Accessibility Information
Create a more humane world by inspiring compassion, providing hope and advancing the welfare of animals and people.
San Diego Humane Society is proud to have volunteers who make an impact every day with the help of an independence facilitator. Because most of our onsite volunteer activities are designed to be completed without staff assistance, some volunteers find they need to seek additional support in order to serve. For those who choose to arrange for supported service, a facilitator can be hired through an agency or be a close friend or family member.
All openings for facilitator led groups are currently filled. Please check back in January for potential openings.
We have limited availability for recurring service groups of one or more facilitators supporting multiple volunteers.
Tasks typically include projects like helping with dishes, laundry, making enrichment items, or bagging food for community distribution.
Please keep in mind the following expectations:
- All facilitators and supported individuals will submit a volunteer application.
- Facilitators must complete all required trainings to volunteer alongside the individuals.
- Supported individuals may or may not be asked to complete required trainings, depending on capabilities and determined jointly by the facilitator and Volunteer Engagement.
- If the makeup of your group changes (new facilitators or new supported individuals), there may be a pause in the group’s service while new members are caught up on required trainings. Please email [email protected] to arrange setting up a change in the group makeup.
- In order to provide service opportunities to the many organizations in our community who request to volunteer with us, we typically offer inclusion groups up to three months of shifts. At the end of that time, they are welcome to be added back to our waitlist and we will contact them when we have another opening in our group rotation schedule.
If you are looking to volunteer as an Inclusion group, please email [email protected] to inquire about getting started.
To provide the best support, Independence Facilitators must be fully trained in the volunteer guidelines and expectations. For that reason, we ask the following:
- Both members of the facilitated team must submit an online volunteer application.
- Facilitators will complete all required online and in-person trainings to volunteer alongside the volunteer.
- Both members of the team must be on the schedule for all shifts they will be volunteering together.
- We are not able to guarantee a set schedule or a specific quantity of hours. Shifts are posted a month at a time, and volunteers sign up for any open shifts that meet their availability. On average, volunteers sign up for two or three shifts a month, each about two hours long.
- If an existing facilitator needs to be replaced, there may be a pause in the volunteer’s service while a new facilitator is trained. The new facilitator will need to complete the required onboarding steps prior to serving their first shift. Agencies or individuals can email [email protected] to arrange setting up a new facilitator.
To learn more about the tasks we need most help with and to complete the application, please click here and then select the location where you’d like to volunteer.