I’m thinking of volunteering more over the summer, but I would honestly prefer to orient them more toward politics/civic issues. Any suggestions?
Tons of opportunities.
The town you live in- Mayor’s office. They can always use volunteers- dealing with constituents, helping to draft grant requests from foundations for specific uses, doing an analysis of spending this year vs. past five years, evaluating how traffic patterns changed during Covid, working with the local hospital/hospitals to understand if your city/town is leaving money on the table (i.e. more patients admitted with no health insurance, your state has a fund for the uninsured), etc.
Your state- dozens of issues, committees, state wide commissions and groups, lobbying organizations who target your governor for policy changes.
Your local representatives to the state legislature probably has some things going on. Their activities and invitations to participate might be found on their Facebook pages. House of representatives or Senate.
find out if there is any local elections coming up in November with candidates you may be able to work with now - where I live people are pulling papers now for an election in Nov with potential for a primary in September all city posiitons but elections vary
another option is talk to your local public assess station and see if you can help them work on government related programming - again what they do may vary a lot
Politext is a great volunteer organization to volunteer with. It is super easy to get hours and is really fun if you like human rights or politics. Check out their website!