Volunteers are the heart of the RSPCA

You don't have to have previous experience working with animals to volunteer. Most of our volunteers have no formal animal handling experience, just a love of animals and a passion to assist the RSPCA. Training is provided if you’re applying for a volunteer position that requires animal care. Apply to become a volunteer today by completing the form above.

Once you’ve found a volunteer role that sounds like it suits you, you can apply directly online, or call or email the contact listed on the volunteer position. Once your application to volunteer has been received, you’ll be booked into an Orientation session which will go over everything you need to know before you start your first shift.

Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate Work Experience or Prac at RSPCA Queensland due to staff and time constraints. Volunteering can still give you helpful skills and experience. You may find it useful to keep a detailed diary that you can submit to your institute as evidence of work tasks completed. We can offer a Statement of Service once a volunteer has been volunteering to prove your logged hours, but we can’t sign off on individual paperwork.

Due to orientation and training required for each volunteer position, we are unable to onboard volunteers for just one day. However, if you are interested in a corporate volunteer day organised through your workplace, please see Corporate Workplace Volunteering.

Corporate Workplace Volunteering

We cannot accept volunteers under 16 for many reasons, but we encourage you to get involved with the RSPCA in other ways to help animals.

View our Education Programs

The minimum age to volunteer at the RSPCA is 16 years. Please note 16 to 17 year olds require parental permission to volunteer.

Yes, you're welcome to volunteer with your support worker. Your support worker will need to submit their own volunteer applictional and complete our orientation process before attending shifts with you.

While it’s a lovely gesture to help over Christmas, we cannot onboard volunteers for one or two days due to training and orientation requirements. However, we recruit volunteers each November as Summer Holiday Volunteers who help during December, January and February (see our Positions Available for details). Another way to help over the holiday period is by donating food or toys to your nearest RSPCA location for the animals in our care that won’t have a home for Christmas.

Find your nearest RSPCA Location

We do have some volunteers with allergies. If you have a cat allergy, you can work with the dogs and vice-versa. It does however depend on the severity of your allergy - there is a lot of animal fur around here!

Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate minors onsite in this capacity.

If you both sign up to volunteer and complete training and orientation, you can work together in a volunteer capacity. Apply to become a volunteer today by completing the form above.