Volunteering or Leadership or Social Justice/Advocacy Classification

[thebadge]

Hey all,

I have had extended experience as the president/team coordinator of an advocacy organization on campus. It's part of a global network that fundraises and meets with legislators to lobby for global health spending bills. I've done a lot of active work for the club, so it doesn't feel right to just put it as a leadership experience. Would this fit volunteering or social justice?

Thanks!

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[LizzyM]

If you have been leading peers toward a common goal, it sounds like "leadership" which is a good category (not essential but valuable and highly regarded). I'd shy away from "volunteering" as a category if the volunteer service was fundraising and lobbying. That feels more like advocacy if you needed to put a name on it but if you have to pick one, given your role, I'd go with "leadership".

 

[thebadge]

If you have been leading peers toward a common goal, it sounds like "leadership" which is a good category (not essential but valuable and highly regarded). I'd shy away from "volunteering" as a category if the volunteer service was fundraising and lobbying. That feels more like advocacy if you needed to put a name on it but if you have to pick one, given your role, I'd go with "leadership".

Thanks! I just thought it might be more beneficial to my application since I have less volunteer hours, but I don't want to be misleading representing my work. Thanks again 🙂

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Carve out the hours you actually met legislators or politicians. To me that amount would go as advocacy. Just make things clear about what you did in this leadership role, and the adcoms can assign a fraction at their discretion unless you explicitly state the number of hours.

 

[LizzyM]

Carve out the hours you actually met legislators or politicians. To me that amount would go as advocacy. Just make things clear about what you did in this leadership role, and the adcoms can assign a fraction at their discretion unless you explicitly state the number of hours.

My one concern with this approach is that something like lobbying can be just a few hours per year (i.e. "Hill Day" with a national organization) meaning that although it was a formative experience for the applicant, it is well below the "50 hour minimum" to be worthy of an adcom's attention. (I myself don't have a 50 hour rule but I've heard others here do).

 

[Mr.Smile12]

My one concern with this approach is that something like lobbying can be just a few hours per year (i.e. "Hill Day" with a national organization) meaning that although it was a formative experience for the applicant, it is well below the "50 hour minimum" to be worthy of an adcom's attention. (I myself don't have a 50 hour rule but I've heard others here do).

I think when the COA powers decided to (finally) add that category, I infer the intention was to acknowledge collective action, especially post-BLM. To me, there are still some fuzzy areas when it comes to social media-facilitated advocacy. Heck, we have undergrad researchers on the hill days too (Council for Undergraduate Research) and I would prefer that it count differently from a typical conference presentation (given the audience).

Granted, the current climate is one where I think people will be afraid to identify any of these activities now. You want to list Amnesty International (which is benign relative to other organizations IMO)???