FAQs Resources for AGENCIES Resources for VOLUNTEERS About the Virtual Volunteering Project Subscribe to VIRTUAL VERVE What's new Site Index Home Page		volunteer activism via the internet This information was last updated on June 5, 2000 Many organizations involve volunteer activists to promote their agencies and various causes, on and offline. However, before you mobilize online volunteer activists -- to send e-mails to individuals, companies or online discussion groups on behalf of your organization, to create a Web-based petition, and so forth -- plan strategically to make your efforts successful and positive. First, make sure that your organization is ready to involve volunteers virtually and that your agency has set the internal groundwork for staff buy-in and quality control. Your organization also needs to know what activities staff and volunteers can engage in legally regarding lobbying, advocacy, and other public policy activities. We recommend these resources: Charity Lobbying in the Public Interest web site by the Independent Sector, this is an excellent place to learn why charity lobbying is important, easy and legal; how your organization can lobby effectively for public policy changes to benefit your mission; and how charities may inform voters and candidates for elected office about their missions effectively and legally. Also included is a step-by-step guide for following federal law governing charity lobbying. Lobbying and Political Activity by Tax-Exempt Organizations by the The Online Compendium of Federal and State Regulations for U.S. Nonprofit Organizations. It is an excellent, detailed guide, and links to even more information from other sources. Let America Speak a coalition project co-chaired by the Alliance for Justice, Independent Sector, and OMB Watch. This web site contains information and background about nonprofit advocacy and provides updates about legislation and other activities that could affect the advocacy rights of the nation's nonprofits. Publications that resulted from OBM Watch's NonProfit America initiative. These can help agencies effectively use communications technologies to enhance and expand their engagement in public policy.

 

• E-Advocacy for Nonprofits: The Law of Lobbying and Election Related Activity on the Net
  a lengthy but easy-to-read guide to help nonprofits keep their online advocacy activities effective and legal.

   
  

• NetAction, http://www.netaction.org
  A project of The Tides Center. NetAction is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting effective grassroots citizen action campaigns by creating coalitions that link activists using the Internet with grassroots organizations, and educating the public, policy makers, and the media about technology-based social and political issues. NetAction has lots of great advice for organizations looking into mobilizing activism via the Internet, including accounts of what's worked and what hasn't for various agencies. The site includes "The Virtual Activist," a comprehensive training course on cyber-activism to assist activists who want to use technology effectively for grassroots organizing, outreach, and advocacy.

  Information from NetAction regarding online activism is also featured in articles for Mother Jones Magazine:

   
  
  • Is It Outreach, or Is It Spam?
     
    
  • NetAction's Tools for Organizing Cyberspace

   
  
• Institute for Global Communication, http://www.igc.org,
  Another organization with lots of experience and knowledge around Internet volunteer activism, including an outstanding list of links to activist tools and funding resources for organizations at http://www.igc.org:80/igc/issues/activis/or.html.

   
  

• Case Study: Constituency Organizing on the Net
  http://www.ebase.org/case.html
  During the summer of 1997, the Northern Rockies Campaign (NRC), with primary support provided by the Pew Charitable Trusts, initiated an aggressive strategy to influence the outcome of the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project (ICBEMP), an inter-agency federal process that would dictate management of 1/4 of all public lands in the United States for the next several decades. The organization initiated an email campaign to re-engage citizens who had submitted public comments to ICBEMP. Read the step-by-step process that made this happen, to find lessons for your own organization.

   
  

• EFF Activism and Government Archive, http://www.eff.org/pub/Activism/
  The Electronic Frontier Foundation provides a long list of links to examples and articles how citizens can pursue Net grassroots political activism.

   
  

• Designing Effective Action Alerts for the Internet
  http://weber.ucsd.edu/~pagre/alerts.html
  A guide to designing political action alerts. It also suggests what kinds of badly designed action alerts you should refrain from forwarding to others. By Phil Agre of the Department of Communication, University of California, San Diego

   
  

• What's Working: Advocacy on the 'Net
  http://www.benton.org/Practice/Best/advoc.html
  A list by the Benton Foundation of nonprofit advocacy organizations that make particularly good use of the Internet in their activities. Includes a summary of each organization's online efforts and a link to the organization's Web site.

   
  

• 20/20 Vision's Activist Toolkit
  http://www.2020vision.org/tools.html
  Includes "Using Cyberspace: Activism Online."

   
  

• An Activists' Strategy for Using Email and the World Wide Web
  http://www.onenw.org/toolkit/
  By One Northwest, an organization that helps environmental organizations in the northwest.

   
  

• The Web and Activism:
  Making Your Voice Heard Round the World
  http://www.1earth.com/
  October 15, 1997 presentation at the Patagonia, Georgetown, Washington, D.C. Assembled panelists presented information for both activist organizations and individuals wanting to use the Internet for activism. Sponsored by DCWebgrrls.

   
  

• Alliance for Justice
  Online information on free and lowcost publications re: nonprofits, advocacy and the law
  http://www.afj.org/pubs.html
  This national association of environmental, civil rights, mental health, women's, children's and consumer advocacy organizations offer updates on new federal laws and what they mean for nonprofits who want to engage in lobbying and advocacy (such as their Guide to the Lobbying Disclosure Act), reviews of basic tax and election laws which govern nonprofits and reviews of the right (and wrong) ways to organize specific voter education activities (voter registration, candidate questionnaires, voter guides, and candidate debates and forums), the legal do's and don'ts of participating in ballot initiative campaigns, a report that dispels the myths associated with funding advocacy organizations and offers a full range of advocacy activities that foundations can support, and a review of the regulation of advocacy activities of nonprofits that receive federal grants.

   
  

• Acting Up On Line: The Internet lets activists reach around the world at little cost
  http://philanthropy.com/permium/search.htm
  An excellent article by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, with examples of online activism and advice from people involved in online campaigns. To find this article, type in "Acting Up On Line" in the search function on the Chronicle's Web site.

   
  

• New Voices in Cyberspace: Don't Whine, Go Online!
  http://www.thenation.com/issue/0608/0608SHAP.HTM
  An article in The Nation .

If you use this tip sheet to help your organization, please contact us and let us know!

You may also find these newsgroups helpful, both to learn how various organizations are using the Internet to promote activism on behalf of various causes, and also to use them yourself to post information (note that if you click on a group to which your Internet Service Provider (ISP) does not subscribe, you will get a "file not found" error; contact your ISP if you think it should provide access to a particular newsgroup; or, access the group via remarq.com or via dejanews.com):

misc.activism.progressive

alt.activism.community

alt.activism.student

alt.activism.age-restrictions

• Virtual Volunteering Resources
  How to find and involve volunteers working from home or work computers, online resources for volunteer managers, advice for individuals who want to volunteer virtually, etc. These pages are updated and added to each month.

• How Your Agency Can Utilize the Virtual Volunteering Project
  Tips on how to use this Web site, information about our offline services, and how we can help you introduce or expand virtual volunteering in your agency.

• Virtual Volunteering Project home page

 
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