In ROAR’s latest podcast episode, we invited Minting and Jianjing to share their experiences working with nonprofit organizations and explore how volunteering can help shape one’s career path and personal values in localization. They talked about what motivates them to volunteer, how to find opportunities while in school, and the lasting impact these experiences can have on both career growth and personal development.
If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, feel free to hit play while reading this recap article—featuring all the key highlights from the episode, along with extra insights that didn’t make it into the final cut due to time constraints.
Highlights from the episode
Finding Purpose Through Small Acts
Jianjing and Minting started volunteering through very different paths. For Minting, it was writing letters to left-behind children in rural China, driven by a love of sharing and empathy. For Jianjing, it started as a resume booster—translating school news during college to prepare for MIIS application. While their motivations differed, both found meaning and interests in volunteering through these early efforts.
From Theory to Practice
Nonprofit volunteering offers a unique space where students can turn academic knowledge into meaningful action. At Translators for Elders, Minting applied what she learned in class—using communication strategies to work with external stakeholders and designing onboarding processes that improved team clarity and alignment.
Own Your Time and Impact
Succeeding in nonprofit work takes more than just good intentions—it requires self-motivation, self-discipline, and a strong sense of purpose. You have to manage your own time and stay aligned with the organization’s goal.
“For volunteer work, there’s no KPI. You have to be self-motivated and self-disciplined. You may not have the same pressure as in school or a real job, but you need to create your own timeline for the volunteering work to remind yourself that you have things to do.”
— Jianjing
Chances Are Out There
By showing up at social events or browsing nonprofit organizations’ websites, TLM students can discover a wide range of opportunities. Industry events like GALA, Unicode, LocWorld, and GDC are great places to network and learn. Many school-led initiatives and nonprofit groups—such as Translation Commons, Women in Localization, and Translators Without Borders—also actively welcome student volunteers.
“I got to know about Translation Commons because I attended the Unicode event.”
— Jianjing
“There’s a website called VolunteerMatch that I used to search for opportunities—that’s actually where I found my role with Translation Commons.”
— Minting
Bonus Insights from the Guests
Some great conversations didn’t make it into the final episode due to time constraints, but they offer valuable insight into how volunteering shapes personal values, career direction, and industry perspective. Here are a few extra insights from our guests:
Q: From your own experience, how has your nonprofit experience helped you better understand what kind of mission, product, or company culture resonates with you? Has it influenced the way you think about the kind of career or workplace you want to be part of?
Jianjing: I’d say that volunteering is a type of work that isn’t driven by money but by personal values. People who volunteer are often motivated by what they believe in. The more you dedicate yourself to volunteer work, the more you recognize and understand the culture and mission of the organization. Through the experience, you also learn more about yourself, such as what kind of team you enjoy being part of, or how you prefer to collaborate with others. In this way, volunteering can serve as a valuable reference when you’re exploring career paths and looking for a job that truly aligns with your values and working style.
Minting: I’d say that my nonprofit localization work exposed me to different types of content, mostly articles, websites, and multimedia. These hands-on experiences really helped me understand what kind of content I enjoy working with and what I don’t and gave me some direction for my future career path.
As for culture fit, I would say that you can only truly feel the vibe of an organization once you’re part of it. That said, working for nonprofits, at any capacity, often means collaborating with a diverse and global group of volunteers and linguists. Cross-cultural communication and a global mindset naturally become a key part of the work. These are skills that are valuable in any localization-related role and what a localization team at any company would definitely look for in an ideal candidate .
I’d also add that the localization industry is quite a close-knit community. Many organizations are run and supported by passionate volunteers who care deeply about the cause: LocLunch, IMUG, and Women in Localization, to name a few. So if you can highlight your volunteer experience and your efforts to support the localization community during interviews, it’s definitely a plus.
Q: How do you see the future of nonprofit localization evolving, especially with AI and machine translation?
Minting: It depends on how the nonprofit organizes localization and translation activities. An existing and well-organized translation or localization team within an organization can make use of technologies that fit within their often limited budget. While the skill sets required for volunteer translators and PMs may shift slightly, I still believe at the core of a successful nonprofit will always be the ability to leverage people’s talents for a good cause.
If an organization doesn’t have in-house translation or localization expertise but still wants to increase its visibility among a global audience, using these technologies would be a smart and efficient approach.
Q: What advice would you give to volunteers who want to transition into paid roles in the industry? How can volunteers showcase their experience in the portfolio and resume?
Minting: Volunteer experience is only valuable when you actually did something or took initiative. This becomes especially clear when you’re sharing your story with an experienced recruiter, something I’ve heard directly from a recruiter. That’s why documenting your work and storytelling is so important.
On your resume, it’s a good idea to highlight your soft skills. You can also take it a step further by writing an article for your e-portfolio or posting your experience on LinkedIn to showcase what you learned and contributed.