My Nonprofit Reviews

I really like volunteering with REEF. It combines seeing and understanding the marine environment and scuba diving. I like that the data is shared with scientists who use it to get deeper understanding of our oceans. Also, it is easy to access support when ever I get stuck on something, like a fish identification.

As a retired person I wanted to use some of my skills to give back to the community. I worked in marine science for many years and loved diving and gaining greater knowledge of the marine world. Volunteering with REEF brings together these various pieces so I get to do what I consider fun, that action contributes to scientific marine knowledge, uses my skills, and keeps me learning about fish and invertebrates. What a great combination for me. REEF makes this happen by providing focus and methodology, holding to guidelines that uphold scientific integrity and still with enough flexibility to make each contribution a pleasure. Leadership at REEF does a great job of holding us together (as a bunch of volunteers with different needs) and letting us figure out how to do the work on our own.

This gives me the training and means to give back to the community through citizen science. The people who fur REEF do a wonderful job of supporting the volunteers as they contribute.

REEF is an organization that I can contribute to and that I know is making a difference. I turn in my data and I personally know two scientists that have used some of my data to write important papers and also a book about what i happening in our oceans. Also the staff is very "customer friendly" and so connecting with them to work out details is easy.

REEF is a way for me to turn my passion into meaningful contribution. I love the ocean and it's inhabitants so I scuba dive a lot. Reef lets me contribute to greater understanding of the ocean and the changes that are going on that need tracking. They are easy to work with and really value citizen science contributors such as myself.