Résumé Builders

Last year, as a president of an Atlanta bank, Paul Broughton negotiated and managed multimillion-dollar commercial loans.

These days, he helps people balance their checkbooks. Mr. Broughton was laid off from Neighborhood Community Bank in December and is seeking a new position in the banking world.

Meanwhile, to stay busy and use his banking skills, he volunteers weekly for Catholic Charities’ Atlanta affiliate, teaching financial-literacy classes to Bhutanese and Burmese refugees.

“The experience is fascinating and rewarding for me — professionally and personally,” Mr. Broughton says. “It’s now on my résumé under ‘community involvement.’”

Obama’s Call

Charities across the country are reporting a sharp increase in volunteers, fueled by President Obama’s call to service (see article on Page 27) and by people like Mr. Broughton who have time to give because they have lost their jobs in the recession.

For such volunteers, who often are in the process of seeking a job, giving time to a charity allows them to stay active while presenting opportunities to meet people who can help them in a job search, learn new skills, and add to their résumés.

Tiffany McKay, an out-of-work gemologist who volunteers to serve meals twice a week at the Community Kitchen of West Harlem, in New York, says she’s “been doing some interviewing, but I needed something meaningful to do instead of watching TV all day.”

Just how many new volunteers are recently unemployed because of the economy is hard to determine, as most charities have only anecdotal information about laid-off workers opting for volunteer work.

New York Cares, a charity that helps city residents connect with volunteer opportunities, says nearly a third of the new volunteers it surveyed last month were unemployed and told the charity that they had more time to give because of a “job change.”

In a survey by the Denver branch of the social-service charity Volunteers of America, 17 percent of the approximately 600 new volunteers the organization acquired since August said they were “filling time due to unemployment.”

‘Very Tenuous Time’

While charities appreciate the new volunteers, some say the increase is offset somewhat by a decline in hours by veteran volunteers who say they need to spend more time on the job due to the economic crisis.

“For those that still have jobs, it’s a very tenuous time at their organizations and they can’t commit to volunteer now as they’d be missed,” says Leah Fenwick, a director at Financial Service Volunteer Corps, a New York charity that recruits volunteer financial experts for short-term overseas consulting work in developing countries.

She says some volunteers who were already signed up for assignments have had to drop out. But an influx in new volunteers has meant that no assignments have been canceled so far.

“We do provide a very attractive alternative to folks who have lost their jobs because we present an opportunity to get relevant experience,” Ms. Fenwick says.

The charity pays for all of the travel expenses incurred by its volunteers. The Taproot Foundation, in San Francisco, which annually places 2,000 business executives in voluntary consulting positions at charities, saw a 200-percent increase in volunteer interest in January 2009 over the previous year. Much of the gain appears driven by the economy.

“We do training of new pro bono consultants and over the last few months a significant number — well over 50 percent — said they were unemployed and largely motivated by networking and a desire to stay engaged,” says Aaron Hurst, president of the Taproot Foundation. “We’ve seen a spike in financial analysts, project managers, and account directors.”

“These are exactly the kinds of skills a large part of the nonprofit sector needs,” he adds, lamenting that but for Taproot’s own lack of resources, it could place three times as many volunteers at charities.

Among the unemployed executives Taproot has helped with volunteer work is Rebecca Groom, a vice president at Washington Mutual Bank until that troubled institution — now in receivership — laid her off a year ago.

Since December Ms. Groom has been spending approximately six hours a week helping ElderHealth Northwest, a Seattle charity that manages day care and housing programs for the elderly and disabled, develop new business and marketing plans.

“It’s a perfect fit, as it has allowed me not only the social stimulation I wanted but also I’m able to use my talents,” Ms. Groom says. “When I was working, I could give back by giving money. At this point it’s easier for me to donate my time.”

Ms. Groom acknowledges that she is under less financial pressure than other unemployed people might experience because her husband works and she received a generous severance package.

Her volunteer work at ElderHealth is also as much about staying busy and helping others as it is about exploring a career change after 19 years in banking. With the financial world in such turmoil, Ms. Groom feels that health care might be a safer bet for future employment.

“I’ve been interested in getting information about the health-care industry, and part of the reason why I chose this particular project is that I’m working directly with people who are in that industry,” Ms. Groom says. “You can only go to so many networking lunches or coffees.”

Caren Libby, a recently laid-off sales and marketing executive with 25 years of experience, has found volunteering similarly useful.

Since December she has been a member of the advisory board of Go! Network, a new effort in St. Louis sponsored by the United Way and several area businesses. It seeks to help laid-off workers find new jobs by developing job-search workshops and seminars.

Ms. Libby says she spends 15 to 20 hours a week volunteering for Go! Network, and was recently made head of its marketing and communications committee.

“I’m already learning about opportunities that are available and have met a bunch of people from human-resource departments at major corporations,” she says. “My world has just exploded since I got involved with this group.”

Online Recruiting

To help encourage the volunteerism trend, Seth Reams, a laid-off concierge in Portland, Ore., started the blog, “We’ve Got Time to Help.” He also placed a similar appeal to service on Craigslist, the popular online classified-ad site.

“We are a group of people that have found some extra time on our hands,” Mr. Reams writes on the blog. “Most of us have been laid off and are having a tough time finding a job in this awful economy. We are using a small portion of that time to make our entire community a better place.”

Mr. Reams calls the response he’s received “immediate and awesome” and says he recently had 25 volunteers meet at his home, and another 55 have contacted him wanting to help.

The work they have done to date includes doing home and auto repairs for needy families and creating a community garden.

The Portland charity Paws to Freedom, which trains service animals, has twice asked Mr. Reams’s group to donate time and a truck to help them take delivery of some bulky office equipment.

The Portland volunteers are also running a food drive to benefit the Oregon Foodbank.

“Things are so bad right now, and people just seem to have their heads down and their blinders on so that nobody sees that other people are hurting too,” Mr. Reams says.

His group has received calls from people in Seattle and Phoenix about starting similar groups in those cities. Volunteer appeals to laid-off workers of a similar nature can now be found on Facebook, the social-networking Web site.

“It just kind of snowballed from me wanting to volunteer to feel better, to gathering other people in the same predicament, into what it is now: a movement, for lack of a better term,” Mr. Reams says. “I’m still looking for a job, but I can see this becoming a lifelong venture.”