![]() About Jayne Cravens |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Jayne is an internationally-recognized professional with more than 20 years of experience regarding communications, community/volunteer involvement, and capacity-building for nonprofit organizations, non-governmental organizations/civil society, government-based community programs, and corporate philanthropy programs. She has worked on the local, regional, national and international level, and has worked extensively with multi-cultural audiences, corporate audiences, United Nations agencies, international aid workers, low-income communities, and those who are traditionally socially-excluded. She has a demonstrated commitment to gender issues and mainstreaming gender considerations in her work. A citizen of the USA and a native of Kentucky, she lived in Germany from February 2001 through April 2009, except for six months in 2007, when she lived in Afghanistan. She now lives again in the USA, and is currently based in the Portland, Oregon area.Jayne is available for short-term consulting onsite anywhere, long-term consulting in the Portland-Oregon area, and long-term employment (open to negotiation for anywhere).
She launched this web site in January 1996. She's been active on the Internet since 1993.
Her CV, which fully details her professional experience and skills, and her references, are available upon request. You can also read about her core professional competencies and her capacity-building work specifically. Below is a list of her professional experience and credentials:
|
|
|
| Jayne is a frequent speaker at a variety of local, regional, national & international conferences, both in-person and online. She has also contributed frequently to graduate-level university classes regarding using the Internet to support volunteers and for greater community involvement and outreach. Her university work includes being a guest speaker for SOCW 6355: Advanced Use of Information Technology in Human Services and SOCW 6371: Community and Administrative Practice at the University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work, Feb. 2007, and Feb. & Nov. 2008; a graduate class at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Policy at the University of Texas at Austin in 2004; and a graduate class studying Volunteer Program Planning and Evaluation at the University of North Texas, 2001, 2002 and 2004. She can develop university-level curriculum relating to her areas of expertise and deliver such online or onsite, and is currently developing a graduate-level university course for using the Internet to support volunteers, and to involve and build community. |
![]()
|
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) National Area-Based Development Programme (NABDP) From March 1 through most of August 2007, I was in Kabul, Afghanistan to serve as Communication and Reporting Advisor for the National Area-Based Development Programme (NABDP), a program administered by UNDP that supports the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) in Afghanistan. I was happy to return to my former employer, UNDP, but I was ecstatic to have the opportunity to work in a country in which I have been interested since the 1990s. Among my many communications responsibilities was updating the MRRD/NABDP web site and creating an NABDP Flickr account, with most photos provided by various ministry staff members. I also developed a presentation/training for staff on taking photos.
|
![]() |
United Nations Volunteers Programme (UNV)/ United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) From February 2001 - February 2004, Jayne was the Online Volunteering Specialist at UNV, part of UNDP, in Bonn, Germany, helping to build the capacity of staff and UN Volunteers to involve online volunteers, revamping and directing the UNV-managed Online Volunteering service (formerly at NetAid), and assisting UNV in using the Internet to effectively manage onsite UN Volunteers and to build community among former UN volunteers. She was also part of UNITeS, the United Nations Information Technology Service, an initiative of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that promotes volunteerism as fundamental to information and communications technologies for development (ICT4D). Contributions to UNITeS she is especially proud of: creating and maintaining the UNITeS Knowledge Base, including the publications Handheld computer technologies in community service/volunteering/advocacy and Volunteers: Essential to ICT projects in developing countries, as well as coordinating the profiling of all UN Volunteers engaged in ICT4D activities. Jayne advised UNV regarding volunteer management issues and volunteer center development in developing countries, and was responsible for the content and volunteer coordination for UNV's first-ever online events, including a live web cast featuring Tim Burners Lee.
|
![]() |
Virtual Volunteering Project From December 1996 - January 2001, Jayne directed the internationally-recognized Virtual Volunteering Project, which encouraged and assisted agencies in the development and success of volunteer opportunities that can be completed via home or work computers and the Internet, and helped agencies use the Internet to manage all volunteers and connect with volunteer management resources. This included creating the most comprehensive information available, on or offline, regarding online mentoring programs and best practices, and engaging in the first ever research regarding online volunteering.
|
"Online Mentoring: Programs and Suggested Practices as of February 2001", in Technology-Assisted Delivery of School Based Mental Health Services: Defining School Social Work for the 21st Century, which was co-published simultaneously as the Journal of Technology in Human Services, Volume 21, Numbers 1/2 2003, by The Haworth Press
"Challenges of International Online Volunteering: Re-Learning Words, Transcending Boundaries", September 2004, in The Journal of Volunteer Administration, Volume 22, Number 3, published by the Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA).
"Factors for Success in Involving Online Volunteers," presented at "Volunteering Research: Frontiers and Horizons," November 2005, a conference by the Institute for Volunteering Research, in Birmingham, England, and published in The International Journal of Volunteer Administration (IJOVA).
pending publication: "More Than Performers: Factors for Success in Theater-for-Development Initiatives," an investigation completed in October 2005 of the elements needed for an organization to successfully use live, in-person performance as a tool for development, excluding performer training and theater techniques (also known as theater-for-development). Relevant theories of development management informed the investigation, with a specific focus on institutional development, inter-organizational collaboration, and trust-building.
Merrill Associates Topic of the Month for December, 2004: "Learning From The 'Not-So-Nice' Volunteers"
![]() |
Jayne was named one of the Top 25 Women of the Web in 2001 by the San Francisco Women of the Web. She's still wondering when someone will send the "just kidding" e-mail. |
She received her B.A. in Journalism (with minors in both theater and history) from Western Kentucky University. In 2005, she passed the initial level exam in the Diplomas de Español como Lengua Extranjera (DELE) (certification for basic abilities in Spanish), and is currently studying for the next level. She completed the following classes that are part of the Professional Certificate for Nonprofit Management (in the first year it was offered), San José State University (California): Fund Raising, Board Governance & Leadership, Financial Management, Human Resources, and Strategic Planning & Needs Assessments. She has also been trained in planning and evaluation by Pacific Institute for Research & Evaluation (PIRE).
Jayne is or has been a member of
|
|
Community Engagement and Volunteerism Resources for Texas K-12 Schools
Part of the Texas Education Network (TENET), this web portal is for school administrators, teachers, parent/family volunteers, and others who coordinate volunteer and community partnership activities between schools and other organizations, including businesses. It has become a nationally-recognized web site. To view the site, cut and paste http://www.serviceleader.org/old/schools/ into archive.org.
AmeriCorps for Community Engagement and Education Program (ACEE)
VISTA School Volunteer Management Handbook
A resource guide for VISTAs in charge of managing school-based volunteers for Sanchez Elementary
School in Austin, Texas through the ACEE program in 1998, and a good model for managing school-based volunteers anywhere.
Music in Schools
Contextual Learning to Teach the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)
This web portal is for educators and others to learn about and use music-in-schools resources, and to learn how music-in-schools programs have a positive effect on academics, including math and science. Includes curriculum resources, and a list of groups and associations that support music-in-schools programs, particularly those that support music being used in the classroom to teach other academic subjects. Originally developed for the Texas Education Network (TENET dropped these resources in 2001 because of a change in its education resource priorities. I would like these resources to find a home at an education-focused or arts-focused nonprofit. If you represent such and are interested in taking over hosting these resources and continuing to update them, please contact me).
Included a section mapping "Science and Math School-to-Careers Resources for Texas K-12 Educators." Contact the Charles A. Dana Center for more information.
Jayne also has a Nabaztag, and if you have one too, contact her and she will tell you her bunny's name (and if you don't know what a Nabaztag is, you may contact her and she will tell you).

Even more information about the author of this Web site

my consulting services | return to home page |
contact me | linking to or from these pages