If you’re looking for jobs helping people, keep reading! We have a list of nine 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 out 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 12 years later as an educator. When my little ones came, my husband and I did all that we could to pave the way for me to stay home so I could do what I loved the most – be with our kids. Thankfully, with a lot of sacrifices, we made that dream come true!
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 money! It wasn’t long before I found the perfect answer – great combinations 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 outline some amazing work-at-home jobs that will not only pay your bills but will also focus on helping people right at their core.
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 would like to take care of, a schedule, and your pay rate (weekly, biweekly, monthly).
- Get First Aid/CPR certified.
- Depending on state regulations, you’ll want to research licensing requirements.
Where to Find Clients
Besides advertising through word of mouth or locally posting information about your new biz, there are a few popular websites that cater to both families and businesses that offer 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, pet sitting, and much more.
- Create a free profile.
- There is a free basic subscription for Care.com, but many reviews state that caregivers need to pay to directly speak with prospective clients.
- Background checks and social security numbers are required.
Sittercity.com: This site gets amazing reviews from caregivers and families alike. The set up on Sittercity is very similar to that of Care.com, where you’re able to choose from a variety of caregiver positions such as a 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: 10 Steps to Starting a Home Daycare Business
2. Personal Care Jobs for the Aging or Elderly
Becoming a caregiver for an aging or elderly individual is another way you can work from home, set your flexible hours, and enjoy a rewarding experience helping others. With the advancement of technology, there are many options for you to go fully remote. As a caregiver for seniors, you may:
- Order groceries online and set appointments.
- Dependent upon 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 companies you can check out in this niche:
Aira hires phone agents who help the blind and visually impaired community with various requests. According to Glassdoor.com, these positions pay $14-$16 per hour and you’re able to work as little or as much as you’d like.
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, a US resident, but not residing in one of the following states: OH, ND, WA, or WY.
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 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 Remote Eldercare Jobs
Here are a few places where you can apply for these rewarding 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 from which to choose, and tasks vary depending on individual/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 of the roles are remote, so check the description given.
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. Apps and websites such as Rover and Wag! are popular choices for prospective pet sitters everywhere. Here are a few benefits to becoming a pet care provider:
- You have complete flexibility in 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 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 many options out there for finding your next remote pet care position! While Rover and Wag! are two of the more popular sites for pet sitting, you can also seek out individuals looking for pet care on Care.com and Sittercity.com. Benefits to many of these sites include:
- Quick and straightforward profile setup that allows you to identify the type of schedule you want, pay scale, 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 the 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 a native speaker. 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 and starts at $0.17 per minute. This position requires no previous experience; however, you must be a native English or Spanish speaker, have a webcam, and internet connection.
- VIPKID also hires ESL teachers. Enjoy a schedule entirely determined by YOU! Earn $14-$22 per hour teaching English as a second language online. A bachelor’s degree is required.
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.
5. Remote Healthcare Professionals
If you have a medical degree and license in a healthcare occupation like nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, nurse practitioner, or medical doctor, there are many options 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 services.
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 must have 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 behavior 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 helping others, 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. Start a Blog
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?
If you’re not sure how to get started, you can learn more about how to start a blog right here on The Work at Home Woman!
8. Online Counseling
If you have a degree in counseling, social work, psychiatry, psychology, or another mental health professional, there are many ways to help others all from the comfort of your home. If some instances, you’ll provide emergency services for substance abuse and suicide prevention. In other cases, you’ll help people with mental illnesses like depression disorder or addiction.
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- and full-time therapists with a master’s degree in social work, counseling, or behavioral science.
- The Trevor Project helps young LGBTQ individuals 24/7 all year round through the support 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? Then perhaps working as an online coach is your calling! With coaching, you can work in a wide variety of niches like career, nutrition, fitness, business, sleep, and so 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 7-8 months. some companies may also require an associate degree or bachelor’s degree in a related field.
Once you have the credentials you need, here are some companies that regularly hire online coaches.
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 journey? Do you have a remote job helping others?
Originally published April 8, 2019. Content updated on June 21, 2022.
