Volunteering: collaborating with Translators without Borders

Not enough clients? Want experience and a solid résumé line? You can get both by volunteering with Translators without Borders.

Traducteurs Sans Frontières is a non-profit founded by Lexcelera in 1993. Its goal is to provide free translation services for humanitarian causes.
In 2012, the parallel organization Translators without Borders was created with support from major language-service companies and other firms such as Moravia, TextMinded, ProZ, Microsoft, Mondragón, PayPal, etc. This U.S. organization—sister to the original French one—has become the largest translation-services NGO.

It’s very easy to collaborate as a translator: register on their website (www.translatorswithoutborders.org) and take a short test. As an alternative to the test, they accept various credentials such as ATA certification, ProZ.com PRO, or Lionbridge credentials.

Advantages for volunteers

• Translation requests arrive as automated emails. If you’re busy or not interested in the topic, there’s no pressure to accept.

• During humanitarian crises (e.g., the Middle East refugee crisis, the Greek debt crisis), many translations are needed, and it’s rewarding to help—even modestly—in serious emergencies.

Disadvantages for volunteers

• From what I’ve seen, as a general rule there seems to be limited attention to translation quality. To speed up delivery times, documents are often split and assigned to different translators. In addition, as far as I know, translators working on the same project are not able—or at least not encouraged—to contact one another to harmonize style and terminology.

• The system feels somewhat cold and impersonal. Texts arrive via automated emails and you don’t actually speak with anyone from the organizations.

Personal opinion

If you like the work of international organizations, or you want experience and have time, it’s a good opportunity. Another attractive option is to volunteer only when urgent humanitarian-crisis requests come in.
Otherwise, I personally think it’s better to collaborate directly with specific organizations whose work particularly interests you.

© 2025 Alejandro Moreno Ramos, www.ingenierotraductor.com