Can I really make a difference?
How much of my money will the host family or community receive?
Can I volunteer abroad without going through a travel provider?
How safe and secure is volunteering abroad?
What exactly is "SustainableVolunteering?"
Can I really meet Bono and Angelina?

Can I really make a difference?

In a word, yes.

Everything you do on your trip will make a difference - from the resources and efforts you bring to the community, to your role as an ambassador for your own culture.

Often times volunteers are discouraged if they aren't able to see the home they were working on built to completion, or the baby animals they're caring for returned to the wild.  The projects you will be working on are often through organizations that have been helping these communities for years, and they can tell you first hand, they're work is never done.

Bearing this in mind, don't be discouraged if you are not able to see the project you were working on come to fruition. Some of the

We sincerely hope that when you return home, you are aware that regardless of how small or large you think your contribution was,  we are all apart of something bigger than ourselves.  As long as you bring a genuine desire to help, your efforts will not go unnoticed or unappreciated.

How much of my money will the host family or community receive?

The short, sweet answer to this is simply, it varies.

As you already know from your research of different volunteer opportunity providers, the scale of pricing can vary drastically.  Some companies operate more as a travel provider, by trying to ensure that your safety, entertainment and accomodations are very well monitored.  All of these different facets of the experience add up and cost money.  These types of providers will generally divert less of the revenue they generate to the family and more to the actual services which cater to the volunteers.On the other side, some operators ensure volunteers the bare minimum in terms of safety, entertainment and accomodations.  These providers are  usually non-profits or NGO's and will be likely to generate more resources for the project itself.

Before you set off on your volunteer experience, ask yourself which aspects of where your money goes are more important to you.  For some volunteers safety and comfort are a top priority. For others, the project and the community come first.

Remember, there is no right or wrong answer for how to handle this; it is more matter of being honest with yourself and which school of thought you subscribe to.

Can I volunteer abroad without going through a travel provider?

In short, yes. Many of the volunteer travel providers do not actually set up the projects they send people to, but rather operate as a "feeder" for projects that already exist within the country.
 
The main role you will utilize your travel provider for (and why you pay them) is to seamlessly coordinate the logistics of your trip. This includes in-country support, emergency evacuation services, visas, travel insurance and other periphery areas of the experience that you may or may not have time to coordinate yourself.
 
Additionally, many of the volunteer providers have had staff in-country for years and have been able to form relationships with the more reputable and sustainable projects.  If you were to search for and approach these projects yourself, you run a a few risks. One being that the project is neither reputable nor sustainable, and the other being a lack of liability or accountability for your safety while you are on the project.  This is by no means saying that you won't be taken care of on these projects, but the sense of legal accountability you have through a third party operation essentially doesn't exist if you go straight to the source.
 
How safe and secure is volunteering abroad?

Being from a modern, developed nation there is often an over-arching sense that life in developing countries is unsafe. It may be true that health care systems and law enforcement levels in these countries are below that of your native country.  Statistically speaking this may insinuate that these countries are unsafe.  More than likely, what would make you unsafe as a volunteer would be a result of your own actions.
 
It is important when you are volunteering abroad to remember that you aren't in your neighborhood or even your own town.  Remember that as a guest in another country, it is your responsibility to both be respectful to the local community as well as to keep your wits about you.  If you wouldn't go down a dark alley in your own city, you probably shouldn't go down one in a foreign country. If you generally go out in a group when you are at home, it would likely serve your safety better if you were to abide by the same practices while abroad.
 
It would be ignorant of us to generalize that you would be more or less safe in one city or another.  The best advice we can offer is to talk to your local project coordinators about things to be mindful of, and generally understand that you are more in control of your safety than any external forces.

What exactly is "Sustainable Volunteering?"

The essence of sustainable volunteering is providing communities with resources that will last beyond your time on the project.  The tangible examples you will see of this would be helping construct a structure that a community will be able to utilize for years to come.  Some of the intangible contributions would be teaching English or working with students and helping establish a knowledge base or skill set for them to build on.
 
Unless it is very carefully handled, monetary contributions are not generally a sustainable resource to provide to a community.  While the projects can definitely utilize money to build up their resource base, if the projects become dependent on a constant revenue stream and it dries up, those repercussions could be more drastic than if there was no money to begin with.
 
That said, your financial contribution to whichever volunteer provider your choose may help ensure that the provider can continue to operate, and continue to recruit a consistent stream of volunteers (rather than dollars) to their projects.

Can I really meet Bono and Angelina?

Not very likely.

We're not going to negate the amazing strides and efforts to bring about the relevance and awareness of impoverished cultures.  The time that celebrities spend in actual camps varies, but often times the work that they are actually doing there is to generate exposure for the communities rather than do work on the ground level.  In the off chance that you do actually see Bono or the Pope, it's very unlikely you will meet them.

If seeing a celebrity on your travels is truly a goal of your for the trip, you may want to reevaluate the motives behind your travels.