Unpaid internships at NGO as Volunteering?

Question

Can unpaid Internships at Non-Profit organizations/ Social Enterprise be listed as Volunteer Experience for MBA application?

Hi, i am in process of submitting my MBA application to a B-School in North America. I don’t have any impactful volunteer experience but i have worked as an unpaid intern for an NGO/NPO/Social Enterprise. My job was of a project specialist where i worked on a small project, raised some funding for the organization and submitted applications for international conferences. I was wondering if instead of listing this experience as internship can i list it as volunteering?

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MBAPrepCoach · Answer

Yes absolutely! If you feel it would benefit you more to put it in that bucket thats fine. Make sure to have a "community leadership" or contribution section in your CV - or just something to spotlight this a bit. Ask ppl there how that funding was used, what good it created - and specify that impact/result - try to get as much mileage as possible out of it. 
Farrell

MBADecoder · Answer

I will agree with Farrell. you can show this experience as volunteering work. Remember to show how your work helped achieve some milestones/ impact - how much funding your raised, how it helped and if possible, quantify that impact. If you have done smaller projects since this internship, even if they were not as impactful, then you should leverage them to show that you have continually engaged in social service as time permitted. All the best to you! Namita Garg, Founder, MBA Decoder Email: contact@mbadecoder.com Reach out to us for a Profile Evaluation Helping applicants achieve their MBA dreams since 2011

QQum · Answer

Yes, even unpaid volunteer experience would count as volunteer experience. Any experience is relevant as adds to your experience, but obviously, paid experience would have more weight.

MBAPrepCoach · Answer

I see this a bit differently. I think it has more impact being unpaid. I always recommend that people take part in community related extracurriculars because the MBA program is a community and they want to know that you are going to be engaged and motivated in their community, without necessarily being paid.

ExpertsGlobal · Answer

Hello  singhmanp ,

Hope this finds you well.

Yes, you can definitely showcase the unpaid internship as volunteering experience.

All the best!

Unpaid internships at NGO as Volunteering?

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