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I've been serving as a full-time volunteer for about a year now, receiving a small stipend each month from a non-profit religious organization to help with rent and the bills. The work involves community development efforts, such as establishing spiritual empowerment classes for children and youth, especially in areas with less opportunities.

I'm a web applications developer by profession, with a degree in computer science. It seems that because this was full-time volunteer work, it should be listed as part of "Experience" on my resume, to fill the gap between when I had IT work until now. But how do you list an item on your resume so different from your profession?

Your help is much appreciated.

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    Also possible duplicate of the questions about how to list unrelated paid jobs on resume. If you can say that the job taught you something that will make you a better employee -- punctuality, setting and meeting goals, etc -- it may belong on the resume if you don't have "real" job experience which will make the same points. If you've had a few years as a professional, though, volunteer work drops to being "character reference" sorts of issues rather than primary resume material. And religious organizations are a two-edged sword; depending on what, it may put people off.
    – keshlam
    Dec 22, 2014 at 16:33

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But how do you list an item on your resume so different from your profession?

Because it was full-time, it should occupy a typical position in your reverse-chronological resume.

Treat it like any other job, just put (Volunteer) in the job title:

Community Development Counselor (Volunteer)

Then describe the duties. Try hard to list duties that might have some impact on your career (like scheduling, supervisory tasks, etc).

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