Category Archives: Nonprofit/NGO/Agency Management

When IT staff isn’t providing proper support for volunteer engagement

I hear it all the time:

  • The web master says he doesn’t have time to format our new pages thanking volunteers or explaining what volunteers do.
  • The IT manager says he doesn’t have time to set up a private online discussion group for our volunteers.
  • The systems manager says she doesn’t have time to find out if the volunteer management software I want to use is compatible with our other systems.

It’s why Susan Ellis and I put this in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook:

Those working with volunteers should not have to beg for a spot on the IT staff’s to-do list or argue for basic functions they feel are necessary. If you encounter resistance, go higher and make your case to a manager above both functions. Detail in writ­ing your technical needs to work with volunteers and explain why you are asking for certain post­ ings or functionality. Just as the author of a book has more say over its contents than the printer, the content and priorities of a Web site or other Inter­ net outreach should be determined not by IT staff but by those directly involved in what needs to be accomplished. While it is fair to mutually deter­ mine deadlines with IT staff, your tech-related requests should not be answered with “when we have the time.” Settle for nothing less than real dates for completion of work, getting upper management to back you up. (page 17)

What are the consequences of not having the web pages your program needs regarding volunteer engagement? Or not having a private online discussion group for volunteers? Or not having volunteer management software? Write those out, explicitly – it’s part of the business case you need to have in writing, the evidence you need to shut down arguments against IT support for the IT you need to effectively recruit, engage and support volunteers.

In addition, you have every right to circumvent reluctant IT staff who aren’t doing what they should in terms of support for what you need. There are ways to mobilize volunteers to debunk their arguments against doing what you need in terms of IT.

For instance, if you have new pages you want added to your organization’s web site, and your web master says he doesn’t have time to create and add them, recruit a volunteer to design those pages for you, using your organization’s own web pages as a template, then present the finished pages to your web master: “Here are the pages we want added to the site, all prepared exactly the same as our current page, plus our current main page regarding volunteering with us, with updated links.” With the pages complete, the only thing the web master has to do is upload them to your site – nothing more. If he refuses? Time to have a sit down with HIS supervisor!

Another option: recruit volunteers to build your own free WordPress site with all of the information you regarding volunteer engagement at your program: requirements, accomplishments, recognition, application process, etc. Then ask the web master to link to those pages from the appropriate places on the organization’s web site. If he refuses? Time to have a sit down with HIS supervisor!

Need a private online group for your volunteers? You can do so for free with GoogleGroups – a much better option than a Facebook Group (many people like to keep their Facebook activities and their profile there separate from volunteering and professional activities). A volunteer could be recruited to create such a GoogleGroup for you and help you use it. Get it set up, start using it, make it an essential part of your work, and report on how it’s become essential and how you are using it to your supervisor – and make sure that supervisor knows that it was volunteers who made it possible, not the IT staff at your organization. If you use the group for a year or more and find you need something more advanced later, you will have a track record of success to show that it’s a worthwhile endeavor worthy of investment, one that the IT staff will need to support.

If you want volunteer engagement at your organization to be treated at the same level of importance as fundraising at your organization, you have to insist on it, not just hope for it. It’s so easy to recruit volunteers with the IT skills you need to better engage and support all volunteers. Want to be seen as a leader? Then LEAD. No one knows what you need to do your job better than YOU. And tech-savy volunteers are out there, ready to help you make it happen!

Also see:

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help

Training on risk management in social media

A coalition of nonprofits in my hometown in Kentucky asked me to put together a two-hour webinar on risk management in social media. And I did. I delivered it in early November 2020.

When I put together a new training on a subject I’ve not trained on before, I do a lot of research on the subject, to make sure my recommendations are timely and accurate. While I can base a lot of my trainings and blogs on my own experiences, I want to see what others are saying and doing as well.

For instance, for this workshop, I researched who “owns” a person’s online activities – when is a social media account the property of an individual and when is it the property of their workplace? The answer is different now than it was back in the 1990s when I directed The Virtual Volunteering Project. When are you speaking online such that it could bring your employer or program where you volunteer into disrepute – and can you be fired for that – and when is it your personal, individual opinion that your employer cannot take into consideration regarding your employment or volunteering? There have been a fair number of controversies about this over the years, and I was surprised at what I found.

I also researched people being fired for social media posts on their own, personal social media accounts and found that, often, those accounts were NOT public. How common is it? It’s very common. Here’s a sampling of what I found:

Employees, consultants and volunteers being fired, or having their contracts not renewed, because of posts they made to social media that disparaged certain groups or advocated violence, even via their own, personal, not public social media accounts, is something I’ve been paying attention to since 2011, via this thread on the TechSoup online community forum.

It’s not a black or white issue regarding firing someone for social media posts: while employers can and do fire employees over social media issues, there are also instances where it would potentially be illegal to do so and employees have been reinstated or been awarded financial compensation. This article from 2018 does the best job, IMO, of explaining when you may, and may not, fire someone for a social media post. This 2020 article from the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) is also excellent.

But I really didn’t want to get bogged down in my training on whether or not someone should be fired regarding a social media post, not only because I’m not a lawyer, but because I don’t think that’s what’s needed in such a training for nonprofits, libraries, etc. Instead, I focused on how to prevent or, at least, reduce the likelihood of such posts from happening at all and what to do when they do happen, from a PR perspective in terms of response.

The reality is that the most common problems nonprofits, charities, NGOs, schools and other mission-based programs will face from social media use by employees won’t relate to a lawsuit – they will relate to public reaction to something posted or “liked” or followed by an employee, consultant, volunteer or client from the program. And I believe the program’s body of work and body of social media posts, as well as that organization’s relationship with the community, are the greatest counter to negative fallout from a social media mistake or from one staff person who turns out to have a deeply-ceded prejudice that could affect their work with others.

I had a four-pronged approach to suggest to the audience about risk management in using social media:

  • You want to create and promote a culture that better discourages, even prevents, social media missteps.
  • You want to create and promote written policies that better discourage and prevent social media missteps.
  • You need to talk to employees, consultants and volunteers frankly about social media use, because conversations reinforce to staff that they need to be thoughtful about what they are posting and “liking” or following online, at all times, even when they are “off the clock.”
  • You want to have a strategy for how you will respond to when an employee or volunteer violates your social media policies and/or makes statements or likes or follows something online, even “off the clock”, that bring your organization or program into disrepute.

I spent a LOT of time emphasizing how to prevent inappropriate social media posts by employees, consultants and volunteers from happening in the first place and what to do to now so that it will mitigate damage when an inappropriate social media post surfaces. I think the most important strategy for a nonprofit, charity, government program, etc. on both of these points is establishing and reinforcing an agency’s culture regarding being a welcoming place, onsite and online, for all people, regardless of their age, race, gender identification, citizenship or residency status, disabilities, religion (or lack there of) or sexual preference.

You need to say, bluntly, in writing, in interviews, in new employee and new volunteer orientations, etc., that you are an organization that recognizes deep-ceded historic inequities and systematic racism in society, including the local community, and that your program is committed to evaluating its activities through the lense of equity and social justice and inclusion.

The more you emphasize this culture, the more some candidates for employment or volunteering will screen themselves out of your organization – someone who cherishes the activity of insulting and demeaning others or denies social inequities or who follows people who promote prejudice and conspiracy theories is not going to want to volunteer nor work with you otherwise if you are so upfront about your agency’s commitments.

I was pleased to find that what I was recommending was, in different words, also what the Forbes Nonprofit Council recommended, via this article, How To Ensure Volunteers And Staff Follow Your Ethical Standards.

To summarize the entire training’s messages:

  • Social media is worthwhile and even necessary for a nonprofit, NGO, charity, school, government agency or any mission-based program to use. You harm your organization or program and exclude vast numbers of donors, volunteers, clients and other supporters by not using it.
  • Agencies can’t come from a place of fear in using social media. If they do, they’ll never realize the wonderful potential of social media to connect with audiences.
  • Programs must realize that there is no way to prevent any bad thing from ever happening via something an employee, consultant or volunteer says or writes or likes or follows online, and that they cannot completely control employee, consultant and volunteer behavior, online and off.
  • An agency should engage in activities regularly that emphasize its values to employees, consultants and volunteers. 
  • An agency should have written policies regarding confidentiality (not just online), privacy (not just online), and the program’s official online and print communications. 
  • An agency should have written suggestions & other communications regarding “using common sense” online.
  • Employees, consultants, volunteers & maybe clients need training in social media.
  • There are ways to effectively address social media messages or other activities by employees, consultants and volunteers that reflect poorly on your agency or even bring it into disrepute.

Would you like for me to do a training for your organization? Here’s more about my online trainings / webinars. I can create, and have created, trainings on a variety of subjects, and trainings on communications tools and techniques for nonprofits, particularly small nonprofits, are my favorite. My trainings are based on practice and real-world experience: I am a manager of volunteers and a volunteer myself, I have a great deal of experience in communications for nonprofits and international aid agencies, and I continually keep up-to-date on what various programs, large and small, are doing with regard to community engagement.

If you are looking for training on virtual volunteering, I highly recommend you first view this series of online videos I prepared that, in around one hour, will give you a clear understanding of virtual volunteering and how you can pursue it at your organization.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

Couple viewing these free videos with purchasing and reading my book, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, and you will have all that you need for launching or expanding a robust virtual volunteering scheme at your nonprofit, charity, school, etc. You will not find a more detailed guide anywhere for working with online volunteers and using the Internet to support and involve all volunteers – even after home quarantines are over and volunteers start coming back onsite to your workspace. And it’s far, far cheaper than hiring me as a consultant or trainer regarding virtual volunteering – though you can still do that, particularly if it’s regarding some specific aspect of virtual volunteering, let setting up an online mentoring program.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site or my YouTube videos and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help

Yes, virtual volunteering will continue after the pandemic

I keep seeing this comment in blogs and articles and tweets:

“Will virtual volunteering continue after the pandemic is over?”

Of course, it will. Just as virtual volunteering was happening BEFORE the pandemic, at THOUSANDS of organizations. Why in the world wouldn’t it continue?

Maybe my latest video will stop this question from being asked… though probably not. FYI, the video is just four minutes long.

And for a free, basic orientation in virtual volunteering, you can watch these free videos on my YouTube channel – altogether, less than an hour:

Altogether, these videos cover developing initial online roles and activities for volunteers, how to rapidly engage online volunteers, how to expand virtual volunteering, how to adjust policies, how to address safety and confidentiality, the importance of keeping a human touch in interactions, addressing the most common questions and resistance to virtual volunteering and much, much more. You have my permission to show them at any conference or workshop or class you might be doing regarding virtual volunteering.

For some more advanced topics regarding virtual volunteering:

Also see:

If your program wants to better use online tools to support all of your volunteers, including those providing service onsite, or if your program wants to create a robust virtual volunteering scheme, such as an online mentoring program or online volunteer engagement as skills-building or other extension of your mission , check out the Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service Into Volunteer Involvement. The book can help you fully explore the reality of remote volunteer engagement, in terms of policy and procedures, to ensure success. This book was helpful long before the global pandemic spurred so many organizations to, at last, embrace virtual volunteering. This is the most comprehensive resource anywhere on working with online volunteers, and on using the Internet to support ALL volunteers, including those you might not think of as “online” volunteers.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site or my YouTube videos and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help

Remote Monitoring in the Age of COVID-19

Humanitarian Advisory Group (HAG) and GLOW collaborated on Remote Monitoring in the Age of COVID-19 as part of HAG’s Humanitarian Horizons research program. HAG and GLOW have partnered on third-party monitoring and evaluation (M&E) assignments for a variety of aid and humanitarian donors, including the Department for International Development (DFID, UK) and DFAT, international NGOs (including Concern World and International Rescue Committee) and research institutes (including the Overseas Development Institute).

This guidance note can be used to:

  • plan remote monitoring approaches
  • raise awareness of remote monitoring best practices
  • advocate with donors for supporting remote monitoring requirements

From the intro to the guide, Remote Monitoring in the Age of COVID-19:

Strong monitoring systems are important for effective program delivery in humanitarian contexts. During a global pandemic, there is a vital need for real-time data and evidence to inform responses to rapidly changing environments. However, collecting and using monitoring data to inform programming is often challenging. During COVID-19, this challenge is compounded by access, safety and travel restrictions.

In addition to implementing remote management and programming, humanitarian actors are initiating or scaling up remote monitoring. Agencies are re-evaluating their existing monitoring design and data collection processes, and recognising that new methods will require changes in staffing, working with partners and resourcing…

This note is intended to guide international and national operational actors on how to adapt and think about remote monitoring in the context of COVID-19. It provides a snapshot of key takeaways from previous research, and draws together emerging learning and guidance.

Update Oct 4, 2020:

War Child Canada has produced a guidance note on remote monitoring and management of gender-based violence programming during the global pandemic. The note goes into detail on integrating community based monitoring approaches and good practice in establishing community focal points, as well as recommending which of these methods should be adopted as a long-term permanent approach rather than a temporary fix.

A helpful guidance note by USAID on remote monitoring approaches outlines a series of factors to consider before implementing remote monitoring. It also highlights which technological solutions to remote monitoring to use in different contexts.

Vetting panelists, guest speakers, bloggers, conference organizers & press requests

image of a panel discussion

Back in the late 1990s, I was invited to speak and train at what I was told was a state PTA conference in a state different from where I was living. The list of other invited speakers was shared with me by the organizer and I was deeply impressed and honored to be a part of such a lineup. I wasn’t paid by the organizer for the work, but that was fine – I saw it as a part of what I was already being paid for in my job directing the Virtual Volunteering Project. All of my travel and hotel expenses were to be paid.

The date arrived, I flew to the location, I picked up my rental car and I drove to my hotel. The next day, I drove to the location of the conference, and as soon as I walked in, I realized things were not what they had seemed via email and phone calls from the organizer: this was not, in fact, an official PTA conference: a representative from the state PTA approached me to say that they didn’t know about the conference being organized in their name by this local member until the last minute. The organizer was putting all of the expenses on her credit card, expecting the state PTA to reimburse her, and she had no signed contract with them for anything. The conference was in an un-airconditioned junior high school in the middle of summer, in a state notorious for its heat and humidity, the seating was for children, not adults, and there was an un-airconditioned school bus for taking attendees around to the city’s sights that afternoon. The organizer showed signs of serious emotional instability that I won’t list here. After the first day, most of the speakers and half of the attendees had left, many of them asking me if I was going to stay or flee. I stuck it out over two days and nights, fulfilling my commitment to deliver workshops to the few that stayed and wanted to hear me. I left and never heard from the organizer again.

Misrepresentation and deliberate fraud in the nonprofit sector aren’t unusual. Sometimes, the person perpetuating the misrepresentation isn’t really aware that what they are claiming is unethical, inappropriate, or maybe even illegal – I think that was the case with the aforementioned conference manager. I’ve been contacted by people saying they work for a certain large, well-known newspaper who, in fact, have never had anything published in that newspaper or any other credible daily, but they felt like they could with the story they wanted to do with my help, that the newspaper knew nothing about – I am not sure that’s deliberate fraud as much as someone not understanding the appropriateness of claiming to represent a publication. I’ve heard from people who say they are doing a documentary film and want to interview someone at my organization, but when I do a little research, I find out that they haven’t produced any films before and people they have interviewed already for this project are a little afraid of them now after their encounters. I’ve seen web sites of people claiming to be operating a nonprofit that partners with various corporations and very well known nonprofits, but upon contacting people I know at said “partners”, they’ve never heard of the organization. And since that conference fiasco, I have been contacted by a few people putting together a conference or event that have never done so before, but think getting participation is just a matter of asking for such. In all of these cases, the people engaging in what I would call misrepresentation don’t think they are doing so: they are sincere in their belief that they are a legitimate, credible press representative, documentary filmmaker, nonprofit manager or event coordinator, and if they can get enough people to say yes to their request to meet or participate, they are going to be all that they claim to be. Take this Charity Fashion Show in San Francisco in 2010 – I think organizers probably really believed they were going to raise enough money to donate to charity, and had no idea just how expensive a fundraising event can be.

And then there are the ones who ARE aware they are perpetuating something unethical, like Community Service Help and the Caffeine Help Network and other like them, selling letters for people to use with courts that sentence them to a certain number of community service hours – thankfully, state attornies general are cracking down on such. Or people claiming to be putting on a fundraising event, looking for donations and sponsorships, but most of the money goes to “expenses” – like the We Build The Wall effort or the Trump Foundation.

No matter the focus of your nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO), charity or consulting business focused on such, you need to do at least a bit of vetting on any press person or documentary filmmaker who wants to interview someone from your program, or any person you are thinking of inviting to speak as part of a panel or conference, or any community group asking to partner with you, etc.

  • If the person lists conferences where they have spoken or organizations they’ve have consulted for, ask to talk to a representative from at least one of those entities to confirm that really happened, look at old versions of web sites on archive.org to make sure the person is listed in the lineup, or ask for a link to an online video showing the speaker addressing the audience.
  • If the person says they are a writer, ask for samples of their published work. If they say they are a filmmaker, ask for links to their work online. Do they have a YouTube or Vimeo channel you can review?
  • If the person claims to have managed events, ask for photos of the event, scans of published material that publicized the event, a blog about the event written by an attendee, event participation surveys, etc. For their most recent events, they should be able to provide dates, number of participants, measures of success, etc. – for instance, if the person says their initiative organizes teen hackathons, what were the dates of those hackathons, how many teens participated in each, where were they and where is the list of apps that were developed?
  • Type the person’s name into Google or Duck Duck Go and see what comes up. If you start to feel suspicious, type in additional words, like scam or investigation or complaint and see if any blogs or articles come up. But be careful if something does come up – it’s harder and harder to find a person or company who HASN’T had a complaint lodged against them.
  • Even the newest nonprofit or NGO should have a web site that lists its board of directors, staff members (and their credentials), and either their most recent yearly financials/annual reports or their proposed budget for the first year.

With all that said, people do have to start somewhere if they are an aspiring nonprofit founder, an aspiring filmmaker, aspiring podcaster, aspiring designer, etc. Someone with not much of a track record at doing what they say they want to do might not automatically mean that someone is trying to do something nefarious, or that the person is someone with a mental illness. But if someone says they are a blogger, there should be a blog to read. Someone starting an event management business should have amateur experience managing some kind of events – weddings, reunions, small nonprofit events, etc. – and references to affirm their abilities. Someone who says they do video production will have at least a few videos online you can view. And while I have managed many high-profile events where it would have been inappropriate to let anyone but credentialed press representatives inside to cover such, I’ve also managed community events where an aspiring, unaffiliated journalist or university journalism student would have been welcomed to come in and observe and write about it as they like.

In short: don’t automatically take someone’s word for their credibility, or that of the program they claim to represent. Never automatically accept any proposed speaker, journalist, committee member, program partner, panelist, trainer or advisor without at least a little bit of research. Get used to saying, “Thanks for your information / inquiry / proposal / email. First I need a few days to check your web site OR do you have a web site I could review? OR could you let me know the name of your contact at the such-and-such foundation, so I could confirm your affiliation?” And make sure all staff, including volunteers, know how to route emails and calls about donations, partnerships and conferences and calls from the press.

Also see these related resources:

  • The Information About & For Volunteers You Should Have on Your Web Site: If your program involves volunteers, or wants to involve volunteers, there are certain things your organization or department must have on its web site. To not have this information says that your organization or department takes volunteers for granted, does not value volunteers beyond money saved in salaries, or is not really ready to involve volunteers.

What’s the difference in for-profits & nonprofits?

Misconceptions abound about the differences in a for-profit business/corporation and a not-for-profit business. I’m hearing misconceptions in particular from the for-profit world, the corporate world, regarding what nonprofits and are and how they are different from the corporate world.

This is how I explain the difference, and how I try to address the misconceptions people have about these two different sectors:

A for-profit business or corporation exists to make more money than its expenses (a profit). It can have a mission – to provide a certain kind of product or service – and it can throw words in that mission like “quality” and “care”, but its success is ultimately judged regarding whether or not it’s profitable: whether or not it generates enough money to cover all expenses, to pay all employees a salary (usually enough to make people not want to seek employment elsewhere), to pay the senior management a hearty bonus beyond their regular, competitive salary and to pay all investors a profit on their investment. That for-profit business could have frequent staff turnover and low morale and not have very good products or services, but if it’s paying all of its bills and generating a good profit margin, it’s considered a successful business. A for-profit business may have a board of directors, a board that gets paid with profits from the company, or it may be owned by one person, who decides to share the profit with employees beyond their salaries (profit-sharing) or may pocket those profits entirely.

A not-for-profit business, also known as a nonprofit, exists to fulfill a mission, and this mission statement drives the development of all programs. It often does this through activities and services that are not provided by the for-profit sector. A nonprofit’s ultimate success is judged on whether or not it engages in activities that fulfill that mission. Some nonprofits are staffed entirely by volunteers (unpaid staff). Some nonprofits are staffed entirely by paid employees. Some nonprofits are staffed by a combination of both. Most nonprofits are pressured by funders not to pay their employees the same rate as their for-profit counterparts – the funders believe that nonprofit staff should be paid far less than for-profit staff, for a whole variety of reasons that I’m not going to get into here. Nonprofits are funded by a combination of donations from individuals, grants from foundations and corporations, and, just like for-profit organizations, contracts or fees for services from corporations, government or individuals. The healthiest nonprofits, financially-speaking, have a combination of these revenue streams – in other words, a healthy nonprofit doesn’t rely on just one source of income. Many nonprofits charge for some of or all of their services, but they have a focus on keeping fees affordable, so that their programs aren’t financially out-of-reach by most people. Since a nonprofit cannot exist without money to pay staff, to pay for its space and to cover all of the expenses incurred in the process of providing its services, then it is possible for a very successful nonprofit, one that is meeting its mission to do whatever it exists to do – shelter abandoned or surrendered animals and offer them for adoption, provide dance classes for inner-city children, tutor young people to improve their grades, provide outdoor activities for people with intellectual disabilities, whatever – and has a big demand for its services or programs to cease operations because it doesn’t attract enough funding to cover expenses. A nonprofit has a board of directors which legally owns and the business and is fiscally-responsible for the business – and is entirely volunteer (unpaid). If the nonprofit generates a profit – and this DOES happen – the nonprofit cannot pocket that money.

I prefer to call the latter a mission-based organization, or a cause-based organization since, in fact, not-for-profits CAN and DO sometimes generate a profit.

So, in sum, the difference in a nonprofit and a for-profit is the first one exists to fulfill a mission, primarily, that will improve or preserve our quality of life or environment, regardless of the profitability of such. Its success is measured on meeting that mission. The second one exists to make money – that is its primary purpose, and it might choose to do that ethically and with a secondary measure, but if a for-profit doesn’t make money, it is a failure, period.

A nonprofit isn’t automatically better or nobler than a for-profit. A nonprofit doesn’t necessarily operate with more passion or integrity than a for-profit. A nonprofit does not necessarily have happier, more dedicated employees.

A for-profit isn’t automatically better than a nonprofit. A for-profit isn’t automatically more efficient or more professional than a nonprofit. A for-profit might be far more ethical than a nonprofit, and have staff that are far more committed to doing quality work than a nonprofit.

Staff at nonprofits can have as much training, education and experience – and even more – than staff at a for-profit. Staff at for-profits aren’t always more “expert” in a particular subject, like marketing or project management, than staff at nonprofits. 

There are for-profit homes for people with disabilities and nonprofit homes for people with disabilities. There are for-profit hospices and nonprofit hospices. You cannot tell the difference in them by just standing in the lobby or living room, or observing staff, or looking at the credentials of staff: you can tell only if you look at where the home gets its money and if it has a board of directors that gets paid.

What does the difference in a nonprofit and a for-profit really look like? Consider a for-profit movie theater and a not-for-profit movie theater. Picture them as being across the street from each other. 

The for-profit theater shows first-run movies and movies expected to be blockbusters because those movies make the most money – the most profit. It doesn’t matter for the theater’s success if the movies have any cultural relevance, if they attract a diverse audience, or if they are considered “good” by critics – what matters is they attract a lot of paying customers, who buy lots of snacks for the movie, enough for the theater to be profitable. 

The nonprofit theater has a mission to show movies that celebrate human diversity and differences, that address humanity’s most serious concerns, and that represent the range of creativity possible on the screen. It has goals to both entertain, to build the awareness in its audiences about the diverse ways film can be used to communicate a variety of messages and celebrate, and to use movies to bring people together for a shared experience, to create more community understanding and cohesion. As long as there are enough people attending for the theater to say that they are meeting their goals – and has some audience surveys or feedback to demonstrate this – it is considered a success.

The aforementioned nonprofit theater would sell tickets to its movies, perhaps at the same price as the for-profit theater, but it probably has just one or two screens and it probably doesn’t attract the full houses that the for-profit theater does, therefore, ticket sales and concession sales are never going to cover the costs of its operations. The nonprofit theater may even have a “pay what you can” night, ensuring that no one is prevented from experiencing a film because they cannot pay.

The owner of that theater may be a more knowledgeable, more passionate movie fan than the nonprofit theater owner across the street. The for-profit theater owner may be more generous and nicer than the theater owner across the street and may provide better customer service than the nonprofit theater – for-profit staff doesn’t have any relation to the quality of the character of the staff or even the leader.

Both of these theaters add value to their communities. Some people may choose to move to the community because of access to one or both of these theaters. They may share some of the same moviegoers. They may even sometimes want to show the same movies: a low-budget, highly-acclaimed independent film may become a massive commercial success, and those two theaters may compete to see who gets the rights to show the film. 

For the most part, nonprofits fill a niche that for-profit companies don’t and provide services or activities that at least a small group of people feel are important, even vital, but that aren’t fully commercially viable. A community may urgently need more services for adults with intellectual disabilities, but there just isn’t enough promise of income for a for-profit to want to offer the services – so a group of concerned citizens forms a nonprofit to provide those services. A group of people may want the community to be able to regularly experience live theater, so it forms a nonprofit to provide that. 

There are both for-profit and nonprofit hospitals. And hospices. And music festivals. And sports leagues. I live three doors down from a for-profit group home for adults with intellectual disabilities. Often, it can be difficult for an outsider to see the difference between a for-profit and a nonprofit: they may look the same in terms of the services they provide and the way their staff members approach their work, and they may provide equal quality of care and services. 

A way you might be able to tell the difference in a for-profit and a non-profit is in how they use social media and how they measure success in their use of such. A for-profit is going to use its social media almost exclusively and ultimately to try to sell its products and services. Its success in using social media is measured by how many followers it has and how much it can tie sales and income to its social media activity. By contrast, a nonprofit is going to use social media for a range of goals, some having to do with income-generation (attendance at events, sales of something, donations) but others having to do with its goals, which might be to build community cohesion, to create greater awareness about a particular issue, to encourage people to volunteer, to vote, to recycle, and on and on. Its success in using social media is measured in how many exchanges it has with others on that social media platform, comments it receives on retweets, and WHO retweets – if the US Congressional representative for that nonprofit’s region retweets a message, that’s social media success. 

That’s how I explain the difference between a for-profit and a not-for-profit. I offer all of the above both for all the people who don’t seem to know, and also for all the people trying to distinguish nonprofits from for-profits by culture, efficiency or expertise. It’s a baseless comparison.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help

Get to know your volunteers now on a new level

Most of the articles I’ve read on “tips for working with remote staff during COVID-19 lockdowns” have been way more basic than I need, say what should be obvious (at least to me – like the importance of starting meetings on-time and make sure you use your mute button when you aren’t talking) and really don’t offer much insight into this particular way of working. In short, when I read most of these articles, I say “Meh” and move on.

However, Charity Village in Canada shared 8 Tips for Nonprofit Leaders to Better Support Virtual Teams by Maryann Kerr and it’s outstanding. There are really great suggestions here that every nonprofit and government program needs to read and apply to their interactions with remote staff – I hope more than a few folks are brave enough to send the article to managers, including executive directors, who just aren’t getting what working from home during a pandemic is REALLY like and what their expectations of their staff REALLY should be.

In addition, many of these suggestions are applicable to virtual volunteering. Here are my favorite recommendations from the article that I think you need to be thinking about with your volunteers now as they do more service and interactions online:

Be patient and considerate of the specific challenges of your team. This is both a collective and unique experience for each of us. Some will be home alone and lonely.  Others may be desperate for a moment of peace. Still others may be caring for elderly family members or a combination of all three.

Speak up and don’t skip the hard stuff. This moment in history asks each of us to dig deep and develop our own innate ability to lead. You do not need to hold a position of leadership to act.  Speaking up, on your own behalf, and on behalf of others, is an act of leadership. If you have a concern or question, it is likely shared by others.

Get to know each other on a whole new level. Whether you use Patrick Lencioni’s Personal Histories Exercise or the Clifton Strengths Finder or any number of other team building activities available online and adaptable to a video conference – just do it. Lencioni’s is a favorite because I’ve never seen it fail to improve a team’s understanding of each other. Do team members have hidden talents they’d like to share?  A song, a poem, a musical instrument? A piece of artwork or craft they’d like to show?  You are suddenly in each other’s homes. Use this as an opportunity to see each other as whole human beings not just workers. 

Explore your values as individuals, teams and as an organization. Start with a free Personal Values Assessment  and then facilitate a discussion about what is important to you as individuals and how this is reflected in how you will work together.  Examine how these compare to your stated values as an organization.  How can you ensure you live these values, particularly now?

Again, I want to emphasize those four suggestions are from Maryann Kerr, not me – she gets all the credit!

But I will add that, in a past blog, I myself wrote this in a blog:

Successfully working with people remotely is a very human endeavor that people who are amiable, understanding and thoughtful tend to excel in.

And, indeed, that’s proven to be true yet again as millions of people experience remote work amid chaotic or lonely homes.

Also see these blogs and web pages from me:

Building a team culture among remote workers: yoga, cocktails & games

Team building activities for remote workers

Re-creating offline excitement & a human touch online

Virtual volunteering: it’s oh-so-personal

The dynamics of online culture & community

Leading in a virtual world

And this video about how personal working with online volunteers has been for me.

vvbooklittle

And, of course, for more advice on working with remote volunteers, or using the Internet to support and involve volunteers, check out The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. Tools come and go – but certain community engagement principles never change. you will not find a more detailed guide anywhere for working with online volunteers and using the Internet to support and involve all volunteers – even after home quarantines are over and volunteers start coming back onsite to your workspace. It’s available both as a traditional paperback and as an online book. It’s co-written by myself and Susan Ellis.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help

Remote tools: what do I (Jayne) use?

It’s become a frequently asked question of me, since I have worked remotely, from home, for so many, many years, and because I work with so many colleagues, including volunteers, who are also working from home:

What do you use to work remotely with others?

Here’s how I do it – but note that everyone has different preferences and you may find that yours are quite different:

Google Docs / Google Drive has been a fantastic way for me to work with others on word processing documents, slide shows and spreadsheets. This way, it doesn’t matter what software we use for these functions (Microsoft, LibreOffice, whatever). Also, it’s free.

I have used WebEx, Go to Meeting and lots of other video-conferencing platforms – I’ll use whatever the client is paying for – but I love Zoom most: it is super easy for meetings. I like it because it’s so easy to share my screen or for another participants to do so. I can use it on my laptop AND my phone (in case I need to have a meeting when I won’t be at my laptop, which never leaves my house). No matter what you use, keep in mind:

  • meetings should have an agenda (and you stick to it)
  • meetings absolutely start and end on time
  • encourage everyone to keep their video on and to be “present”
  • do as much as you can to keep it lively and focused – treat participants as an audience
  • always use a password for access to meetings, so you don’t get “zoom bombed.”

If someone else is paying for access (I can’t afford it otherwise on my own), I love Slack for quick updates and conversations – I think of it as someone stopping by my office and saying, “Got a sec? I have a question.” If I have access to it, leave it on during the workday so people can reach me anytime, but use the “in a meeting” when I need to not be disturbed. I haven’t found a good alternative to Slack, now that YahooIM and AOL Messenger are gone. I refuse to use Facebook messenger – that company already knows way, way too much about me. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook.

If someone else is paying for it (again, I can’t afford it otherwise on my own), I also love Basecamp – Basecamp has been absolutely essential for me to manage large projects, like a recent one where I managed more than 15 projects, each with 3 – 5 volunteers, plus the overall program for these projects, with about 50 different people working on it. There are places to share files, or to link to files shared elsewhere, to group those files into categories, to do chats, and on and on. So much easier to find things there than to go looking for attachments to emails. I wish I could afford it to use all the time on every project I’m working on with others. It’s password-protected. Groups are private (you have to be invited by the owner of the group to join).

For those that can’t afford Basecamp, I recommend Groups.io. I’m experimenting with it myself, as an online discussion group, but it could also be an online collaboration space, including a place to share files – so much easier to find things there than to go looking for attachments to emails. I wish I could afford it to use all the time on every project I’m working on with others. Groups can be private and invite-only.

If I don’t care about security, I use DropBox to share large files with people that I don’t want to attach via email.

I have two Google calendars, one private and one public. I have my calendar set to send me email reminders 24 hours before especially important meetings, and 4 hours and 1 hour before other meetings. It also sends me an on-screen reminder on my laptop 30 minutes before a meeting and an update on my phone. I also use the alarm function on my phone – not affiliated with Google – to remind me of particularly important meetings.

In the last year, I have found short videos to be a really easy way to orient or pitch something to remote staff or potential clients. I use Quicktime to record the video (it’s already on my computer, comes for free with a Mac) to record the video and iMovie to edit it (also free on my laptop). I had no training in either – I taught myself. In 2018, I did a video to encourage about 20 nonprofits I was working with to make a simple, short video of their own for a project I was working on, and it went over WAY better than an email! I got 100% participation, and I think it was because I showed them exactly what I wanted, instead of telling them. Since then, I’ve created several quick online videos, including three specifically because of the onslaught of interest in virtual volunteering because of COVID-19 home quarantines:

NOTE: Don’t be afraid to use video – to train new volunteers, to remind current volunteers of something they need to keep in mind, to talk about anything, really, that can be summarized in a compelling little speech of around 5 minutes. Your sound is as important as the image – you need to be CLEAR and as interesting to someone who would just be listening to the video as also watching it. And, absolutely, close-caption your video (YouTube does this automatically, for free – then you go in and fix what it got wrong).

As for safety and security: I do not like to share any document online that has my social security and/or birthday on it. But sometimes, I just have no choice. In such cases, I prefer to scan the document as a PDF or JPG and send it as an attachment via email. If I have to sign something, I have a printed and I print it out, sign it, then scan it again and send that as a JPG or PDF.

I subscribe to a VPN – a tool that creates a “virtual private network.” A VPN ensures that the information traveling between a connected device (computer, smartphone, tablet) and the VPN’s server is encrypted, making it more secure from hackers, cybercriminals, and data thieves. It’s a great tool if you ever use a public wi-fi network – at a coffee shop, the airport, the library, etc. As an added bonus, usig a VPN, you can also access restricted websites and apps from anywhere in the world – great to get around blocks on a website when you are outside your country (no more “not available in your country” messages). I recommend Hot Spot Shield (the free version has a lot of ads – it’s worth the monthly subscription fee not to have these).

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help

Does Your Org’s Practices Reflect Its Own Mission?

I recently joined the board of a brand new nonprofit. I am helping with the content of its first ever web site. I decided to look at the web sites of some other similar organizations to get some ideas.

I found nonprofit associations that have classes on how to prepare an annual report – but they don’t have any of their annual reports posted on their web site. I found foundations that demand copies of the latest 990 from nonprofit applicants, but they don’t have their 990s on Guidestar. I found a nonprofit that has its board of directors listed on its web site, and always has, but has a different board listed on their 990s for those same years on Guidestar.

Why aren’t these organizations walking their talk, doing what they want other organizations to be doing?

And then there is the nonprofit organization that I consider famous, that you have probably heard of. Were I to say its name, which I’m not, and its name would probably bring to mind images of innovation, of bucking the status quo, of direct confrontation, and lots and lots of action. You would think of it as an organization that doesn’t recognize any tradition or rule as absolute. You would think of it as an agency embraces new ideas and experimentation, and works in a flexible, pro-active manner, putting its mission goals before bureaucratic ones. So imagine my astonishment when talking with this organization to receive such a hostile reaction to the idea of employee telecommuting / cloud commuting. The human resources manager sounded as though she couldn’t breathe at the thought of such a radical idea, and once she did find her words, said that this organization’s HR policy absolutely forbids any such practice. When I suggested that it would be a good idea to modernize that policy, another staffer jumped in, reminding me that doing something so “substantial” as changing a policy takes “a lot of time” and “much reflection” and “a great deal of research about legal issues.”

Here’s an organization that prides itself on not playing by the rules, and even sometimes asks its volunteers to violate the law in pursuit of its goals – no kidding! But revise its human resources policies to allow employee telecommuting? Why, that’s crazy talk!

There’s another organization you probably would not have heard of, but you would be familiar with its work: trying to address conditions and practices that lead to global climate change. But while this agency is writing guidelines, holding conferences and lobbying corporations and governments, the overwhelming majority of its staff, even those who live less than half a mile from the organization, are driving to work, despite the outstanding mass transit system available in its city. The organization has no policies regarding recycling its own office waste, and there’s no emphasis on any energy-saving practices within its offices.

Can you imagine if the press, or a group working counter to this organization, identified these practices and detailed them publicly, and the enormous public relations fallout that would occur?

These are real-life examples of organizations promoting practices or an image that isn’t actually reflected in their practices or culture, of organizations not truly “walking their talk.” And there’s more:

  • there are organizations that say they have a commitment to fighting for human rights and inclusion that have web sites and online resources (apps, videos, etc.) that aren’t accessible for people with disabilities – and they balk at the idea of making that commitment to digital inclusion
  • organizations that encourage corporations to allow their employees to volunteer on company time, while not allowing their own employees to do so.
  • organizations that advocate for feminism and women’s rights, but have antiquated dress codes and business practices regarding women that work and volunteer for them.
  • companies holding seminars on innovation and efficiency in the workplace who have antiquated computers, software and other devices that inhibit their staff productivity.
  • initiatives that tout the importance of local control of local activities, local decision-making,  but ignore the feedback of clients, volunteers and frontline staff, even imposing requirements of them with no discussion from them.

Take a look at your organization, particularly your mission statement, and ask yourself, “Is what we promote to others being practiced by ourselves?” Look at the behavior you encourage or talk about in your programs – do you exude that behavior yourself, as an organization? Survey your staff and volunteers, allowing them to anonymously provide feedback on where they see disconnect in the organization’s mission and the organization’s own internal practices.

Not only will you avoid a public relations nightmare, your own practices will become marketing tools for your organization’s mission.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.

See also:

Free guide updated: Basic Fundraising for Small NGOs/Civil Society in the Developing World

I’ve updated Basic Fundraising for Small NGOs/Civil Society in the Developing World for the first time in four years. I swore I wouldn’t anymore, and even said so on my web site… it’s quite the beast of a project, given that it’s entirely unfunded work. And I’ve been updating it since 2004.

But the continued pleas on sites like Quora from small NGOs in Asia and Africa, including very specific questions about crowdsourcing, a topic not covered in the 2015 version of the document, prompted me to spend oh-so-many hours updating it.

The PDF book is now 41 pages long and is available to download, for free, from my web site. It includes chapters on:

  • Fundraising: Some Things You Should NEVER Do
  • Networking & Establishing Credibility
  • Guidelines for Integrity, Transparency & Accountability
  • Using Social Media to Build Credibility
  • Absolute Essential Preparations To Solicit Donations
  • Finding Donors & Making Contact
  • Proposal Writing
  • Ethical Principles in Fundraising
  • Crowdfunding & Online Donations
  • Beware of Fundraising Scams
  • Financial Sustainability Action Planning
  • Individuals Raising Money in Another Country for Your NGO

The work of small community-based organizations (CBOs)/civil society organizations (CSOs)/non- governmental organizations (NGOs) in developing countries, collectively, is vital to millions of people. There is no group or institution doing more important work than CBOs / CSOs & NGOs. They represent local people and local decision-making. They often are the only group representing minority voices and the interests of those most-marginalized in a community. I call them mission- based organizations: they are organizations that exist, primarily, to fulfill a mission. They have a mission-statement that is supposed to guide all of their activities – in contrast to a business, which exists to make profits.

Financial support for their vital work, however, is hard to come by, and staff at these organizations, whether paid or unpaid (volunteer), have, usually, never had training in how to raise funds, what different funding streams can look like (individual donors, foundation grants, corporate grants, fees-for-service, government contracts-for- service, etc.), or how to maintain an accounting of funds.

I can’t solve this challenge with a book, but I hope I can give these NGOs the most basic information they need to secure funding. I hope it also helps consultants who are trying to help these small NGOs in developing countries.

Will I update it again? Not any time soon, barring the correction of some egregious mistakes, and maybe not at all. I need money too, folks. I need to devote my energy to projects that pay me. Please read more about my consulting services and let me know if you might like to work together!

vvbooklittleA resource that isn’t free but is very much worth your investment – at least I think so – is The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. The book, which I co-wrote with Susan Ellis, extensive, detailed suggestions and specifics about using the Internet to support and involve volunteers: virtual volunteering. It includes task and role development, suggestions on support and supervision of online volunteers, guidelines for evaluating virtual volunteering activities, suggestions for risk management, online safety, ensuring client and volunteer confidentiality and setting boundaries for relationships in virtual volunteering, and much more. The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is available both as a traditional printed book and as a digital book.

Also see: