I would like to do voluntary project work for a local nonprofit, charitable organization. Does my work have to be approved by the local PMI chapter in order to be counted as official PDUs?
The PDUs that you can earn through Volunteer Service fall under Category E in the new PMI CCRS (Continuing Certification Requirements System). There are basically the following types of volunteering that you can do in this category:
- Volunteer as an officer or committee member for your local PMI chapter.
- Volunteer for PMI Global for one of the many opportunities they offer
- Coach or mentor someone else on project management
- Provide volunteer project-management related services to a community or charitable group
The last type is the one you are asking about. Each hour that you volunteer project management related services to a community or charitable group will earn you 1 PDU. You can earn a maximum of 45 PDUs in this way, however, this maximum is a combined maximum for all the PDUs you earn in Categories D, E and F.
You don’t need approval from your local PMI chapter to claim this type of service for your PDUs. You will, however, need some sort of confirmation from the community or charitable group to confirm that you have performed the service for them. A letter describing the work you have done and how many hours you volunteered will suffice.
You also want to make sure that the work you performed qualifies as a project, based on the PMBOK Guide. So please review this definition in the current PMBOK Guide and compare it to your work before claiming your PDUs.
