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Coyote Helps Volunteering Focused on Local Community Subreddits

Note: Coyote Helps does not yet exist as a nonprofit. All of the information on this web site is PROPOSED.
Please see the home page for more information about this idea for a nonprofit.

Many cities, towns, regions and university communities are served by their own subreddit. The rules on such communities are usually strictly-enforced, and any information posted to them must explicitly show that it relates to the local region or university - otherwise, the information gets deleted and the person posting the information can get banned.

In addition, OVER posting to communities, even on-topic, can get you banned.

So before you start posting to a subreddit focused on your region or university, read through previous posts carefully, to see how you can best craft your information to fit the guidelines of the subreddit.

Getting started.

Once you have been accepted as an official volunteer (if you wish to do these activities as an official volunteer), you first have to find locally-focused subreddits for your area! Use your city name, county name, and/or your university name in a search on Reddit to find such. There may be just one!

CAREFUL! Many cities in the USA have the same name! Many cities in the world have the same name! Make certain the subreddit you are about to join really is for YOUR region, not somewhere else.

Once you have found such a subreddit, or subreddits, look at the posts and the rules. Do you think this subreddit would want posts from you about local volunteering opportunities, local community events, local candidate forums, etc.? If not, no need to try.

If you do think your posts MIGHT be welcomed, the first thing to do is NOT to post. Instead, it's to comment on the posts of others. Let people know when you have found information helpful. If someone says a local concert was a lot of fun, or horrible, and you were there, comment and say so and either agree or, respectfully, disagree.

Many subreddits won't let you post unless you have minimum karma, and the best way to get karma is by making credible, meaningful comments on a variety of subreddits - and that has to be more than "me too!"

Next steps.

If you have determined that a group would welcome posts that encourage people to get to know their communities more, to volunteer, or to be more engaged, you can start posting. Start with just ONE POST and see what happens over the next 48 hours. If the post is not deleted, then try ONE MORE POST, and wait another 48 hours.

Information you could post:
Limit your posts to once a day until you are absolutely sure that more than once a day would be welcomed. Coyote Helps strongly suggests you never post more than twice a day to such communities, and never more than twice a week.

Here are examples of how the founder of Coyote Helps posts to her local communities:
See how, in each of these posts, there is a link to where she found the information, and the basics of the information is always where: who, what, where and when, and sometimes how and why? This is how YOUR information should be posted to locally-focused subreddits.

You may want to include a disclaimer at the end of your posts, something like:
I am in no way affiiated with this initiative. Please do not contact me for additional info. This information is from the organization's own web site/social media account.

Where to find information to post.

On Facebook, you can follow:

You can also go to the web site of each of these organizations, and others, and subscribe to their email newsletters.

You can also make a committment to going to the blogs and web sites of each of these organizations, and others, to look for information you can post on your local community Reddit.

What if your community doesn't have a subreddit?

If you have searched and cannot find a subreddit focused on your local community, and you want to start one, please contact us, so we can double check and make certain there really isn't a subreddit focused on your community. And then, if you wish to, absolutely, you can create such a subreddit. However, note that this subreddit is YOURS, not ours, and you will have to learn, on your own, how to moderate it, how to add new moderators, how to alter its appearance, how to create rules, etc. If you can figure all of this out, and you start leveraging it to post information that helps your community engage in volunteering or become more civically engaged, all of the hours you pour into its creation and moderation will be counted as part of your Coyote Helps volunteering (provided we approve such, in writing).

Always Remember the Goal.

The primary goal of Coyote Helps is simple: to help make the Internet a kinder place, one that is filled with opportunities and information to help people engage with their communities and engage in causes that are important to them, or to learn about causes that help bring people together or build understanding among people.


Please do NOT start on any volunteering tasks until you have received written notification from Coyote Helps that you are now an official volunteer.

Reporting.

Reporting your activities each month to Coyote Helps leadership is part of your commitment as a volunteer.


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