• Vacationing as a volunteer. Lending your expertise or doing physical labor in support of a charity may be personally rewarding. For example, work on homes for Habitat for Humanity or help build a youth center in on a Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. Find more volunteer opportunities from the Global Volunteer Network.
• Providing your expertise. Help a local organization with your talents (e.g., a lawyer can provide advice pro bono).
• Serving on the board of a non-profit organization. You get to know others who serve on the board.
• Serving on committees in organizations. Again, you get to know others who serve on the committees. Choose a committee that you have an interest in and one you may have a special talent for (e.g., a CPA serving on a finance committee).
• Fundraising. Soliciting funds, selling raffle tickets, working galas and other fund-raising events, and soliciting corporate sponsors for special events are other ways to help your charity while making connections and having a good time.

You need to know what your competitors are up to so you can remain competitive. You don't have to invade their privacy or seek information nefariously using a private investigator or industrial spy to stay abreast of how they're doing. Anything in the public domain is fair game. You just have to know where to look.

General concerns

 
Who are you competitors and how are they doing? Who is advertising and what are they saying?

You may be able to find out about prices, special offerings, and more from local ads and other marketing tools used by your competitors. For example, you may see that your competitors have raised prices, perhaps prompting you to do the same if you've been on the fence about it.

You can get a good sense of whether they are companies your customers would like to do business with by becoming a customer of theirs.