In general, volunteers are less helpful for most “prosocial” organizations than you might expect. GiveWell wrote at one point that they had essentially never gotten a good suggestion from a blog commenter (can’t find the post on this at some point, would appreciate help if anyone remembers it). MIRI used to run a volunteer platform but shut it down at some point, and I’m not sure how much benefit they got from it while it was running.
I’d also guess that a lot of the volunteer work that charities could easily use would be fundraising help (people standing with signs, knocking on doors, making calls, etc.), which means that adding more volunteers would be zero-sum (charities are still competing for donations, but with more resources).
I strongly recommend trying to test your idea before getting too caught up in a narrow plan. One way to do this would be to find a few charities you really like, reach out to them, and ask what they would do if they had, say, 1000 more hours of unskilled volunteer time to use in the next year. You may find that the time is less valuable than you’d expect. (Then again, maybe you’ll find that it would be really helpful! But you’ll only know if you ask.)
In general, volunteers are less helpful for most “prosocial” organizations than you might expect. GiveWell wrote at one point that they had essentially never gotten a good suggestion from a blog commenter (can’t find the post on this at some point, would appreciate help if anyone remembers it). MIRI used to run a volunteer platform but shut it down at some point, and I’m not sure how much benefit they got from it while it was running.
I’d also guess that a lot of the volunteer work that charities could easily use would be fundraising help (people standing with signs, knocking on doors, making calls, etc.), which means that adding more volunteers would be zero-sum (charities are still competing for donations, but with more resources).
I strongly recommend trying to test your idea before getting too caught up in a narrow plan. One way to do this would be to find a few charities you really like, reach out to them, and ask what they would do if they had, say, 1000 more hours of unskilled volunteer time to use in the next year. You may find that the time is less valuable than you’d expect. (Then again, maybe you’ll find that it would be really helpful! But you’ll only know if you ask.)