Our experience shows that sometimes it's helpful to reach out to the volunteer organization before confirming your reservation on their program. It is a great opportunity to learn more about the organization and request additional details about the program.
Getting in touch with a volunteer organization is easy! Continue reading to find out how.
1. First contact - How to send your message
If you prefer to ask a few questions before sending your application, follow these two steps:
1.1 Go to the page of your preferred program
Scroll the page down and click on the "Contact Coordinator" button.
1.2 Enter your message in the designated box
On the right-hand side, you can see the contact person of the volunteer program and the languages they speak.
If you want, you can also upload files. Simply click "Add File".
Forward the message to the organization by clicking "Send Message".
1.3 After you've sent your application
To ensure you get all the necessary support to organize your stay or ask for any detailed information about the program, you can easily stay in touch with your host organization via your application.
You have two ways to send messages through your application:
Simply click on this button located on your application overview:
Alternatively, click on "Details," and you'll find the "Contact Social Project" button:
2. When will you get a response?
Once you send a message to the volunteering organization or even your application, some organizations react really fast and can answer you within a few hours. However, we would like you to know that it is not unusual to get a reply after 2 or 3 days. The common reasons for these delays are that some coordinators don't have always unlimited access to the internet, some organizations are small and are doing the best they can to have someone to answer all your questions as soon as possible, and sometimes difficult situations occur on-site and the organizations have to deal with them. We are sure you can fully understand that they are doing their best to be available under these circumstances. :)
Also, you can get an idea about how fast an organization usually replies with the feature showing the response rate on the organization overview, at the bottom of the program pages:
It's been a week since you sent your last message and you didn't get any reply yet? We agree with you that it's been quite a long time. Please report this to us via our chat or e-mail and our team will send them a reminder so the organization will get back to you.
3. Further Tips
to communicate more efficiently, we recommend submitting all your questions at once, so you won't need to wait several days between them
the most common language to communicate in Volunteer World is English. Of course, many of the coordinators speak multiple languages. Please make sure that you contact them in a language that the coordinator knows
in most cases, the Volunteer World's team is not allowed to transmit any contact data of the organization before the booking.