You can become a community service coordinator by gaining relevant experience and leveraging it into an entry level position with a nonprofit, school, government agency, or corporation. Success in this field depends more on experience and a demonstrated disposition for the job than on any specific type of educational background. Another common title for this position is a volunteer coordinator, and is found in the public relations, community engagement, community outreach, and human resources fields.
To become a community service coordinator, you must demonstrate a proficiency in rallying volunteers, engaging the community, and managing community service projects. Churches, synagogues, and other religious organizations regularly operate community service projects, such as soup kitchens, clothing collections, and health fairs. If you become involved with these types of extracurricular activities in a leadership capacity, it will flush out your resume with positions that demonstrate proficiency for this type of work.
Schools at every level also have opportunities for students to develop their community service chops. Most school groups have service projects every year that require management. Even if you have a penchant for student politics, the experience gained in recruiting voters, establishing a platform, and working on behalf of your fellow students on important issues demonstrates the core skill set you will need to become a community service coordinator.
The best way to develop a salaried trajectory for your work in the community is to apply for jobs with organizations that focus on community service, community outreach, or large scale public recruitment. These job areas all require the ability to organize and engage. It is probably easiest to look at nonprofits, government agencies, and schools for positions with the community service coordinator title, but other jobs, including political campaign workers and managers often perform the same functions.
Once you have some community-side experience under your belt, you can look for a corporate position with a large company in their community engagement department. Many major corporations have staff members whose job it is to organize employees to contribute to select service projects in the community. These coordinators are usually part of either the public relations or human resources department, but some companies have a community service department. From here you can move to work for the corporation’s foundation and set strategic policy regarding how the company should invest in the communities in which it operates.
Service coordinators will likely be expected to have an undergraduate degree, particularly for the more stable positions at bigger corporations and nonprofits. There are a number of majors that will complement your goal to become a community service coordinator, such as marketing, business administration, public administration, or public relations. Nearly all areas of study can be relevant to this position.
