Volunteer for CouchSurfing

Volunteer Opportunities

Congratulations!!  You have taken the first step towards joining this incredible team.  As CouchSurfing membership grows, we are placing the right people and processes in position to not only maintain the site, but improve it in new and exciting ways.  A long-term or a short-term volunteer opportunity with CouchSurfing will allow you to serve the community and get to know all of the outstanding staff members who are also giving their time to CouchSurfing.

In the past, "CS Collectives" - CS home/offices located around the world - were short-term, and therefore the opportunities offered to volunteers were limited.  Since the establishment of the CouchSurfing home and office in the California Bay Area in 2008, CouchSurfing has been able to offer a path for volunteers.  This news story explains more about the change in the way CS operates Collectives.  They allow volunteers to join a CS location closer to their home country, and they allow long-term participants to travel the world and volunteer from different locations while getting to know the local CS communities.  Currently, on-site staff members have the opportunity to live in San Francisco, in the United States or in Istanbul, Turkey.

Please check this page frequently to find the new roles that may be right for you. 

The CouchSurfing Volunteering Information group explains more about current staffing priorities and future roles.  It is highly recommended that every potential applicant join this group and subscribe to instant updates.  This will be especially helpful to you if the position you would like to apply for is not "currently staffing", as you will then receive notifications as to any changes in the staffing priority.  Please note that you do not need to be a current member of CouchSurfing to apply to any role.  However, becoming a member allows you to subscribe to the Volunteering Information group.  Please note that all roles require excellent written and verbal communication skills and English fluency.

If you have any questions not answered by the volunteering pages, you may contact Jacinta, CS Recruiter, at any time.

Administrative Aide 

Purpose: 

• Ensures the day-to-day efficiency of the CS office and home.  

Responsibilities: 

• Provide support for internal and external meetings:  
  • coordinate meeting space and equipment  
  • correspondence with attendants 
  • prepare agendas and materials  
  • prepare meeting notes 
  • coordinating all follow-up 
• Coordinate office and house logistics:  
  • answer phones & greet visitors  
  • maintain office & house supplies, and make purchases  
  • enforce house rules & guest policies  
  • create and enforce office & house chores list 
• Assist with the creation of presentations and other communications for internal and external audience  
• Process payments, receipts, reimbursements, and purchase orders  
• Manage travel schedules and travel logistics for members of the staff  
• Data entry  

Requirements:   

• One to four years of experience providing administrative support, office reception, or related role  
• Excellent organizational skills and meticulous attention to detail  
• Demonstrated ability to work independently in a fast-paced environment, lead projects, meet deadlines, organize time and priorities, and work well as a member of a team  
• Friendly, flexible, confident, and energetic personality with a professional demeanor  
• Proficiency with office software including email, word-processing, and presentation (e.g. Outlook, Word & PowerPoint)  
• Proficiency with spreadsheet software (e.g. Excel), including formulas 
• Familiarity with accounting basics preferred  
• Be legally allowed to drive in the US 

On Hold  (IMPORTANT: describe your previous relevant experience in your application.)

Fundraising Coordinator 

Purpose:  

• Ensure that the organization is well funded to meet current and future financial needs by overseeing and executing the evolving fundraising strategy. 

Responsibilities:  

• Assess organizational funding needs based on current and long-term budgets  
• Recruit, train, and manage a volunteer team to implement fundraising strategies  
• Build and implement fundraising strategies that support significant growth  
• Design and deliver reports that engage and inform team members on the work and progress of fundraising initiatives  
• Lead team to implement the fundraising strategies, which include:  
  • member donation drives  
  • large gifts from individuals  
  • grants from foundations and individuals  
  • public events  
  • corporate sponsorships  
  • merchandising  
  • etc... 
• Create specific goals for each fundraising initiative including revenue targets within a specific time-frame  
• Write persuasive materials including solicitations, proposals, applications and website content  
• Create and maintain database of potential funds sources  
• Create a grant application template as a starting point for all grant applications  
• Evaluate cost-effectiveness, profitability, and community impact of fundraising initiatives    
• Develop donor communications strategy  
• Develop donor recognition and incentives programs  
• Write policy and project specification documents  

Requirements: 

• Minimum of 3 years direct fundraising experience with demonstrated success  
• Experience recruiting, training, and managing volunteers  
• Strong communication skills including ability to write and speak persuasively  
• Direct experience writing grant applications  
• Direct experience speaking with individuals from funding sources  
• Direct experience interacting with senior level business executives and civic community leaders  
• Experience designing and implementing comprehensive fundraising strategies  
• Experience raising funds specifically for community based non-profits and/or charities  
• Knowledge of government funding and capital campaigns is a plus  

On Hold  (IMPORTANT: describe your previous relevant experience in your application.)

Quantitative Research Analyst

Purpose:  

• Lead CouchSurfing's inter-cultural and behavioral research mission by designing, conducting, and analyzing quantitative data.  Allow CouchSurfers to share their experiences in bridging cultural and ideological differences with scientific and academic communities.  Clearly communicate and present research findings to non-experts and make recommendations based on the findings.  Please note, those interested in marketing and user-experience research, should apply for the marketing team. 

Responsibilities: 

• Initiation and coordination of all research projects  
• Designing and conducting quantitative and qualitative research projects 
• Recruiting and coordinating an exemplary volunteer research team  
• Creating online surveys and other research tools  
• Liaise with the CS Marketing Team 

Requirements: 

• 3+ years experience in initiating, leading, and completing quantitative research projects  
• Expert knowledge of basic research principles and methodologies  
• Effective managerial and coordination skills, and ability teach and coach team members  
• Proficiency in the use of statistics  
• Ability to explain things in ways that can be easily understood
  
• Ability to stay unbiased  
• Experience writing MySQL database queries a plus
  
• Background in the behavioral sciences (e.g. cognitive/behavioral/social psychology, anthropology) a plus
  

On Hold  (IMPORTANT: describe your previous relevant experience in your application.)

System Administrator  

Responsibilities:    

• Support in the design of back-end systems that are scalable to the future needs of our users  
• Respond to emergency downtime  
• Setup, configure, manage, and maintain servers (web, database, smtp, load balancers, backup)  
• Actively document systems in the tech wiki  
• Automate repetitive sysadmin and developer tasks  
• Recommend and establish policies for systems and services  
• Maintain up to date backups (database and others)  
• Manage Unix user accounts  
• Keep server systems secure  
• Troubleshoot and fix sysadmin related bugs 
  

Requirements:   

• Expert knowledge of Unix/Linux, MySQL, Apache, and PHP
  
• Good experience administrating 10+ servers 
• Knowledge of configuration management systems 

On Hold  (IMPORTANT: describe your previous relevant experience in your application.)

Web Designer

Purpose: 

•  The CS User Interface & Design team is looking to add a web designer with the following skill set:

Responsibilities:    

• Digital imaging and illustration with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Fireworks with formal training an asset.
• JavaScript, CSS, dynamic HTML programming.
  
• Cross-browser and cross-platform issue resolution (IE, Firefox, Safari, etc.)

Requirements:  

• Superior knowledge of current web-design trends and techniques.
• A strong online portfolio displaying user-centered design.

Web Developer  

Purpose: 

• Turns ideas into reality by translating user wish-lists into logical requirements, then translating those requirements into online tools and systems. 

Responsibilities:   

• Debug, optimize, and update existing PHP code  
• Architect and develop new PHP code  
• Administer programs, code, code libraries, routines, & instruction sets  
• Create code documentation  
• Design tools and systems based on user requirements documents
  

Requirements:   

• Extensive experience architecting entire applications  
• 2-5 years experience developing in PHP  
• familiarity with MySQL  
• team-player attitude  
• love of coding - no project is too boring 

On Hold  (IMPORTANT: describe your previous relevant experience in your application.)

Writer

Purpose:

• As a member of the Communications team, this role involves assisting the strategic development for CouchSurfing's written content, research, writing and editing site content and managing remote volunteer teams

Responsibilities:  (and what an average day will look like)  

• Working on news articles: researching and writing, tracking down story ideas on the site, contacting the members who are involved, conducting interviews, finding photos, fact-checking, sending follow-ups, etc, and writing/editing/proofing the piece of news
• Manage, coach, inspire and build remote team of volunteers that include news channels authors, newsletter editors and site copy assistants
• Creating assignments for remote volunteers, outlining objectives and time-lines
  
• Building and directing the country newsletters project
• Liaise with technical team about site issues and translating these issues so that site users are informed

Requirements:

• Demonstrated organizational and practical skills
• Experience writing/editing (1-2 years experience in professional writing, preferably website copy or advertising)
• Experience in leading people (preferably volunteers)
• Understanding of technical language and ability to translate it to others
  
• HTML/CSS programming a plus
  

 
Please Note:  As the remote team member roles are not selected as frequently as the on-site roles, it is imperative that those interested in remote volunteerism join the Remote Volunteer Information sub-group of the CouchSurfing Volunteering Information page after filling out their application.  By subscribing to the instant updates of this group, they will be informed of the specific needs for remote volunteers as the need arises within functional groups.  The following teams have openings for skilled team members who wish to participate from home in their spare time: 

• Events & Outreach  
• Fundraising  
• Member Communications  
• Project Management  
• Public Relations  
• Research
• MySQL Query/Data Extractor
• User Interface 
• Tech Developers
• Web Designers  
• Tech System Administrators
  

Apply Now  (IMPORTANT: describe your previous relevant experience in your application.)