Volunteer Opportunities
Our amazing volunteers are an essential facet of CIC and our services. They bring a wealth of small business experience and professional expertise. Volunteers include entrepreneurs, Entrepreneur Workshop graduates, educators, consultants, community members, and more.
Interested in joining CIC as a Volunteer and helping us fulfill our mission? Check out the menu below to learn more about our volunteer opportunities. Ready to get started? Fill out our Volunteer Interest Form and the CIC Operations Coordinator, Sarah Gibbons, will contact you for an Interest Meeting. We look forward to working with you!
Entrepreneur Workshop Group Leader
Description: Workgroup Leaders guide weekly workgroups, helping entrepreneurs develop and refine their business plans. They build close relationships with 7-9 entrepreneurs and provide ongoing support and feedback.
How It Helps: You will help entrepreneurs take their business to the next level by offering consistent support to our Entrepreneur Workshop students as they test the viability of their business or business idea and learn the fundamentals of running a small business.
Time Commitment: 🕰️🕰️🕰️ / 🕰️🕰️🕰️
Tuesday nights, 6 – 9 PM for 16 weeks, plus 1-2 hours of homework review & feedback per week, potential meetings or conversations with the entrepreneurs.
Program Link: Entrepreneur Workshop
Entrepreneur Workshop Discussion Lead Volunteer
Description: Discussion Leaders facilitate a one-week session of our 16-week program, sharing their business experience and expertise in topics like marketing, sales, finance, or human resources.
How It Helps: You will be introducing and teaching about an essential building block of running a small business. By presenting the information in an engaging way you pave the way for students to directly apply what you taught to their small businesses.
Time Commitment: 🕰️ / 🕰️🕰️🕰️
1 Tuesday night from 6 – 7:30 PM plus 30-45 minutes of preparation time.
Program Link: Entrepreneur Workshop
Financial Management Program Coach
Description: FMP provides bookkeeping and record-keeping support to startups or growing businesses. Assisting clients with the following: profit & loss on a monthly basis; generating a working cash flow and yearly projections; gaining an understanding of their business break-even; and personal finance & budgeting plans. This is a paid coaching position.
How It Helps: You will offer tools that build responsible personal record keeping habits and support entrepreneurs in making better business decisions.
Time Commitment: 🕰️ 🕰️ 🕰️ / 🕰️ 🕰️ 🕰️
One-on-one meetings with clients are at least twice per month, with up to 20 hrs. of coaching per client.
Program Link: Financial Management Plan
Mentor
Description: Mentors are paired with entrepreneurs who are either currently in our 16-week workshop or have completed it. As a mentor, you will help entrepreneurs address specific business challenges or provide general coaching and support based on their goals.
How It Helps: CIC mentors help entrepreneurs work through specific challenges with their business(es) or provide general coaching and support, based on the entrepreneur’s identified goals.CIC mentors help entrepreneurs work through specific challenges with their business(es) or provide general coaching and support, based on the entrepreneur’s identified goals.
Time Commitment: 🕰️🕰️🕰️ / 🕰️🕰️🕰️
1-2 meetings per month for 6 months.
Program Link: Mentoring
Office Hours Volunteer
Description: Experts offer one-off, virtual consultations to clients in their area of expertise, such as law, accounting, marketing, goal setting, human resources, and insurance. 1:1 meetings between expert and client.
Time Commitment: 🕰️ / 🕰️🕰️🕰️
2-3 hours once per month to 2-3 hours once per quarter.
How It Helps: You will help our entrepreneurs get answers to a specific technical question, get over a particular hurdle, or determine their next step through one-on-one virtual meetings.
Program Link: Office Hours
Resource Fair Volunteer
Description: Similar to Office Hours, but it is a single, multi-hour, tabled-event where a wide variety of volunteers are available to meet w/ clients for 30 min at a time to discuss a particular area of expertise (social media, accounting, ABC licensing etc.). This way it is a one-stop shop for folks who have a lot of specialized questions.
How It Helps: Similar to Office Hours, you will help entrepreneurs get answers to a specific question, get over a particular hurdle or determine their next step through a one-on-one meetings.
Time commitment: 🕰️🕰️ / 🕰️🕰️🕰️
One afternoon, usually 3-4 hours. Four Resource Fairs are held per year (2 in Cville and 2 in Culpeper) and volunteers are welcome to participate in just one or all of them if they would like.
Small Business Circles Volunteer
Description: Small Business Circles (SBC) are facilitated small groups of CIC entrepreneurs that meet on a monthly basis. These circles can be themed and based around a particular type of business (i.e. food-based businesses). SBC offers accountability, goal-setting, structure, and support to CIC entrepreneurs as their businesses grow and change. Small group meetings.
How It Helps: Your leadership and experience create a confidential setting in which peers can discuss and solve real-time problems with real-world experience.
Time Commitment: 🕰️🕰️ / 🕰️🕰️🕰️
Monthly 2-hour meeting for a minimum of six (6) consecutive months.
Program Link: Small Business Circles