Frequently Asked Questions

Working for PUM as a volunteer gives you the opportunity to share your expertise with ambitious entrepreneurs or organisations that support SMEs. PUM’s clients are true changemakers, who have the ambition to grow, operate sustainably and inclusively and create a lasting positive impact on their communities, socially, ecologically and economically. PUM is active in more than 30 countries and in more than 30 sectors. Working with PUM will give you a lot of personal and professional experience. You will learn about other cultures, how to adapt yourself to different situations, and how others live and do business. Another bonus: you will increase your network.

Being a PUM volunteer won’t cost you anything. The only thing we ask for, is your time and your expertise. You will share your knowledge with entrepreneurs and colleagues on location or online. When you need to travel abroad, PUM is responsible for the costs of your trip and visas, and will make available a fixed expense allowance. PUM clients will provide for suitable accommodation, local transportation, and your meals. We believe this is important to enable effective and efficient advice.

You can share your expertise and knowledge to improve the businesses of ambitious entrepreneurs. This can be done either through remote advice or through advice on location. The work that you do as a PUM expert differs per entrepreneur you visit. Some entrepreneurs want to produce and sell more. Others would like to modernise their business. We also collaborate with entrepreneurs who are looking for advice to make their company more sustainable, to optimise the personnel structure or processes, or to improve the quality of their product. Furthermore, you will also explore possibilities beyond the client’s business to create a lasting positive impact on the community. Of course, you will always be matched with a project that fits your expertise. A project normally starts with a thorough situation analysis, followed by concrete recommendations and action plans. Skills training is typically also on the agenda.

Advice on location projects need to be prepared well in advance and are often preceded by multiple on-line sessions to get to know each other and to sharpen the assignment. This contributes to being more effective ‘on-the-ground’. After the project you will continue to follow-up with the entrepreneur to ensure full execution of the advice.

Yes, it is! You can become a volunteer with us if you have at least five years of work experience. That gives you enough expertise to collaborate with our clients. Please see our vacancies page to find out which specific expertise we are looking for.

We greatly appreciate that you would like to be a PUM volunteer. You are invited to engage in volunteer work for PUM until the year in which you reach the age of 72. To ensure a commitment of at least four years, we can register you as a PUM expert or staff volunteer before you reach 69 years of age.

As a volunteer, you belong to a pool consisting of 1,200 experts. You will be part of one of the more than 30 sectors PUM is active in. Each sector is led by a sector coordinator, who matches an expert with a client. The sector coordinator also organises sector days where you can meet fellow experts. Every year we organise the PUMday, a meeting where experts, voluntary and permanent staff can meet each other.

In that case you may be best suited to provide remote advice. You can plan the meetings together with the client in a frequency and time slot which fits you both. Some employers are willing to make arrangements to accommodate volunteer work or you could decide to use your vacation days for a project on location. In these cases you will travel for two weeks to a country and provide your expertise to one or two clients. The experience you gain from volunteering can enhance your professional skills, making you a more valuable asset to your employer. Therefore, both you and your employer can benefit from your volunteer work.

Most volunteers are experts. They are matched with an entrepreneur abroad to provide either advice on location or remote advice. Besides that, PUM also offers opportunities to get involved as, for example, sector or country coordinator. Please take a look at our vacancies for all current volunteer opportunities.

PUM only works in countries and areas that are considered ‘safe’. We follow the travel advice and country colour coding of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and will not offer advice on location in ‘red’ areas. For ‘yellow’ and ‘orange’ areas the country coordinators and PUM representatives in the countries will assess the safety situation before deciding if an expert can travel to the client for an advice on location. Generally, as part of a project preparation, we will need to ensure you are in good health to travel and make sure you have all the vaccinations required for the area.

PUM has a strict travel policy, only allowing for travel in economy class with no extension possibility for a private vacation. It is also not permitted to bring your partner.

PUM is active in more than 30 countries across the globe. PUM follows the list determined by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which contains the countries on which the policy will focus and for which subsidies are available. This list changes regularly. Please visit the ‘Where we work‘ section of the website to find an overview of the regions and countries we are currently active in.

Are you an entrepreneur situated in another country, and do you need expertise? Then you could check the members of the Confederation of European Senior Expert Services (CESES).

If you are a PUM volunteer, you have received an e-mail address and password to log into the PUM environment. Do you have trouble logging in or did you forget your password? Please contact our helpdesk through helpdesk@pum.nl.

If you would like to nominate someone and mention the projects she/he has done for PUM, please send an e-mail to hrvolunteersupport@pum.nl.

Please visit the ‘Where we work‘ section of the website with an overview of regions and countries we are active in. On the page of your country, you can find contact details of the PUM representatives whom you can contact with your questions.