individual account access.

" I wanted to write to thank you both for your assistance in posting our volunteer opportunities for the Portside in Old Town Summer Festival. We had a phenomenal event and a solid team of volunteers who played a role in our success. I was very impressed with the volunteer portal and it made volunteer recruitment so much easier and organized. This was the first time we put out such a large call for volunteers and working through Volunteer Alexandria made a tremendous difference for us. Plus, the volunteers who signed up were great to work with and very dependable, which can be hard to find." - Elissa Staley, Event & Partnership Manager, Visit Alexandria

How to host a Community Service Volunteer 

We only place Community Service Volunteers with agencies registered with Volunteer Alexandria. To become a placement site for Volunteer Alexandria, register online.

Be sure to specify on the form which charges/allocations are acceptable to you. If you have questions or need guidance via email, contact our program manager. 

The program manager interviews each volunteer to fulfill all agency requirements. Then the volunteer sets up a schedule of service with your site supervisor. 

We encourage agencies to use the same procedure with other volunteers, including orientation, paperwork or background checks. 

Agencies track all hours in the online account. When the required hours are completed, the site supervisor notifies the program manager.

Please contact the program manager if a volunteer isn’t a good fit so we can arrange for another placement. Please also share any comments about outstanding volunteers since this info can shared with the court.

This program is supported by the City of Alexandria and the Foundation of the Alexandria Bar Association.

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