How to add volunteer experience to LinkedIn: the short answer
Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage, then View Profile. Click Add profile section in your introduction section, open the Additional dropdown and click Volunteer experience. Fill in the fields in the pop-up window and click Save.
LinkedIn Help lists Volunteer experience under Additional, in the same group as Organizations and Causes. The mobile steps are the same, with Add section instead of Add profile section, and a tap instead of a click.
That is the mechanical part, and it takes two minutes. The part that decides whether the entry does anything for you is which section you put the role in, and what you write in the description. Both are covered below.
LinkedIn has published survey figures about how hiring managers value volunteer work. Those numbers are old, they were measured by LinkedIn on its own members, and they are not quoted on this page. Add the section because it is true and useful, not because of a percentage.
Volunteer experience section or Experience section?
LinkedIn gives you two places for unpaid work, and they behave differently. The dedicated Volunteer experience section sits under Additional. The Experience section is the main career block near the top of your profile.
LinkedIn Help is explicit that unpaid roles can belong in Experience. It says associations with organizations there must be accurately labeled and must reflect professional experience with the named organization, such as employment, contract work, official internship or volunteer experience, board service, among others.
It also rules out the opposite case: informal or non-professional associations, such as being a customer or a user of an organization's products, should not be listed in Experience.
| Type of role | Where it fits | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Board member or trustee | Experience, and optionally Volunteer experience | LinkedIn Help names board service as professional experience |
| Ongoing skilled role, for example running a nonprofit's outreach | Experience | It is real work with a real title, and it fills a gap in your timeline |
| Recurring volunteering with a cause you support | Volunteer experience | It shows values without competing with your job history |
| A one-day company volunteering event | Neither, or a post | An entry implies an ongoing association |
| Mentoring through a program you joined | Volunteer experience | It is a commitment, not a job title |
What counts as volunteer experience on LinkedIn
LinkedIn does not publish a list of approved volunteer roles. The rule it does publish is about honesty: the association has to be real, and it has to be labeled accurately. Use that as your filter.
- Named role, real organization. You held a role at an organization that exists and could confirm it.
- Unpaid or below market rate. Pro bono work and discounted work for a nonprofit both belong here.
- Something you did, not something you liked. Donating, following a Page or attending a fundraiser is not a volunteer role.
- A period, not a moment. Dates you can defend, even if the work was a few hours a month.
- Your own work, not the team's. Describe what you did inside a group effort.
How to add volunteer experience on desktop
These steps follow the LinkedIn Help article on adding sections to your profile, plus the instructions LinkedIn for Nonprofits publishes for volunteers. If a button moves, look for the labels used here: Add profile section, Additional, Volunteer experience.
Open your profile
Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage, then click View Profile.
Open Add profile section
Click Add profile section in your introduction section, then click the Additional dropdown.
Click Volunteer experience
LinkedIn Help lists Volunteer experience under Additional, alongside Organizations, Causes, Publications, Honors and awards and Languages.
Start typing the organization
Start typing the name under Organization and select it from the options LinkedIn suggests, rather than leaving it as free text.
Fill in the role and the details
Enter your role, the dates, and a few details about your duties and the impact the role had, as LinkedIn for Nonprofits instructs volunteers to do.
Save, then read it as a stranger
Click Save, open your own profile, and read the entry the way a prospect who never met you would read it.
If you want the role in the main career block instead, use the Experience section: click the Add icon at the top of it, enter your information and click Save. That is the path LinkedIn Help documents for every position, paid or not.
How to add volunteer experience in the mobile app
The mobile path is the same, with taps. LinkedIn Help documents it as: tap your profile picture, tap your profile photo again to reach your profile, tap Add section in your introduction section, tap the section and its subsection, enter the information and tap Save.
For a role you are putting in Experience instead, LinkedIn Help gives a separate mobile path: tap your profile photo twice, tap Add section, then under Core tap Add position, fill in the Add experience window and tap Save.
One warning from LinkedIn Help that catches people out on phones: not all sections are editable in a mobile browser. The editable list it publishes covers photo, name, headline, location, summary, experience, education, skills, accomplishments and contact. If the section will not open, use the app or a desktop browser.
The fields in a volunteer entry, and what LinkedIn documents
LinkedIn Help does not walk through the volunteer form field by field. It says to enter the required information in the pop-up window. LinkedIn for Nonprofits is more specific, and the table below separates what LinkedIn itself documents from what you decide.
| Field | What LinkedIn says | How to fill it |
|---|---|---|
| Organization | Start typing the name and select it from the suggestions | Pick the suggestion so the logo and the link to the Page appear |
| Role | Listed as required or suggested information | Use the title the organization actually uses, not an invented one |
| Dates | Part of the information you fill in | Real start and end dates; leave the end open only if you are still active |
| Description | A few details about your duties and the impact your role had | Three or four short lines, written for someone outside the cause |
| Cause | Not documented field by field in LinkedIn Help | If your form offers it, choose the one closest to the work |
The organization field is the one worth slowing down for. LinkedIn for Nonprofits says that once a volunteer adds the experience, the organization's name and logo appear on their profile, together with a link to that organization's LinkedIn Page.
Causes you care about, Organizations and the Causes section
When LinkedIn launched this part of the profile in 2011, it was one field called Volunteer Experience and Causes. LinkedIn's own announcement said members could add volunteer positions, causes they care about, and organizations they support.
Today those live apart. The Additional dropdown that LinkedIn Help documents contains Volunteer experience, Organizations and Causes as three separate entries, so you can list a role, a membership and a cause without mixing them.
- Volunteer experience: a role you held, with an organization, dates and a description.
- Organizations: bodies you belong to, such as an industry association or an alumni group.
- Causes: the causes you care about, with no role attached and nothing to verify.
Causes cost nothing to add and prove nothing on their own. Treat them as context for the roles above them, not as a substitute. If a cause appears with no matching role anywhere on your profile, it reads as a preference rather than a commitment.
Open to Volunteering: the setting that makes you findable
Separate from the section, LinkedIn has a setting that tells nonprofits you are available. LinkedIn Help calls it Open to Volunteering, and turning it on makes you discoverable through People search, where other members can find people available for volunteering.
The path on desktop is: Me icon, View Profile, the Open to button below your profile picture, then Finding volunteer opportunities. LinkedIn Help says you then set areas of interest, the skills you want to offer, whether you want on-site, hybrid or remote work, and your preferred locations.
There is a toggle for email about matching opportunities, and a Save button. To change or remove it later, click the Edit icon in the Open to volunteer for these causes box below your profile picture, then edit the preferences or click Delete.
Open to Volunteering puts you in a search other people run. If you are not ready to answer messages from nonprofits, add the section, skip the setting, and turn it on when you actually have time.
What to write in the description
LinkedIn for Nonprofits tells volunteers to add a few details about their duties and the impact their role had. That is the whole brief, and most people manage the duties and skip the impact.
- Open with the work, not the feeling. One line on what you actually did, in plain words a stranger understands.
- Say who it served. Students, patients, small business owners, new arrivals to a city: name the group.
- Give one outcome you can back up. Something the organization would repeat if a prospect called them.
- Name the skills the role used. The same words you use in your LinkedIn skills list, so the profile is consistent.
- Keep it short. Three or four lines. This is a supporting section, not a second resume.
Do not invent a number. Volunteer entries are the easiest thing on a profile to check, because the organization is small, the people are reachable and the work was public. If you did not count it, describe it instead.
LinkedIn volunteer experience examples, written for this page
The three examples below were written for this page. They are not real people or real organizations, and the parts in braces are placeholders you replace. Each example shows the shape of a relevant description, not wording to copy word for word.
Read them as a pattern: a title a stranger understands, the work in plain words, one outcome, and no adjective doing a number's job. That pattern is what makes a short entry stand up next to paid roles.
| Entry | Description | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Board member, {{nonprofit}} Volunteer experience and Experience | Serve on the board of a {{cause}} nonprofit with {{numberOfStaff}} staff. Chair the fundraising committee. Review the quarterly budget and brief the board on donor pipeline. | A named role with real duties, and the same title appears in Experience where job title filters read it |
| Mentor, {{program}} Volunteer experience | Mentor {{whoYouMentor}} through a {{lengthOfProgram}} program. Two calls a month on {{topic}}. Wrote the interview prep guide the program now sends to every new participant. | One concrete artifact instead of an adjective, and no number that cannot be checked |
| Pro bono advisor, {{charity}} Volunteer experience | Rebuilt the outreach process for a {{cause}} charity: one list, one sequence, one owner. Trained {{teamName}} to run it without me. Still answer questions once a quarter. | Shows the seller's actual craft applied somewhere other than a quota |
Board membership: treat it as experience, not a hobby
Board membership is the case where the section choice matters most. LinkedIn Help names board service in the same sentence as employment and contract work when it describes what belongs in the Experience section.
Putting a board seat only in Volunteer experience buries it below Skills and Education on most profiles. Putting it in Experience places it in the block people read first, and it keeps your timeline honest if the seat overlaps a gap between jobs.
A board seat is also the clearest leadership signal most people have that is not a promotion. Include what the role actually involved, for example chairing a committee or owning a budget, rather than the word board on its own.
Two details from LinkedIn Help are worth knowing before you add it. Positions at the same organization are grouped automatically when a new position starts within one month of the previous one ending, which keeps a progression from committee member to chair together.
And the employment types LinkedIn documents for a position are Contract, Self-employed, Part-time, Full-time, Internship, Apprenticeship and Freelance, with extra options in nine countries. There is no volunteer type in that published list, so the word volunteer has to live in the title or the description.
Pro bono work when selling is your day job
Pro bono work is the strongest thing a salesperson can put in this section, because it is your craft, given away. Running outreach for a food bank is the same skill as running outreach for a territory, minus the commission.
It is also the entry most likely to be written badly. People either undersell it as helping out, or oversell it with results the charity never measured. Describe the process you built and who now owns it.
If the work was genuinely commercial, at a reduced rate rather than free, say so. LinkedIn Help's rule is accurate labeling, and discounted client work described as volunteering is not accurate.
How a sales or business development person should use the section
A buyer reading your profile before a call sees that the process you are selling is one you have run for free, for people with no budget.
Shared causes come up in first calls. An entry on your profile lets the other person raise it, which is better than you raising theirs.
Event planning, fundraising, teaching, translation: skills a quota-carrying title hides, sitting in a section that search can read.
Between roles, an active volunteer entry with current dates shows what you were doing, without stretching a job history.
One rule keeps this on the right side of the line. Volunteer work is not a tactic for sourcing leads. Use it on your own profile, where people find it, and leave it out of the opening line of a cold message. Our guide to LinkedIn prospecting covers openers that work without borrowing someone's charity.
The personal side of a profile is not decoration for a seller. It is the part a buyer reads when they are deciding whether to take the call, and it is the part that does not change when you change employers.
It also gives LinkedIn networking something to start from. People who share a cause introduce each other without being asked, which is the only kind of introduction worth having.
The section also rewards the rest of a well-built profile. If you have not done the basics yet, start with how to create a LinkedIn profile, then a headline that says who you help, then this.
Reordering and deleting entries
Reordering
LinkedIn does not let you drag volunteer entries into any order you like. Its help article on skill order states plainly that you can only reorder the Education and Skills sections on your profile.
The one other exception LinkedIn documents is current positions in Experience. You can reorder positions that have no end date, the Sort icon only appears if you have two or more current positions, and past experience is organized chronologically and cannot be reordered.
So the practical lever for volunteer entries is dates. An entry with no end date sits with your current work. If two roles overlap and the wrong one is on top, check that the dates on each are right before you go looking for a setting that does not exist.
Deleting
For a role you added to Experience, LinkedIn Help gives the path: View Profile, scroll to Experience, Show all experiences, click the Edit icon next to the position, click Delete experience, then Delete. On mobile, tap the Edit icon twice, then Delete experience and Delete.
For an entry in the Volunteer experience section, open the section with its Edit icon and use the same edit and delete controls. To remove the Open to Volunteering box instead, LinkedIn Help says to open the preferences from the box below your profile picture and click Delete.
Do recruiters see volunteer experience on LinkedIn?
Anyone who opens your profile sees the section, and LinkedIn Help confirms that profile viewers see your edits as soon as you save them, whether or not you chose to notify your network. Search is a different question, and the answer depends on the filter.
| Recruiter filter | What LinkedIn Help says it reads | What that means for your entry |
|---|---|---|
| Keywords | Pulls data from the member's profile page | A volunteer entry can match, though LinkedIn Help warns the term may not be highlighted on the profile |
| Job titles | Job titles a member adds in the Experience section | A volunteer or board title counts here only if the role is in Experience |
| Seniority | Derived from job titles, with levels including Entry, Senior, Owner, Director and Volunteer | Your title wording, not the section, decides the level |
| Skills | The Skills section, plus keywords in relevant sections where skills are likely | Add the skills the role used to your Skills section too |
| Schools | The Education section | A university volunteer role does not reach this filter |
The pattern is consistent: structured filters read structured sections. The Volunteer experience section is reachable by free-text search and by human eyes, while the filters that narrow a candidate list read Experience, Skills and Education.
That is the whole argument for putting a serious unpaid role in Experience and keeping the rest in the volunteer section.
Who else sees it: public profile and notifications
Signed-out visitors and search engines see less. LinkedIn Help says your public profile is a simplified version of your LinkedIn profile, that not all sections can be displayed publicly, and that the Public profile settings page shows which of your sections are eligible to appear.
It also warns that after you change public profile settings, search tools such as Google or Bing can take weeks or months to reflect the change, and that LinkedIn does not control when they refresh. Check the settings page while signed in rather than guessing from a private window.
On notifications, LinkedIn Help is clear that even with sharing enabled, some types of profile edits do not generate a notification to your network, and that the settings cover job changes, promotions, education changes and work anniversaries. Do not count on a new volunteer entry announcing itself.
If you want people to know, post about it. LinkedIn for Nonprofits suggests prompts organizations can give volunteers, such as what inspired you to volunteer and how you applied your skills, and asks volunteers to tag the nonprofit's Page.
Skills, keywords and the rest of the profile
A volunteer entry works hardest when the rest of the profile agrees with it. LinkedIn Help notes that you can add different skills to each position in the Experience section, and that those skills also appear under Skills.
So a board seat added to Experience can carry the skills it actually used, and they land in the section that the Skills filter reads. Our guide on LinkedIn skills covers how to choose them and how the order works.
The same words should appear in your About section and your headline, which is the practical core of LinkedIn SEO. If you also run a LinkedIn group or host LinkedIn Events for the cause, those belong in the description of the role that produced them.
A checklist before you hit Save
Volunteer experience on your resume and your profile
Most people update the resume and forget the profile, or the reverse. Keep both saying the same thing: the same organization, the same title, the same dates, and the same one or two lines about what changed.
A resume goes to one reader for one paid role, so one relevant volunteer line is often enough. A LinkedIn profile is a page anyone can open, which is why adding the full entry there is worth the extra step.
The profile also has room the resume does not: a short description, the skills the role used, and a link to the organization's Page. Include the detail there, keep the resume line tight, and put your custom profile URL on the resume so the two connect.
If your goal is a job rather than pipeline, the same principle holds. A volunteer entry does not make you stand out on its own. A specific one, next to a matching skill and a professional headline, does.
Common mistakes
- Putting a board seat in the volunteer section, where job title filters never look.
- Typing the organization name as free text, so no logo and no link to its Page appear.
- Inventing a number for the description because impact sounded like it needed one.
- Listing causes with no matching role anywhere on the profile.
- Describing discounted client work as volunteering, which breaks the accurate labeling rule.
- Turning on Open to Volunteering with no time to answer the nonprofits that write.
- Opening a cold message with the prospect's charity, which reads as research, not interest.
- Leaving a role marked current years after it ended, which quietly dates the whole profile.
The description block to copy
The block below is a shape, not a script. Replace every placeholder, delete any line you cannot defend, and keep the result to three or four lines. It was written for this page.
Role: {{roleTitle}} at {{organization}}, {{startMonth}} {{startYear}} to {{endMonth}} {{endYear}} What I do: {{oneLineOnTheWork}} for {{whoItServes}}. What changed: {{outcomeYouCanBackUp}}, and {{whoOwnsItNow}} runs it now. Skills used: {{skillOne}}, {{skillTwo}}, {{skillThree}}
The outcome line is a number you never measured, or a claim the organization would not repeat.
Volunteer entries are the easiest thing on a profile to check, because the group is small and the people are reachable. Write only what your contact there would confirm on a call.
Frequently asked questions
How to add volunteer experience to LinkedIn?
Click the Me icon, then View Profile. Click Add profile section in your introduction section, open the Additional dropdown and click Volunteer experience. Start typing the organization and pick it from the suggestions, add your role, dates and description, then click Save.
Where is the volunteer experience section on LinkedIn?
It is not on the profile until you add it. LinkedIn Help lists Volunteer experience under the Additional group in Add profile section, next to Organizations, Causes, Publications, Honors and awards and Languages. Once saved, it appears below your main sections.
How do I add volunteer experience to LinkedIn on my phone?
Tap your profile picture, tap your profile photo again to open your profile, then tap Add section in your introduction section. Tap the section and its subsection, enter the information and tap Save. Some sections cannot be edited in a mobile browser, so use the app.
Should I put volunteer work in the Experience section instead?
For a real role with a title, yes. LinkedIn Help says Experience associations must be accurately labeled and may include volunteer experience and board service. Experience is also what the job title and seniority filters read, so a serious role belongs there.
How do I add board membership to LinkedIn?
Add it as a position in the Experience section, using the title the organization uses. LinkedIn Help names board service as professional experience. You can also add a matching entry in Volunteer experience, but the Experience entry is the one filters and readers find first.
What should I write in the LinkedIn volunteer description?
LinkedIn for Nonprofits says to add a few details about your duties and the impact your role had. In practice: one line on the work, one on who it served, one outcome you can back up, and the skills the role used.
How do I add causes you care about on LinkedIn?
Causes is its own entry in the Additional dropdown, separate from Volunteer experience and Organizations. You can also set areas of interest inside Open to Volunteering. Causes carry no role and nothing to verify, so pair them with a volunteer entry that shows the work.
What is Open to Volunteering on LinkedIn?
A setting, not a profile section. LinkedIn Help says it makes you discoverable through People search for members looking for volunteers. You set areas of interest, skills you can offer, on-site, hybrid or remote preference, locations, and whether LinkedIn emails you matches.
How do I reorder volunteer experience on LinkedIn?
You cannot drag volunteer entries. LinkedIn Help says only the Education and Skills sections can be reordered, plus current positions in Experience, which need two or more roles with no end date. Volunteer entries sort by date, so fix the dates instead.
How do I delete volunteer experience on LinkedIn?
Open the section with its Edit icon, click the Edit icon next to the entry, then Delete experience, then Delete. LinkedIn Help documents the same path for positions in Experience: View Profile, Show all experiences, Edit icon, Delete experience, Delete.
Do recruiters see volunteer experience on LinkedIn?
Anyone who opens your profile sees it. In Recruiter, the Keywords filter pulls data from the whole profile page, but the Job titles filter reads titles added in the Experience section, and Seniority is derived from those titles. Structured filters read structured sections.
Is volunteer experience visible on my public LinkedIn profile?
Not necessarily. LinkedIn Help says your public profile is a simplified version of your profile and that not all sections can be displayed publicly. The Public profile settings page shows which of your sections are eligible, so check it there while signed in.
Does adding volunteer experience notify my network?
Do not count on it. LinkedIn Help says some types of profile edits generate no notification even with sharing enabled, and the settings it lists cover job changes, promotions, education changes and work anniversaries. Anyone viewing your profile sees the edit as soon as you save.
Should I add pro bono work to LinkedIn?
Yes, if it was unpaid and the organization would confirm it. Describe the process you built and who owns it now. If the work was discounted client work rather than free, say that instead: LinkedIn Help's rule is accurate labeling.
- LinkedIn Help, Add sections to your profile, for the Additional dropdown containing Volunteer experience, Organizations and Causes, and the desktop and mobile steps, checked Sep 23, 2026.
- LinkedIn Help, Manage your profile Experience section, for the rule that Experience associations must be accurately labeled and may include volunteer experience and board service, the add, edit and delete steps, and skills per position, checked Sep 23, 2026.
- LinkedIn for Nonprofits, Ask Every Volunteer to Do These 3 Things on LinkedIn, for the Add volunteer experience steps, the Organization typeahead, the duties and impact guidance and the logo and Page link, checked Sep 23, 2026.
- LinkedIn Help, Find volunteering opportunities on LinkedIn, for Open to Volunteering, areas of interest, skills, locations, People search discoverability and how to edit or delete it, checked Sep 23, 2026.
- LinkedIn Help, Display Order of Skills, for the statement that only the Education and Skills sections can be reordered, checked Sep 23, 2026.
- LinkedIn Help, Reorder your current positions in the Experience section of your profile, for current positions only, the Sort icon and chronological past experience, checked Sep 23, 2026.
- LinkedIn Help, Position grouping in your profile's experience section, for the one month grouping rule at the same organization, checked Sep 23, 2026.
- LinkedIn Help, Country specific employment types, for the published list of employment types and the nine countries with extra options, checked Sep 23, 2026.
- LinkedIn Help, Edit your profile, for the sections that can be edited in a mobile browser, checked Sep 23, 2026.
- LinkedIn Help, Share profile updates with your network, for which edits generate notifications and the fact that viewers see edits as soon as they are saved, checked Sep 23, 2026.
- LinkedIn Help, LinkedIn public profile visibility, for the public profile being a simplified version and the search engine refresh warning, checked Sep 23, 2026.
- LinkedIn Recruiter Help, Recruiter and Recruiter Lite search filters and definitions, for what the Keywords, Job titles, Seniority, Skills and Schools filters read, checked Sep 23, 2026.
- LinkedIn Pressroom, LinkedIn Adds Volunteer Experience and Causes Field to Profile, for the original field name and the three things it held, checked Sep 23, 2026.
- The three example entries, the checklist and the description template were written for this page. No survey figures, conversion rates or hiring statistics are quoted.