Today, December 5th, has been designated as International Volunteer Day by the United Nations since 1985. We would like to take a moment to thank all of the volunteers that make the OTW’s work possible.
The OTW’s 714 volunteers, working on the Board and in eighteen additional committees, keep AO3 and its more than 3 millions fanworks up and available to readers. They edit and produce Transformative Works and Cultures, advancing the academic study of fandom and fanworks, and manage Fanlore for when you need to look up a trope or learn about what really happened with DashCon. They preserve fanworks that might otherwise be lost through the Open Doors project, protect fans from legal challenges, and perform all the invisible, behind-the-scenes work required to keep these projects and more up and running.
The countless unpaid hours of work by our volunteers are what makes the OTW’s mission, to provide access to and preserve the history of fanworks, feasible on our limited budget. To all our volunteers — brand new, or with us since the beginning ten years ago — we are so grateful, and we couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you for making all of this possible.
Want to know more about what volunteering with the OTW is like? Check out our Five Things series to hear directly from our volunteers.
Interested in joining us as a volunteer? We recruit regularly so keep an eye on our Volunteering page, or visit our Volunteering FAQ for answers to common questions.