Earn Money and Give Back to Your Community With These 5 Unique Opportunities

You can do more good than you know without leaving your hometown.

And you can get paid for it, too. These five unique opportunities are living proof that fulfilling, potentially lucrative careers aren’t incompatible with doing good in the world. Which opportunity most calls your name?

1. Animal Shelter

Love animals? Becoming a veterinarian is a long, lonely road, even if the destination is well worth the journey. If you’re simply not ready to put yourself through all that, consider a role that doesn’t require quite as much education: working at an animal shelter.

Much day-to-day shelter work is done by volunteers or part-timers, but most shelters have at least a handful of full-time staffers to oversee operations. Over time, your work ethic and love for animals may well propel you into the shelter manager’s chair. You won’t get rich in this role, but that’s probably not your primary goal.

2. Fundraising Distributor

If you’re looking for a scalable opportunity to which you can devote as much or as little time as you wish, consider working as a fundraising distributor. Fundraising distributors sell fundraising products that help raise money for worthy causes, such as local charities, extracurricular organizations, and school sports teams. According to the experts at ABC Fundraising, fundraising distributors working full-time can earn up to $5,000 or more per month.

3. Secondary and University Tutor

Have a skill worth sharing? Confident in your ability to relate information in easy-to-understand modules? You’d probably do well as a tutor.

Depending on your preference and subject matter expertise, you’ll find ample opportunity to tutor secondary school or university students (or both, if you have the time and talents). If you’d prefer to do this work from the comfort of your home, opt for a remote tutoring service like Chegg.

4. Shelter Chef

Know your way around the kitchen? Yearning to help the least fortunate among us? Consider taking a role as a shelter chef, wherein you’ll prepare and serve hearty meals for your housing-insecure neighbors. Shelter chefs are full- or part-time employees who work extensively with volunteers, so there’s a good chance this opportunity will lead to higher-profile managerial work down the line.

5. Special Education Teacher or Aide

Special education teachers and aides are always in high demand. While becoming one isn’t a cakewalk, it’s well within the reach of ambitious professionals who want to arrive home when the day is done feeling like they’ve actually done something worthwhile with their time.

How Do You Give Back in Your 9-to-5?

You don’t have to have a job that revolves around giving back to do good every day. In fact, no matter what you do for a living, you can resolve to use whatever power you have to make the world a better place — whatever that means to you.

On the other hand, even truly generous souls face constraints on their efforts to help others. If you’ve determined that you’ve reached the natural limit of your ability to spread good karma in your current role, perhaps it’s time for a change. When you’re ready to make that change once and for all, you know where to begin.