4 Ways Volunteering Can Help Your Creative Career

My partner in conversation responded with what, I believe, most of us have thought at one point or another — It sounds nice in theory, but what if you have nothing to give…?

The dilemma of the argument was not lost on me. I knew that I’ve felt this way before, but I also knew that Arianna’s train of thought resonated with me. How did I go from one state of mind to the other? Do I have actual proof that giving (in my case, volunteering my time) has affected my career trajectory? I decided to retrace my steps and see how volunteering has not only led me to where I am today professionally, but also put me on the same side of the argument with Arianna.

Disclaimer: While I’m going to explore the ways volunteering can benefit YOU, it’s important to keep goodwill at the root of your giving efforts.

Volunteering was not a part of my life until I was in my 3rd year of college when, motivated by the fear and excitement of a new challenge I joined the largest student group on campus as a Marketing Director. Soon, I was leading a small creative team, doing leadership training for other student groups, and assisting in putting on and marketing campus-wide events.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I was stressed out and doubting myself EVERY STEP of the way. The majority of the things in my job description I had never done before and had to learn as things came up. And, as is to be expected, I wouldn’t exchange that experience for anything — it taught me about the real-world application of what I was going to school for and showed me that I might never know everything there is to know, but I had the skills and the tools to figure it out.

Let’s call things what they are… Most unpaid internships are volunteer work without the “something bigger than me” part. Back in the early college years, I believed for a minute (an Associate-Degree-long minute) that I wanted to be an Interior Designer. So, during year two of my college career, I was an intern at a small interior design firm.

The studio was a small but cozy basement with a nice samples library and a Jack Russel puppy. My daily responsibilities consisted of making reps calls, creating elevation renders, choosing finishes and colors (for hours on end, because it’s…walls!) and occasionally, cleaning the toilet (Wednesdays, I believe).

I was diligent and decent at my job — maybe, hopefully. But while I was there, making all these decisions day in and day out (and I wasn’t even the final decision-maker!), I realized that the stress of choosing the right off-white color for an airport baggage claim wall just wasn’t me. And did you know that interior designers can make architectural decisions? Forget it. Eventually, after taking a semester off, I changed my major to Visual Communication Design — Cmd+Z.

When I moved to Los Angeles, a tad over 4 years ago, I didn’t know anyone and frankly, I was intent on keeping it that way for some time. In my mind, if I wanted to succeed, I should be spending every living and breathing moment staring at some sort of digital interface or reading about it. Even back in college my natural inclination was to study by myself at home…which didn’t last long.

I would often think back to that time and wonder if I would have had a 4.0 GPA if I just kept my head down and followed the A+ student path. The only problem with that theory is…I had a lot of fun in college, well worth the negligible grade points. And yet, here I was slipping back into that pariah mentality hiding behind my ambitions. The truth is, few things help advance your career as much as knowing how to hold space with other people, both in professional and personal scenarios. People hire people — not businesses.

Like the obsessive, all-or-nothing, success-is-hard romantic that I am, I always believed that the only way to get better at the whole “running a business” thing was by reading every single Seth Godin blog on the internet, studying (and highlighting!) every John Maeda book (and those that are “Recommended” based on my interests), and listening to design business podcasts until Chris Do has nothing left to teach me.

The thing no one tells you about starting your own business is that without business education or prior experience of working for someone else, it’s like studying for a Masters degree, without the guarantee of ever getting your diploma. You don’t know what you don’t know and the things you don’t know seem to be popping up daily like mushrooms after the rain.

Volunteering with AIGA Los Angeles has put me in a room with people from a wide range of creative and business professions. But most importantly, it put me in a room with people willing and eager to share these experiences for the benefit of others.

Why would they do that?, you ask.

Because, giving means you have enough of something to give. And because we don’t get better by eliminating the competition, we get better by raising the collective bar of what we’re capable of. Plus, the whole community, friendships, and other warm fuzzies that come with it. And while I’m calling it “mentorship”, it doesn’t always come in such defined terms. A friend who shares a story about a difficult client, an acquaintance sharing how they calculate the value of a deliverable, and yes, of course, the Seth Godins, the John Maedas, and the Chris Dos of the world — mentorship can take many forms.

So, while my fellow creative from the other day WAS right about one thing, — you need to have something to give something — most of us have much more to give than we realize. In my case, in spite of my self-proclaimed time-deficiency, I chose to donate my time. As a result, I feel that I’ve received immeasurably more than I’ve given.

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