Real Change is looking for responsible, committed people to help us fulfill our mission of organizing, educating, and building alliances to create solutions to homelessness and poverty. We exist to provide a voice to poor people in our community, and rely on volunteers and interns to keep the paper and our other programs operational. Experience with the homeless/poor is helpful, but not required.

VOLUNTEERING
Real Change needs help from volunteers in a variety of different ways. We need volunteers to write and photograph for our paper, volunteers to help out in the office, volunteers to work with our vendors and many more. Please see below for our current volunteer opportunities.

INTERNSHIPS
Real Change offers a limited number of unpaid internships in reporting, photography, editorial assistance, office and vendor program assistance and outreach. To download our intern position descriptions, please see below.

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

You can download and print an application here: Download Volunteer Application

OFFICE VOLUNTEERING POSITIONS

Vendor Services Representative
Job Description: A Vendor Services Representative assists homeless/poor Real Change vendors when they come into the office, and acts as receptionist for our small Belltown office. Your specific duties would include: interacting with vendors, cashiering, minor data entry, explaining and enforcing vendor rules, answering the phone, and light office tasks such as typing, filing, and preparing mailings. We want vendors and other program members to feel welcome and safe when they come into the Real Change office, as often times this is the one place they are treated with dignity. This is a chance for you to meet and interact with a variety of people who are poor/homeless, and learn to understand the importance of creating more advocacy and opportunity for the low-income and homeless community.
Skills Required: We require all volunteers to be reliable, responsible, mature, friendly, and patient. You must be familiar with computers (experience with Mac OS X helpful).
Hours: This position requires you to be able to volunteer for one four-hour shift per week, between 9am-6pm weekdays for at least 10 weeks.

Graphic Design Volunteer
Description:
Real Change is looking for someone with a passion for design. We'd like some occasional help with designing flyers and brochures. We provide the text and images, you put it all together! This position is flexible in terms of time and location you can work from home on your own schedule. Show the world what you can do! You should have a flair for design and an ability to work unsupervised. Passion for communicating issues of poverty and homelessness a plus.

Subscriptions/Mailings
Real Change regularly needs help with mailings. This mainly involves helping stuff, stamp, label and seal envelopes. If you're interested in helping, simply contact the volunteer coordinator and we will put you on our mailing help contact list.

Phonebanking
We occasionally need people with a good phone manner to help us encourage people to attend advocacy events Real Change is sponsoring or involved with. We provide phones and a script. Phone banking generally happens in the evenings during the week.

EDITORIAL VOLUNTEERING POSITIONS

Book Reviewer
Real Change needs reading enthusiasts to write book reviews for our paper. We expect an ongoing commitment to write high-quality 600-word reviews on a monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly basis. To be accepted, please fill out a volunteer application and send a sample of your work that demonstrates strong essay or non-fiction writing skills.

Puzzle Master
Real Change, Seattle's weekly community newspaper, sees a volunteer Puzzlemaster to entertain and challenge 13,000 readers each week. We're seeking someone who can dream up and produce acrostics, crosswords, or other word games weekly for at least one year. If you love playing word games and want to step up your creativity, please give this a shot. We're looking for someone who can work independently on a deadline, is responsible, creative and loves words and word games.

OUTREACH VOLUNTEERING POSITIONS

Special Events
Help promote and create awareness about Real Change. On occasion we are invited to community events/fairs and are looking for volunteers who are interested in helping represent Real Change. This would be a pretty low time commitment and can be a really fun opportunity.

Outreach Advocate
You like the work that Real Change does and you wish that more people were aware of it. You’ve always wanted to volunteer with Real Change but weren’t able to make a weekly commitment, or you’re only available nights and weekends. Does this sound familiar? Well, we’ve got an opportunity for you! Real Change is looking for some Outreach Advocates to spend a couple of hours tabling at events and in target neighborhoods to increase awareness of Real Change and issues of poverty and homelessness. This involves a brief training/orientation at the main office, picking up brochures and materials and being matched up with another volunteer or one of our vendors. Tabling will focus on raising awareness of the mission and programs of Real Change, as well as specific actions supporters can take, such as signing up for the email list or contacting local representatives.

INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

The following internship descriptions are in downloadable in PDF format and can be viewed using Adobe Reader. Download Adobe Reader here.

Reporting Internship (download)
Editorial Assistant Internship (download)
Online Editorial Assistant Internship (download)
Office and Vendor Program Assistant Internship (download)

For more information about volunteering or internships, please contact Polly Jirkovsky, Volunteer Coordinator,
via email: volunteer@realchangenews.org or phone: (206) 441-3247 ext.212

Updated February 3, 2008