Volunteers wishing to use Translations for Progress must first register with the website. To do this follow the link below and fill out the requisite information. Please include a short (up to 15,000 characters) description of your translation experience (if any), language background, and any other relevant information. Shortly thereafter you will receive a confirmation email with instructions for completing the registration process. You can then login to edit your profile and post the language combinations that you work with.

Some organizations may also need bilingual (or even unilingual) editing and proofreading in various languages. This still involves language skills and translation. If you have the capability and are willing to do this kind of work, check it out in your profile. You profile will then be listed both in the lists of all translators and all editors. Even if you want to work only as an uniligual editor, you can still register as a translator on our site, and when adding your language combinations give identical languages in the From and To boxes (e.g., From English To English, or From Spanish To Spanish).

Your profile will be posted in an online database, searchable by language, and accessible to the public. Similarly, an online database of organization profiles exists. It is up to you and the organization to find each other. Have a look at the organization database, and when you think you have found a suitable match, contact them through the database e-mail interface. The organization will then respond to you by e-mail. At this point you are welcome to discuss the details of the text and send the copy independently. To protect your privacy, e-mail addresses are not openly posted online. Just like the organizations, you may only be contacted initially through the database interface and only by registered users.

Alternatively, from the Database Search page you can send an e-mail offering your help simultaneously to a number of organizations that have posted translation tasks with your language combination. The same rules as above apply for establishing the initial contact.

Volunteers from all skill levels are welcome, as long as they feel that their language skills are adequate to provide a reasonable translation of the text in question. Please remember you are not expected to be a professional translator (if you are, thank you!); view this as both a learning experience and a good cause. Most students with reading knowledge and a good dictionary can put together a decent, though rarely flawless, translation of general nature, and, as always, practice makes perfect. For volunteers who have limited experience with translations, we recommend reading our Guide to Good Translation before getting started. Included are a few general guidelines to keep in mind as you work.

Again, we welcome everyone interested in volunteering on the site, regardless of language level and experience. However, we would like to emphasize that Translations for Progress is not to be used for commercial purposes. Advertising paid translation services is not allowed, and any user doing so will be removed from the database.

To encourage professionalism from organizations, translators are asked to rate organizations after they have worked with them. Feedback and constructive comments are encouraged, but please be patient and bear in mind that you are working in a cross-cultural environment.

To rate an organization you must login and then proceed to the organization rating form, or simply click on the organization's logo in their profile. As a minimum, only your numerical rating will be posted online anonymously, but a full copy of your comments will always be e-mailed to the organization. You may choose to make also your identity and your verbal comments visible to all the visitors of the site. You will be able to modify your publicly displayed comments at any time after the initial posting. Please be kind! We’re all trying hard!