Volunteer Opportunities

If you are interested in volunteering, please send us an email at info (at) rewildportland (dot) com. Thank you!

Covid has deeply transformed our organization and we have shut down volunteer opportunities. We will be opening them up in December. Please fill out our form below and we will notify you when opportunities open back up. Thank you!

Rewild Portland is a mostly volunteer-run organization. We are always looking to find more people who want to chip in and make our mission come to life. We’ve grown a lot in the last year and are seeking new and more volunteers! We have a variety of volunteer tasks, and encourage people to help where they feel most inspired. If you are interested, please attend a volunteer orientation. The volunteer orientation is a time to familiarize yourself with our organization and mission, learn about volunteer opportunities for the coming year, and meet other volunteers and the Rewild Portland staff. It’s also a great way to become more involved in the Rewild Portland community. We show our appreciation for regular volunteers by offering free classes specifically for them, as well as inviting them to come along on our member hikes.


Volunteer at our Nursery

Volunteers help us to grow plants for a resilient future. Get outside, get your hands in the dirt, get moving. Gardening is a proven method for reducing anxiety and building community. Feel like you need to get outside and connect with others and with nature, but in a safer setting? Masks are required for work in the nursery, and we limit our group size to 8 people. Learn more about our nursery project and sign up to volunteer on our nursery page here.

Volunteer for a Beach Clean-up

Rewild hosts a beach clean-up four times a year at the Green Anchors river front, extending into the neighboring Port of Portland property’s beach front as well. We usually have 10-20 volunteers at each clean-up. Our focus is on removing both large and small bits of human-made materials (metals, plastics, glass, tires, etc.) mostly brought in by the tides. Garbage is removed, sorted and taken to the Metro waste transfer facility where some of it can be recycled or sent to a landfill. We host a work party four times a year during these months: April, August, October, December. Work parties last 3 hours, from 9am to noon. Sometimes Rewild hosts these with SOLVE, other times it’s just hosted by Rewild. Sign up for an up-coming beach clean up here.

Marketing Internship

Rewild Portland is seeking a Marketing Intern to support our program directors, with an emphasis on digital media and social media marketing projects. We seek an intern who will play an active role in our marketing strategy and implementation. This internship will focus on developing and implementing strategies to maintain and build strong networks with Rewild Portland donors, followers, and others connected to us. The intern will also be responsible for scheduling and prepping newsletters, social media posts, blogs, updating and developing marketing materials, and pursuing other avenues to raise awareness for Rewild Portland programs. Read more about this position and how to apply here.

Teaching, facilitating, and assisting at our monthly Free Skills Series

Our Free Skills Series began with just a few friends hanging out in the park. Now it involves 30–60 people (and even more projected for this coming year) coming to learn more about the month’s topic. The growth of this series is fantastic! It shows that more people are interested in rewilding, more people are hearing about the community of rewilding in Portland, and there are more opportunities for “social capital.” However, with this growth comes the challenge of relating the information in a way that retains quality. Last year Peter taught the ivy basketry Free Skills Series class by himself, with more than 50 people in attendance. That was crazy! Although it worked out, that is not our goal. We are seeking crafters, makers, teachers, and anyone who would love to help us out with our Free Skills Series. We need people who can act as greeters for new folks, assistants to teachers, teachers, and volunteers who can simply facilitate the program with us.

Outreach

We consider outreach to mean educating the public about who we are and what we do. We have four main outreach goals: documentation, tabling, flyering, and social media.

Tabling helps us get the word out about our programs and is also an opportunity for education. Our table is full of examples of the kinds of items that we teach people how to make, acting as a sort of portable “museum” of ancestral technology. While tabling we engage the public, telling people the histories and stories of each item on the table.

Flyering is more of just the marketing aspect of our organization. We want to let people know about our programs. To do this, we put up posters and handbills in strategic locations around the Portland area. With more volunteers, this takes much less time!

Grant writing

We are always seeking professional grant writers to help us research and write grants.

Fundraising campaigns

Each year we run three major fundraising campaigns: a silent auction, a membership drive, and an online fundraiser. We need help putting each of these together. There are many moving parts and each campaign is different and requires a different kind of help.

Silent Auction

This event requires many phone calls and e-mails soliciting donations for the auction. We also seek out musicians to play and a speaker to give a talk on a subject related to rewilding. Helping out at the event is key!

Membership Drive

We are still in the process of reconfiguring how to make this work.

Online Fundraiser

Once a year we produce a video and do a Kickstarter-like fundraiser. While our auction and member drive are driven to bring in local folks, there are many people who want to help us from afar. This online campaign helps us reach a larger audience of support. We need help producing the video and researching places to promote it online.

Web and technical issues

The IT world is very expensive, so any help in this area is greatly appreciated.