Why Share Your Volunteer Experience?


After your volunteer assignment, you can help the American people realize that our efforts to help the less fortunate overseas are important, and that people-to-people efforts are a cost-effective way to create prosperity and make friends for America. If all cannot serve as ACDI/VOCA volunteers, at least they can support our program.


You are the key. It is the immediacy of your personal experiences, your enthusiasm and your ties to your home community that will make you an effective spokesperson. You'll enjoy reliving your experience and your audiences will be grateful for your insights. Here's what you can do:

  • make presentations to clubs, religious and service organizations, schools as well as general audiences
  • reach out to your professional colleagues, especially to inform them about opportunities for service. There may even be follow-up trade or technical assistance opportunities stemming from your assignment.
  • make yourself available to the media
  • inform your Congressional representatives

We have resources to help you. This Share the Experience section includes sample speeches and press releases, development facts, FAQs and media and presentation tips. There is an ACDI/VOCA PowerPoint presentation that you can draw from.


Or, do it your way. We just ask that you get the facts straight, credit ACDI/VOCA, USAID and your overseas hosts, and try to make your assignment(s) seem valuable in the context of the U.S. role in the world and global prosperity. When you have something to report, fill out the online Post-Assignment Activity Report.


The overseas beneficiaries of our assistance programs thank you for your efforts.


Volunteer Suggestions

Previous Share the Experience participants were asked "What suggestions would you make to first-time volunteers?" The follow is a list of their ideas:

  1. Make contact with media prior to your assignment to arrange coverage.
  2. Take human-interest photos or videos for presentations. Don't let your scope be too technical.
  3. Refer to tape-recorded or jotted down information about the pictures you have taken for interesting details.
  4. Zero in on specific people or incidents to give audiences the real flavor of the experience.
  5. Don't overkill. Leave them with a desire for more information.
  6. Share with your audiences the artifacts, product samples, tools, etc., you collected on your trip.
  7. Present information on food, travel and health conditions—people want to know practical details.
  8. Impart as much as possible about your host country and its people, especially history, economy and culture. Give a context so your audience will know how your assignment mattered.
  9. Tell about an average day during your assignment.
  10. Talk about how the people you met view Americans.
  11. Compare your field of expertise in the U.S. and in your country of assignment.
  12. Make sure you tell your audience how they can volunteer and why they should.
  13. If they cannot volunteer, ask them to support ACDI/VOCA's brand of international economic assistance.