If you’re looking for jobs helping people, keep reading! We have a list of 12 meaningful work at home careers you’ll want to explore!
Ever since I was little, I’ve loved helping people. Whether it was giving my friends a snack at lunch, making a card for someone who wasn’t feeling well, or helping my grandfather. For me, it was the one way I knew I could make a difference. It wasn’t until I got older that I started to grasp the fullness that it brings to my life.
When I was in college, I started volunteering at a local soup kitchen located within walking distance of my campus. There was no better feeling in the world than the volunteer work I did at that shelter. I left with this overflowing feeling of complete and utter fulfillment.
I remembered this feeling and pursued it years later as an educator. When my little ones arrived, my husband and I did everything we could to pave the way for me to stay at home, so I could do what I loved most, be with our kids. Thankfully, with many sacrifices, we made that dream a reality!
About a year into staying home, I began to wonder how I could start to earn money and, better yet, continue to help others while making it! It wasn’t long before I found the perfect solution – a great combination of meaningful work that allowed me to stay home and add some income to our family’s tight budget.
If you’re like me and love finding ways to help others but don’t love your 9-5 routine, we have the perfect solution for combining the best of both worlds!
Below, we have some meaningful work from home jobs that help people and fill your heart and wallet.
1. Provide Childcare From Home
When my oldest was a baby, we were super tight with money, and working from home wasn’t a possibility. However, we also knew that we didn’t want to send him off to a huge daycare facility.
I began to look for moms who, like me, needed money but were able to stay home. It wasn’t long before we found a wonderful family on the next street who was looking for an opportunity to care for kids in their home!
If you love taking care of kids but don’t love the idea of trudging out to work every morning, why not care for kids in your own home? With this work-from-home position, you can set your hours, establish your pay scale, and determine how many children you would like to care for.
There’s also the sweet benefit of having constant play dates for your little ones as you make money caring for others.
If this sounds like an amazing work-from-home job to you, check out some of the following things you’ll want to think about to get started:
- Get organized: Decide how many kids you want to care for, create a schedule, and determine your pay rate (weekly, biweekly, or monthly).
- Get First Aid and CPR certified.
- Research your state’s requirements: Depending on state regulations, you’ll want to research licensing requirements.
Where to Find Clients
Besides word of mouth advertising or locally posting information about your new business, there are popular websites that cater to families and individuals offering and needing caregiving services.
Care.com: This popular site was one of my favorites to use after our middle girl was born! The site is extremely easy to use and provides multiple caregiving options from which to choose. If you’re seeking to grow an at-home daycare or childcare, you can move ahead to that option right on the main screen. You can also select “babysitter or nanny,” and as you get to know an individual family and their needs, you may be able to suggest caring for their child from your home. Here are a few other details about Care.com:
- Choose from in-home care, nanny services, pet sitting, and more.
- Create a free profile.
- Fees include a background check and a monthly subscription membership.
- Background checks and social security numbers are required.
Sittercity: This site receives amazing reviews from both caregivers and families. The setup on Sittercity is very similar to that of Care.com, where you can choose from a variety of caregiver positions, including nanny, senior care, babysitter, and more.
Here’s some more information on this site:
- The website is easy to use.
- Background checks, including a motor vehicle check, are performed for caregivers.
- Sittercity states membership for caregivers is free, but there may be exceptions. We recommend you check this out when you create your free profile.
Related Content: Steps to Starting a Home Daycare Business
2. Personal Care Jobs for Older Adults
Becoming a caregiver for an aging individual is another way to work from home, set your own flexible hours, and enjoy a rewarding experience of helping others. With the advancement of technology, there are many digital tools for you to work fully remotely.
As a caregiver for older adults, you may:
- Order groceries online and set appointments.
- Depending on your prior experience, you may help with dietary needs over the phone or become a care coordinator, which are fully remote positions.
- Perform other day-to-day tasks such as cleaning and daily or weekly in-home companionship.
- Tasks performed can vary daily and are based on individual needs.
Here are a couple of remote jobs helping people:
Aira hires US-based phone agents who assist the blind and low-vision community with various requests. These are independent contracting positions that pay an hourly rate. They hire in all states except California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
Pleio hires remote mentors to help patients stay on top of their daily medications. For these positions, you must be at least 18 years old and a US resident but not residing in one of the following states: Ohio, North Dakota, Washington, or Wyoming. These are independent contracting roles where you can make your own schedule.
While some eldercare positions may require that you go to the individual’s home, other roles simply need you to call patients daily, update medical records, and maintain communication with the necessary components of the individual’s care. These types of jobs allow you to be fully remote while helping others, which is spectacular!
How to Find These Remote Care Jobs
Here are a few places where you can apply for these compassionate service positions. Not all of these will be fully remote, so it’s best to check the description with the individual company.
- Care.com: Create a free profile and choose from a companion caregiving job or a senior care job. There are many options to choose from, and tasks vary depending on individual or family needs.
- FlexJobs: A popular job board that posts many types of flexible jobs, including caregiving positions. Many caregiver companies post positions on FlexJobs.
- Indeed: A job board that offers a variety of jobs. Not all roles are remote, so please check the description provided.
3. Remote Pet Care
Do you love working with animals? One of my favorite work from home gigs that has recently skyrocketed is the pet-sitting circle.
Here are a few benefits of becoming a pet care provider:
- You have complete flexibility over your schedule and pay rate.
- Many pet owners need overnight care and prefer not to board their animals at big facilities, allowing you to pet sit from the comfort of your home.
- While some people may want a pet sitter at their homes, you’ll undoubtedly find clients who don’t mind their pet staying a few nights with you while they’re away.
How to Find Pet Care Jobs
There are numerous options available for finding your next remote pet care position. Platforms like Rover, Wag!, and Care.com are popular choices for prospective pet sitters everywhere.
Benefits to many of these sites include:
- Quick and straightforward profile setup that allows you to identify the type of schedule you want, pay rates, services, and even the types of pets you would like to care for.
- Quick approval so you can begin accepting clients.
4. Inspire and Educate: Teach Kids From Home
When I stopped teaching, I thought my teaching days were done. I didn’t necessarily want to stop teaching, but more importantly, I wasn’t going to jeopardize missing another moment with my kiddos.
Research led me to a few great online teaching opportunities, and they became another option in my tool belt for work-at-home possibilities.
After looking into a few of these teaching positions, I discovered another fantastic bonus: Many of these online teaching jobs provide lesson plans and step-by-step instruction for best practices within a “virtual classroom.” With hardly any prep time and the ability to work with kids, these jobs are a great way to help others while making money from home!
Here are a few online teaching opportunities you should check out.
Online ESL Teaching Opportunities
- Cambly is an online tutoring platform that takes teaching to a different level. This ESL program allows teachers and students to practice language skills with native speakers. Essentially, you get paid to chat with students so that they may learn in a more natural environment. Payment is based on the minutes you spend online, with a salary starting at $0.17 per minute for adults and $0.20 per minute for children. This position requires no prior experience; however, you must be a native English speaker and have access to a computer with a camera and a high-speed internet connection.
More Virtual Teaching Opportunities
- iTutor hires educators to work as Virtual Teachers, Test Prep Instructors, and Online Tutors. You can set your schedule and have flexible hours.
- K12 is an online curriculum that offers tuition-free online public schooling. They have a variety of job openings that are usually specified by the state.
- Studypool is an online platform where you can get paid to answer homework questions online. Top tutors using the platform can earn up to $7,500 a month!
5. Remote Healthcare Professionals
If you hold a medical degree and license in a healthcare profession such as nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, nurse practitioner, or medicine, there are numerous options available for you to work from home, helping others. Some healthcare providers help manage clients’ health conditions with therapy or education, while others may provide triage services via video conferencing or telephone.
Here are some remote healthcare jobs helping others while delivering patient care via phone or video conferencing tools.
- Humana hires home-based nurses for a variety of tasks. You must be a registered nurse (RN) with an active license.
- DentaQuest hires remote dentists (DDS or DMD) to consult clients at home.
- Doctor on Demand sees patients via video to provide a healthcare assessment, amongst other things. This site frequently hires physicians and psychiatrists.
- Teladoc hires remote dermatologists, physicians, mental health providers, case managers, psychiatrists, dieticians, and more.
- Wellbox hires a variety of home-based RN nursing positions for telehealth, case management, and coordinator positions. They offer both full- and part-time employment.
- Wheel hires physicians, registered nurses, nurse practitioners, and behavioral health specialists to provide telehealth services to patients.
- VocoVision provides teletherapy to clients and hires speech-language pathologists, school psychologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, special education teachers, and more.
6. Help Others with Their Travel Dreams
If you would like to combine your love of travel with a job helping people, look no further than right here! Work at home travel agents make their own schedules (depending on your agency), and most companies provide training. A little tip for when you search for these positions: Travel agent positions are often listed as “travel planners.”
- Working Solutions hires work from home travel agents to take inbound calls to schedule air, hotel, and car reservations using Sabre Red. Experience is preferred, but for the right person, they’ll provide training.
- AirTreks is a travel agency that offers a variety of ticket options for travel. They provide paid training for new hires but require all employees to have traveled to five or more countries before employment.
- Executive Travel is a travel agency that provides “world-class” personal, consistent, and professional travel services to all its clients. You’ll need to email them from their website to find out about their work-from-home travel agent positions.
- FlexJobs allows you to search for and apply to many different virtual travel agent opportunities. Note: Remember to search for “travel agents” and “travel planners” in the search field.
7. Content Creation
Starting a blog was one of the very first ideas I ran with, and I’m SO happy I did! What better way to help others than through a blog? The range of people you can help is endless, and believe it or not, people want to hear what you have to say! Just look at how Holly helps people find remote careers on this very blog!
To make sure I stayed wholly focused on my goal of helping others, I started by asking myself some questions concerning the “whys” and “hows” of my blog’s purpose:
- What do I love writing about?
- What do I feel comfortable sharing?
- How could I help others?
- How can my blog help others?
- Why will my writing help people?
Of course, blogging isn’t the only way to become a content creator and help people!
You can create helpful YouTube tutorials, share your experience and knowledge on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, or even start a free newsletter on Substack sharing tips and tricks for teens, college students, or even new parents. The helpful topics you can cover are endless, and you can monetize through ads, affiliate marketing, creator funds, merch sales, brand sponsorships, and more! Check out this article for more tips on becoming a content creator.
8. Online Counseling
If you have a degree in counseling, social work, psychiatry, psychology, or another mental health profession, there are many ways to help others, all from the comfort of your home. In some instances, you’ll provide emergency services for substance abuse and suicide prevention. In other cases, you’ll help people with mental health conditions like depression disorder or anxiety disorder.
Here are some companies that allow you to work remotely while helping others:
- BetterHelp hires work from home social workers, family therapists, mental health counselors, and psychologists to provide online therapy services.
- Talkspace provides online therapy sessions for individuals, couples, and teens and hires part-time and full-time therapists with a master’s degree in social work, counseling, or behavioral science.
- The Trevor Project provides 24/7 support to young LGBTQ individuals throughout the year, thanks to the assistance of home-based crisis counselors.
- Wheel hires remote licensed social workers, counselors, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, and mental health counselors to provide mental health services online.
9. Become a Coach
Do you enjoy helping people achieve their goals? Perhaps working as an online coach is your calling. With coaching, you can work in a wide variety of niches, including career, nutrition, fitness, business, sleep, and many other areas. You can also choose to start your own business or work for a company providing coaching services from home. If you need training, iPEC can help you become a certified coach in as little as 7 to 8 months. Some companies may also require an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree in a related field.
Once you have the credentials you need, here are some jobs helping people achieve their goals:
10. Work From Home For a Nonprofit Organization
If you’d like to put your professional experience to good use in a full-time remote job, explore some of your favorite nonprofit organizations for work from home job openings.
Many charitable organizations hire for various roles, including HR, graphic design, call center, grant writing, digital marketing, software development, and more. Not only will these remote jobs give you a sense of purpose, but most of these companies provide competitive pay, full-time employment, comprehensive benefits, a great company culture, and the opportunity for collaboration.
Here are some nonprofit organizations to explore for job listings:
11. Help Customers and Patients
If you have excellent communication skills and you enjoy helping people resolve their issues online via email and over the phone, there are many remote work opportunities for customer service representatives.
In this occupation, you can help patients schedule medical appointments, assist callers with technical issues, or even assist with purchases and returns. For these positions, you’ll generally need six months to one year of customer service experience (although some companies hire beginners), excellent verbal and written communication skills, and you should be tech-savvy. If you’re bilingual, in Spanish or French, that’s a major plus in these roles!
For legitimate companies hiring remote customer service talent, explore:
12. Help Influence Decision Makers
If you’re looking for helpful ways to earn extra cash, on a flexible schedule, consider participating in market research studies. When you take surveys and participate in focus groups online, you help influence decisions made by major brands and companies.
How much you can earn with these extra-cash gigs varies depending on the type and length of the survey. Shorter online surveys typically yield lower compensation than longer video surveys. You’ll also need to verify whether the opportunity pays in cash (via PayPal, Venmo, or virtual Visa cards) or if it pays in gift card rewards, and if there is a cashout minimum. Knowing these details before you jump in will give you a realistic idea of how much you can earn.
One nice thing about market research is that you can participate on your smartphone, tablet, or laptop, and you can do as many as fit into your schedule.
Some survey options also allow you to donate your rewards to charity, which is a great way to give back and help others!
Here are some surveys and focus groups looking for participants:
Best Work From Home Jobs Helping People: Conclusion
Whether you’re coming from a corporate job, the classroom, or college, your journey with helping people in a meaningful career is far from over! There are so many amazing work from home jobs helping people; you’re sure to find one (or more) within a field you love.
Let us know what you think! Where are you on your work at home career path? Do you have a remote job helping others?
Originally published on April 8, 2019. The content was updated in April 2023.
