“Now, no workplace issue seems stressful when I compare it to the social problems I come across”

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In The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare says the noble quality of mercy was a double blessing: it blessed him that gave, and him that received. Like mercy, voluntary work enriches the donor as much as the recipient. Not just on the emotional level of fulfilment or satisfaction, but also by way of opening up new professional vistas.

That happened with Mumbai-based Shankar Menon, 30. Five years into his corporate banking career, he decided to follow his heart and become a filmmaker. While hunting for a suitable break into the commercial circuit, he read about an iVolunteer-supported project for Urmul Jyoti Sansthan, an NGO promoting women’s education, people’s advocacy and eyecare in Nokha, Rajasthan. He signed up with iVolunteer’s Fellow Professional Programme and applied for the project in January this year.

“After studying film theory, it was imperative for me to go out and start shooting,” says Menon. “Making three fund-raising films for them definitely helped hone my professional skills, but, more than that, I grew as a person.”

Janhavi Vyas gained a fresh perspective when she volunteered with the Watershed Organisation Trust (WOT), Ahmednagar, to help in people management. “In my 14-year career in market research, I had got used to working in a systems- and process-driven manner. My stint with WOT helped me realise the importance of thinking out of the box,” says the 35-year-old.

Bringing it together. Coming from different backgrounds and with different skill-sets on offer, Menon and Vyas found a common solution in iVolunteer, a flagship initiative of Mitra, an NGO working to develop volunteering in India. “We offer four programmes: iVolunteer India Fellow (urban volunteer for rural/semi urban NGOs, designed specifically for corporate sabbaticals), iVolunteer centres (urban volunteers for urban NGOs), GoVolunteer India (international volunteer for rural/semi urban NGOs) and iVolunteer Overseas (Indian volunteers for overseas NGOs),” says Rahul Nainwal, co-founder and director of iVolunteer.

For Bangalore-based software professional Vijayanand Nagaraj, 29, the need to use his free time meaningfully led him to take up the cause of AIDS awareness. Since 2006, when he joined iVolunteer, he has been associated with Asha Foundation, which works for the cause. His insight and experience in the area encouraged him to hone his skills with a course in Social Entrepreneurship and NGO Management at the Centre for Social Initiative and Management, Hyderabad.

“I didn’t take up social service for personal gain. But I realise now that volunteering has changed my approach to work. Now, no workplace issue seems stressful when I compare it to the social problems I come across,” says Nagaraj. “I have also become an active member of corporate social responsibility projects in the office, which earns me the respect of my colleagues. Plus my soft skills have improved as well as a result of my AIDS work exposure.”

NGOs understand and appreciate this ‘mutual benefit’ approach. “Personal and societal transformation are inseparable,” says Roopal Shah, co-founder of Indicorps, a non-profit organisation that urges Indians around the world to actively participate in India’s progress.

Bharadwaj Jani, a 21-year-old member of Indicorp’s Volunteer Ahmedabad programme that asks residents to take responsibility for their city, agrees. The commerce graduate, who is currently pursuing a diploma in Investment and Financial Analysis and plans to appear for the CAT soon, says that volunteering has helped him develop leadership qualities, persistence, public speaking skills and the ability to work in a team.

“I am more confident of joining the corporate world now; I can inspire people to do something,” says Jani, who did an Indicorps course on service and leadership before spearheading a clean-the-city drive.

Transferring skills. Working with NGOs and working in a corporate setup are very different. Coming from a rigid professional background, Vyas says, “When I joined them [WOT], I knew what I was supposed to do. It was a small organisation and the HR policy implementation—my basic brief—should have been easy. But working with limited people and resources, discovering that workers weren’t aware of their final objectives and bridging the gap between top-level executors and the actual implementers was an entirely new experience.”

When Vyas finished the voluntary project and took up a regular job managing operations for a research analytics business, she was able to apply her new-found skills to work more efficiently with people across different levels.

Positions vacant. As NGOs and volunteers will both emphasise, people who take up voluntary work with the sole goal of bettering their chances in mainstream careers do good neither to themselves nor to their project work. Service needs to be a primary instinct; skills learnt or enhanced while on a voluntary project are a hard-won side-effect.

That said, professionals of certain specialisations and mindsets are more likely to walk away as much a winner as the project they were involved with. “We look for people who want service to be the way they approach life rather than an action that they do for a few hours,” says Vijay Ramchandani, coordinator of Volunteer Ahmedabad.

Nainwal says they are forever on the lookout for people with good business management and project management skills. As Vyas exemplifies, these are also the professionals whose takeaways from voluntary NGO work have practical applications in regular jobs.

So come forward to make a difference: Bless and be blessed in return.

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