Central Oregon Volunteer Connect
Find a place to give your time. This is the regional directory of nonprofits, community groups, and local efforts across Crook, Deschutes, and Jefferson Counties and Warm Springs that are looking for volunteers, donors, and partners right now.
Search by name, browse by cause, or pick a letter. Every listing takes you straight to the organization, so you can get involved on your own terms. No account, no login, no middleman.
More ways to get involved
Catalyze Central OregonA new local effort launching soon to connect residents directly with nonprofits.
Volunteer ConversationsRather talk it through with a person? A Central Oregon group building community around volunteering.
DREAMjamA monthly networking group for nonprofit development, events, and marketing staff.
Looking for the old portal? Here's what happened, and why.
Need to update your organization's listing? Check the field reference guide, then email support@volunteercentraloregon.org.
Featured Organizations
Catalyze Central Oregon
Catalyze Central Oregon makes it simple for residents to discover, support, and engage with local nonprofits — so giving becomes part of everyday life.
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Furnish Hope
Furnish Hope is a Bend-based nonprofit furniture bank working to end furniture poverty in Central Oregon. It collects gently used furniture and household essentials and delivers them to individuals and families moving into stable housing, turning empty houses into furnished homes that foster permanency, comfort, and pride. Its boutique resale store, Furnish Hope & Home, along with home staging and design services, helps fund the mission.
Volunteers drive and co-pilot furniture deliveries, connect with recipients as community liaisons, gather and sort donations at the donation center, staff the Furnish Hope & Home resale store, and help remotely with admin work, events, and fundraising. Regular weekly shifts are offered, many roles don't require heavy lifting, and groups can schedule a team volunteer day.
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Connect Central Oregon
Connect Central Oregon is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that strengthens communities in Crook, Deschutes, and Jefferson counties (plus Warm Springs) by connecting people with volunteer opportunities, board positions, and mentorship. It promotes civic engagement, community leadership, and innovation through platforms like Central Oregon Volunteer Connect.
Volunteers help run CCO's community events, from volunteer and board fairs to robotics and drone expositions, support community media production, and help keep the Volunteer Central Oregon directory accurate by reviewing organization listings. Students and groups are welcome, and CCO can sign off on community service hours.
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Heart of Oregon Corps
Heart of Oregon Corps empowers young people ages 16–24 through jobs, job training, education, and service to Central Oregon communities. Its programs include YouthBuild, where youth build affordable homes while continuing their education, the High Desert and Central Oregon Youth Conservation Corps, Camp LEAD, and Food Heroes. Since 2000, it has served more than 4,750 youth who are disconnected from school and work.
Volunteers can mentor a young person working to build job skills and finish their education, join the Employer Advisory Council to connect Corps members with local employers and careers, or serve on the Board of Directors (two seats are reserved for program alumni, and no prior board experience is needed). General volunteer opportunities are also available through the inquiry form.
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Redmond Area Park And Recreation District
also known as RAPRD; Redmond Parks and Rec; The Hub; Cascade Swim Center
A special district providing aquatic and recreation programs, facilities, parks and trails in the greater Redmond area. RAPRD runs The Hub, its aquatic and recreation center, and offers swim lessons, youth and adult sports leagues, fitness, art and enrichment classes, summer camps and adaptive recreation.
Volunteer coaches are always needed for youth sports leagues; coaches complete a background check, concussion training and a pre-season clinic. Volunteers also support adaptive recreation programs and other youth programs, and roles range from coaching to grant writing. Community members can serve on the district's budget committee. Apply with the district's volunteer application; volunteers under 18 need a parent or guardian signature.
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Tower Theatre Foundation, Inc., The
also known as Tower Theatre
The Tower Theatre is downtown Bend's historic performing arts center, a 460-seat Streamline Moderne landmark whose neon tower has lit up Wall Street since 1940. Saved from closure by the nonprofit Tower Theatre Foundation and fully renovated in 2004, it hosts concerts, theater, dance, film festivals, lectures, and community events, along with its LessonPLAN youth education programs. The Doug Watson Scholarship for Performing Arts honors Doug Watson, the Foundation's longtime board chair and a co-founder of Connect Central Oregon, by helping graduating seniors across Central Oregon pursue the arts in college.
Tower Theatre relies on a large crew of volunteers to keep the venue running. Opportunities include ushering, photography, giving tours, administrative support, hospitality, community liaison work, and helping with special events, with weekly trainings offered.
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SAGE - Senior Advocates for Generational Equity
also known as SAGE
SAGE (Senior Advocates for Generational Equity) helps people over 50 give forward so that younger and future generations can thrive. SAGE members in central Deschutes County volunteer their time and experience with local youth-serving programs and advocate for policies that support children and families.
SAGE offers a range of ways to give forward, including leading or joining discussion groups and workshops, mentoring younger generations, event support, and contributing to special projects. Some opportunities are with SAGE directly, others through partner organizations SAGE promotes in the community.
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Heaven Can Wait 5K is Central Oregon's walk and run for breast cancer awareness, founded in 2000 by breast cancer survivor Charlene Levesque with the Central Oregon Running Klub. Held each fall at Redmond High School, it benefits Sara's Project, the St. Charles Foundation initiative supporting local breast cancer patients, and has raised more than $2 million for education, early detection, and patient support.
Volunteers make race weekend happen, with shifts from Friday through Sunday: bib pickup and registration at FootZone in Bend and in Redmond, Saturday venue setup, and on race day course marshals, water stations, course and finish-line cheerleaders, parking, merchandise, and cleanup. Most shifts run two to three hours, and some roles are open to volunteers as young as 12. Sign up for a shift online.
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Deschutes Women in Business
also known as DWB
A woman+ community founded in 2024 to connect and empower local women to reach their full potential in business. Industry and stage agnostic, it welcomes founders, operators, and leaders through workshops, networking, and large quarterly gatherings like its sold-out 2026 event at Tetherow. Listed as a Central Oregon business resource by EDCO.
Members connect through quarterly gatherings, Learn & Connect workshops, and Move & Connect meetups, and can give back by sharing their expertise as speakers and panelists, mentoring newer founders, hosting events, and helping welcome new members. Open to women founders, operators, and leaders in any industry and at any stage.
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Destination Rehab
Destination Rehab helps adults living with neurological conditions such as stroke, Parkinson's, MS, and brain injury build confidence and independence through skills training, therapy-based programs, and adaptive adventures in the community and outdoors.
Volunteers assist adults with neurologic conditions during community outings and adventure-based activities, working alongside physical therapy staff to help participants build skills, confidence, and independence. No physical therapy background is required, just a willingness to actively support participants.
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BendFilm is a Bend nonprofit, founded in 2003, that celebrates independent cinema's power to enrich lives, amplify diverse voices, and inspire change. It presents the annual Bend Film Festival each October, which brings more than 100 independent and student films, filmmaker Q&As, panels, and parties to venues across town. Year-round, BendFilm owns and operates Tin Pan Theater, the downtown arthouse cinema, and runs Free Movies in the Park, the Basecamp filmmaker program, and youth filmmaking camps and workshops.
Volunteers run nearly every part of the Bend Film Festival, including box office and ticketing, theater and venue operations, guest and filmmaker hospitality, event and party support, and distributing the festival guide. Year-round, volunteers also help with screenings, special events, and parties. Perks include a festival volunteer tee, screenings when seats are available, and free Tin Pan Theater tickets.
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Central Oregon Volunteer Connect
also known as COVC, Volunteer Connect, Volunteer Central Oregon
Central Oregon Volunteer Connect is a program of Connect Central Oregon representing one of their four pillars - alongside Mentoring, Innovations, and Partnership. It's a regional infrastructure, shaped and stewarded by community leaders over more than two decades connecting organizations, volunteers, emerging leaders, and community energy across Central Oregon. Along with mentorship, community leadership development, and direct partnership outreach across the region, most notably the Connect Central Oregon Volunteer & Board Fair — the in-person event connecting volunteers and organizations face to face, their directory allows browsing or searching to find organizations across Crook, Deschutes, and Jefferson Counties, and Warm Springs looking for volunteers, donors, and community partners.
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Think Wild
Think Wild is Central and Eastern Oregon's only public wildlife hospital and conservation center, located on four acres on Bend's east side. Its veterinary staff and volunteers rescue, treat, and release hundreds of injured and orphaned native animals each year, from hummingbirds and flying squirrels to bald eagles and bobcats. Think Wild also runs a wildlife hotline, humane wildlife conflict help, Beaver Works Oregon habitat restoration, and education programs and camps for youth and the community. Found injured or orphaned wildlife? Call the hotline at 541-241-8680 (8am–6pm daily).
Volunteers help in the wildlife hospital with animal care, diet prep, and enclosure upkeep; rescue and transport injured wildlife; care for ambassador animals; support education programs, camps, and community events; and assist with humane wildlife conflict projects. Youth and family volunteering is available for kids and teens, and families and groups can join habitat restoration through Beaver Works Oregon. Training is provided.
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A random selection of organizations, different on every visit
WWOLF
also known as Willing Workers On Local Farms
WWOLF (Willing Workers On Local Farms) is Central Oregon Locavore's volunteer farm-day program. It sends packs of volunteers to spend a day helping on local farms and ranches with planting, harvesting, and other critical tasks, creating hands-on learning for volunteers while supporting local food production and building relationships between producers and residents. Recent host farms include Windy Acres, Rainshadow Organics, and D&D Ranch.
Join a WWOLF "pack" for a day on a local farm, helping with planting, harvesting, weeding, and other seasonal farm tasks alongside the farmers who grow Central Oregon's food. No farming experience is needed. Watch the WWOLF page for upcoming farm days and register when a new one is posted.
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Deschutes County Historical Society
also known as Deschutes Historical Museum
The Deschutes County Historical Society, founded in 1975, runs the Deschutes Historical Museum in downtown Bend's historic 1914 Reid School building. Its exhibits trace the region from Native American history and homesteading to logging, the Forest Service, and mountain biking, and it offers a public history library, oral histories, summer walking tours of Bend's historic neighborhoods, and the Hollinshead-Matson Homestead Museum in partnership with Bend Park & Recreation District.
Trained volunteers lead the museum's popular guided walking tours of Bend's historic neighborhoods each summer, greet visitors and staff the front desk and museum store, help care for and catalog the collections and research library, record oral histories, and support exhibits and community events.
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H.O.R.S.E.S. on the Ranch
also known as HORSES on the Ranch
H.O.R.S.E.S. on the Ranch (Heal, Overcome, Reconnect, Strengthen, Educate, Support) is a Prineville nonprofit, founded in 2020, offering trauma-informed, ground-based equine-assisted psychotherapy and learning on a ranch in Crook County. Using the Eagala model, licensed mental health professionals and equine specialists work alongside the horses with clients of all ages, with a focus on women in recovery, veterans, and young people facing trauma, addiction, depression, and anxiety. Clients don't ride; the healing happens on the ground.
Volunteers help care for the program's horses and pony (feeding, grooming, and barn chores), keep the ranch grounds and arena in shape, and support fundraising events and outreach. Client sessions themselves are led by licensed counselors and certified equine specialists.
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Children's Museum of Central Oregon
The Children's Museum of Central Oregon creates hands-on, play-based learning experiences for young children and families, sparking curiosity and creativity through exhibits, pop-up programs, and community events, as it works toward a permanent children's museum for the region.
Volunteers help at the museum's family events and pop-up play programs, assist with exhibit building and upkeep, and support fundraising and outreach.
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Telos Initiative
also known as Central Oregon Toy Drive, Central Oregon Toy Drive & Benefit Concert
Bend nonprofit started by Leighton Tuttle and Tyler Regan to help children living in shelters and the foster care system, especially where gaps in the system leave kids without. It grew out of their Central Oregon Toy Drive, which began in 2024 with a benefit concert at Silver Moon Brewing and collected toys for Bethlehem Inn and Grandma's House. Now in its third season, the founders hope to run it year-round.
Each holiday season volunteers help run the Central Oregon Toy Drive: staffing outreach booths, hosting and emptying donation bins at local businesses, sorting and delivering toys to shelters, and helping put on the December benefit concert. Musicians, barbers, and businesses can donate their talents, and anyone can buy a toy from the shelters' online registry.
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Harmony Farm Sanctuary
Harmony Farm Sanctuary, between Sisters and Bend, rescues and rehabilitates abused, neglected, medically compromised, and senior farm animals, giving more than 150 residents lifelong care. Run entirely by volunteers, it also partners with schools and youth programs on its Compassionate Curriculum, teaching empathy and kindness through time with the animals, and advocates for the humane treatment of animals.
Harmony Farm is entirely volunteer-run. Volunteers staff twice-daily animal care shifts, including feeding, cleaning, grooming, and giving individual attention to rescued pigs, goats, horses, cows, and poultry, and help with farm projects, events, and the Compassionate Curriculum for visiting youth. Schedules are flexible, from several times a week to once a month.
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High Desert Robotics & Rotors Expositions
also known as HDRex
High Desert Robotics & Rotors Expositions (HDRex), a program of Connect Central Oregon, inspires the next generation of Central Oregon leaders through hands-on robotics and drone experiences. It organizes expositions, workshops, and competitions, including the region's Aerial Drone Competition for middle and high school pilots and programmers, and connects robotics teams, clubs, schools, mentors, and the wider community.
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Caldera
also known as Caldera Arts
Caldera, founded in 1996 by Dan Wieden and Priscilla Bernard Wieden, inspires and supports youth from underserved urban and rural communities by awakening the potential of their creative voice. Its free, long-term youth program pairs kids with artists and mentors for seven-plus years through school-year programming and summer camps at its campus on Blue Lake west of Sisters, blending art, music, dance, writing, film, and time in nature. It also hosts an Artists in Residence program. In 2015 it was the first Oregon nonprofit to win the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, presented at the White House.
Volunteers help with special events like the annual Stories of Change gathering, support youth programs and summer camp at Blue Lake, pitch in on grounds and facility days on the forested campus, and help with administrative projects. Artists can also connect through Caldera's Artists in Residence program.
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Sisters Park & Recreation District
A special district providing parks, recreation programs, and youth activities to enhance livability and community connection in Sisters, Oregon.
Volunteers, including parents, help run youth sports and recreation programs, serve on the board of directors, and support community events like the annual Easter egg hunt at Creekside Park.
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Girl Scouts of Oregon and SW Washington
Girl Scouts of Oregon and Southwest Washington builds girls of courage, confidence, and character through troops and programs in outdoor adventure, STEM, life skills, and entrepreneurship, including the cookie program, with troops and volunteer leaders across Central Oregon.
Adult volunteers lead or co-lead Girl Scout troops, help with outdoor and STEM programs, camps, and events, support the annual cookie program, and share their skills as guest experts. Training and a background check are provided.
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East Cascades Back Country Horsemen of Oregon
also known as ECBCH
East Cascades Back Country Horsemen of Oregon is a Central Oregon chapter of Back Country Horsemen of Oregon, working with trail partners and land managers to keep backcountry trails open for stock users and all visitors, clearing and maintaining trails, supporting horse camps, and promoting responsible use of horses and mules on public lands.
Members clear and maintain backcountry trails, use pack stock to haul tools and supplies for Forest Service and volunteer trail crews in wilderness areas, and help maintain horse camps. Riders and non-riders alike can help with trail work days.
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Sierra Club Juniper Group
also known as Juniper Group
The Juniper Group is the Central Oregon group of the Sierra Club's Oregon Chapter, bringing together people who care about the region's forests, high desert, rivers, and wildlife. It works to protect wild places through public-lands advocacy, education, and community outreach, and runs an outings program of hikes, snowshoe and Nordic ski trips, and campouts that is open to members and non-members alike.
Volunteers lead and join hikes, snowshoe, and Nordic ski outings (free outdoor leadership training is offered for new trip leaders), table at community events, give presentations at local schools, write for the newsletter, capture photos and video, and help with conservation research and public-lands comments. No experience is necessary, just an enthusiasm for wild nature.
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You haven't seen them all yet. There are more organizations below.