Jayne Cravens
  coyotecommunications.com & coyoteboard.com (same web site)
 

Jayne Cravens
Communications Work Portfolio


social media:

The UN Social Good Summit & Ukraine: How I leveraged social media (#inno4dev / #2030now / #uatech4good). My social media strategy for UNDP Ukraine in association with the UN's Social Good Summit in 2014. Includes samples of press releases, images and social media messaging, as well as a look at what worked and what didn't.

Recommendations for UN agencies in Ukraine to use social media to promote reconciliation, social inclusion, & peace-Building (PDF). I submitted this strategy on October 2, 2014 on my last day as Surge Communications Advisor for UN Ukraine. These recommendations focused on use of Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and other social media to tools. This strategy includes a review of many of the challenges of reconciliation in Ukraine, suggestions for cultivating participation among civil society organizations and government offices, examples of organizations using social media successfully to promote tolerance and respect, suggested messaging, and an outline for how to evaluate efforts.

Social media campaign to promote the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers. In 2017, a United Nations agency recruited candidates to be in a roster ready for deployment as Digital Media Officers. Part of the requirements for applicants who made it through the first round of the vetting process was to create a social media campaign in just two hours designed to promote the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers in a mythical country. This is my successful submission that helped get me into this UN roster.

Leading an online discussion regarding Gender and the Digital Divide. In August 2003, I had the pleasure of co-hosting this multi-day online event on the TechSoup community forum with Latifat Kadir of Lagos, Nigeria. Latifat and other women shared their stories of cultural and safety barriers that kept them from computer and Internet-related classes and community technology centers (telecenters, Internet cafes, etc.). It's interesting to note that, in the years since the original discussion a few men have posted to deny there are any barriers to women using the Internet, including in developing and transitional countries. Obviously, much more education is needed. This experience, as well as others, lead to my creation of this resource on my own web site: Women's Access to Public Internet Centers in Transitional and Developing Countries.

Evaluating Online Activities: Online Action Should Create & Support Offline Action
Hundreds of "friends" on an online social networking site. Thousands of subscribers to an email newsletter. Dozens of attendees to a virtual event. Those are impressive numbers on the surface, but if they don't translate into more volunteers, repeat volunteers, new donors, repeat donors, more clients, repeat clients, legislation, or public pressure, they are just that: numbers. For online activities to translate into something tangible, online action must create and support offline action. What could this look like? This resource can help organizations plan strategically about online activities so that they lead to something tangible - not just numbers.

For Local City & County Governments: You Should Be Using Social Media. Here's How.
To not be using social media to deliver information and to engage means you are denying critical information to much of your community and promoting an image of secrecy and lack of transparency. In fact, the lack of use of social media can be seen as your city council or county government trying to hide something, and even lead to rumors that are much harder to dispel than they would have been to prevent. This advice talks not only about exactly what your school should be posting to social media, but also how to handle tough questions and criticism.

To see my social media activities in real time, follow me:

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other internal strategies and proposals:

Rio Convention Environmental Project in Ukraine Outreach / Marketing Plan (PDF). This initiative, a part of UNDP, was staffed by just one full-time person who is not a communications professional. She wanted to know what she could do within UNDP's communications activities to help reach her initiative's goals, which included changing behaviors and understanding of citizens regarding climate change. This was a "no cost" approach that I authored for her, relying primarily on social media and the UNDP web site to get messaging out.

Guide for Facilitating the Preparation of Women-Focused Development Plans (PDF). By Nika Saeedi, Gender Specialist and Jayne Cravens, Communications & Reporting Advisor, both at National Area-Based Development Programme (NABDP) Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation & Development Kabul, Afghanistan. June 12, 2007. Primary Audience: Afghan ministry staff at all levels. The full document was also shared with partner organizations, such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and several donor governments.

Workshop for Afghan women to help them improve their public speaking skills (PPT). This was a workshop I put together for female colleagues at the Afghan ministry where I worked in 2007. I researched women teachers and public figures in various Islamic countries and cultures, including in Afghan history, and contacted several Muslim women's groups with a large Internet presence for advice to create this workshop. I also relied on my assistant, a local Afghan woman to help me phrase things properly, and I put her in charge of creating the design around my words in the slide show presentation and including culturally-appropriate photos. Read the notes for each slide, as these offer much more information.

Online Volunteering @ UNV: A future? (PDF): A review and proposal regarding the Online Volunteering service at UNV, with a focus on how online volunteering can be further mainstreamed into UNV and UNDP. Submitted internally at United Nations Volunteers in August 2004.


online publications & products:

  • The UNITeS, the United Nations Information Technology Service, an initiative launched by the UN Secretary General that promotes volunteerism as fundamental to information and communications technologies for development (ICT4D). Two resources in particular were developed by me:
       
    • Using Instant Messaging to Work With Volunteers: Benefits and Suggestions
      The advantages of using Instant Messaging (IM) with volunteers, based on feedback from various online discussion groups, from the staff experiences of the United Nations Information Technology Service, and various other resources. Here is the archived version from November 2002, and here is the updated version.

    • Handheld computer technologies in community service/volunteering/advocacy
      Examples of volunteers/citizens/grass roots advocates using handheld computer / personal digital assistants (PDAs) or phone devices as part of community service / volunteering / advocacy, or examples that could be applied to volunteer settings. Also included is a section on Advocacy, and a listing of Online Software Directories for Handhelds.

    • Volunteers: Essential to ICT projects in developing countries
      Why the UNITeS initiative believed that volunteers are an essential and fundamental element to the success of information and communications technology (ICT) efforts in underdeveloped communities.

    • Assisting Others As An Expert Volunteer
      This article was part of the online Knowledge Base hosted by UNITeS. It is an example of the kinds of resources that were a part of the UNITeS Knowledge Base to help volunteers applying ICT in the developing world, and to help organizations who wanted to involve such volunteers.

    • UNITeS Contributions to the UNESCO Multimedia Training Kit
      The UNV staff managing the UNITeS initiative was invited to prepare a module on volunteers in telecentres and community media organizations for the UNESCO Multimedia Training Kit (MMTK). I lead the creation of the module, which includes a slide show presentation, exercises, case studies and trainer notes.


  • Sanchez Elementary School Online Mentoring Program
    Jayne designed this program, designed the web site, and recruited, screened and trained the online volunteers who participated in this program to mentor two classes at Sanchez Elementary School in Austin, Texas, as part of the Virtual Volunteering Project. This web site, sans mentor and student information and interactive functionality, is provided to help others, particularly schools, to develop their own online mentoring programs.

  • AmeriCorps for Community Engagement and Education Program (ACEE)
    VISTA School Volunteer Management Handbook

    A resource guide from 1998 for VISTAs in charge of managing school-based volunteers for Sanchez Elementary School in Austin, Texas through the ACEE program, and a good model for managing school-based volunteers anywhere.

 
videos:

Samples of my presentations and webinars (all on YouTube):
 
print publications:
 
 The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook

available for purchase as a paperback & an ebook
from Energize, Inc.


You can see my academic / research work, including that which is related to volunteerism, at my profile on academia.edu. Most of the academic articles that have cited my work regarding virtual volunteering are listed at my Google Scholar account


selected materials from my web site & blog:

These are resources I wrote for my web site that I feel most proud of and as a reflection of my professional abilities:

Preventing Folklore, Rumors (or Rumours), Urban Myths & Organized Misinformation Campaigns From Interfering with Development & Aid/Relief Efforts & Government Initiatives
Folklore, rumors and urban myths / legends often interfere with development aid activities and government initiatives, including public health programs - even bringing such to a grinding halt. They create ongoing misunderstandings and mistrust, prevent people from seeking help, encourage people to engage in unhealthy and even dangerous practices, and have even lead to mobs of people attacking someone or others because of something they heard from a friend of a friend of a friend. With social media like Twitter and Facebook, as well as simple text messaging among cell phones, spreading misinformation is easier than ever. Since 2004, I have been gathering and sharing both examples of this phenomena, and recommendations on preventing folklore, rumors and urban myths from interfering with development and aid/relief efforts and government initiatives. I've updated this information with new information per the organized misinformation campaigns targeting Ukraine and the elections in the USA. Now, with fake news sites set up specifically to mislead people, as well as crowdsourced efforts by professional online provocateurs and automated troll bots pumping out thousands of comments, countering misinformation efforts has to be a priority for aid and development organizations, as well as government agencies.

Welcoming immigrants as volunteers at your organization

What Mad Men Can Teach Nonprofits & NGOs About Story-Telling

Please do NOT stay in your lane (walking the talk on mainstreaming)


  Quick Links 

 my home page
 
 my consulting services  &  my workshops & presentations
 
 my credentials & expertise
 
 My research projects
 
 My book: The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook

 contact me   or   see my schedule
 
 Free Resources: Community Outreach, With & Without Tech

 Free Resources: Technology Tips for Non-Techies

 Free Resources: Web Development, Maintenance, Marketing for non-Web designers

 Free Resources: For people & groups that want to volunteer
 
 linking to or from my web site
 
 The Coyote Helps Foundation
 
 Jayne's Amazon Wishlist
 
 me on social media (follow me, like me, put me in a circle, subscribe to my newsletter)

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Disclaimer: No guarantee of accuracy or suitability is made by the poster/distributor. This material is provided as is, with no expressed or implied warranty.

Permission is granted to copy, present and/or distribute a limited amount of material from my web site without charge if the information is kept intact and without alteration, and is credited to:

Jayne Cravens & Coyote Communications, www.coyotecommunications.com

Otherwise, please contact me for permission to reprint, present or distribute these materials (for instance, in a class or book or online event for which you intend to charge).

The art work and material on this site was created and is copyrighted 1996-2018
by Jayne Cravens, all rights reserved
(unless noted otherwise, or the art comes from a link to another web site).