General safety guidelines for all online volunteering programs

This is an archived version of the Virtual Volunteering Project web site from January 2001.
The materials on the web site were written or compiled by Jayne Cravens.
The Virtual Volunteering Project has been discontinued.
The Virtual Volunteering Project web site IS NO LONGER UPDATED.
Email addresses associated with the Virtual Volunteering Project are no longer valid.
For any URL that no longer works, type the URL into archive.org.
For new materials regarding online volunteering, see
Jayne Cravens' web site (the section on volunteerism-related resources).

safety in online volunteering programs

general safety guidelines

An agency's online safety program should have four goals:

to protect participants' privacy and personal information (participants can be staff, volunteers, clients, parents, etc.)
to screen out people who would abuse or exploit participants or the computer systems they use
to prevent opportunities for abuse or exploitation of participants
to protect youth from inappropriate online materials or information

introduction page

ANY

Starting Place: Establishing a Code of Conduct

Just as you do with offline volunteers and staff, you need to establish and communicate a code of conduct and other guidelines for online volunteers. Some suggestions for safety-related areas to cover in your code:

confidentiality
Does your organization have a policy about forwarding e-mail messages? Or about volunteers talking to each other, to staff, or to people outside the organization regarding their activities at your organization?
screening/background checks
What is done initially? What other checks may be performed later? How will these checks affect a volunteer's role? What kinds of questions must be answered as part of the screening process, of both potential participants and their references?
representing the organization
Can volunteers send e-mail or post to newsgroups on behalf of your organization? Can they input your information to third party web sites, such as Yahoo or VolunteerMatch? Should anything they send out or input be reviewed by a staff person?
inappropriate communications, activities and materials
What should a volunteer do if he or she is contacted by someone from outside of your organization in an inappropriate way? What should this person do if they encounter pornographic material while doing online research for your organization? What should the volunteer do if they encounter something they think is illegal online? What should a volunteer do if they observe another volunteer, staff person, or client engaging in illegal or inappropriate online activity?

the nature of our online opportunities

Representing the VV Project
Volunteers are asked to NOT contact organizations or individuals on behalf of the Virtual Volunteering Project unless they are given express written consent by the Virtual Volunteering Project Manager. Prior to any action or statement which might significantly affect or obligate the agency, volunteers should seek prior consultation and approval from appropriate staff. These actions may include, but are not limited to, public statements to the press, coalition or lobbying efforts with other organizations, or any agreements involving contractual or other financial obligations. Volunteers are authorized to act as representatives of the agency as specifically indicated within their job descriptions and only to the extent of such written specifications.

Confidentiality
Volunteers are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of all proprietary or privileged information to which they are exposed while serving as a volunteer, whether this information involves a single staff, volunteer, client, or other person or involves overall agency business. Failure to maintain confidentiality may result in termination of the volunteer's relationship with the agency or other corrective action.

Screening/Reference Checks
For some tasks, volunteers must submit samples of work and professional references. If such is required, it will be outlined in the task description.

Contacting Other Volunteers
Ocassionally, volunteers will need to contact other volunteers with regard to their activities with the Virtual Volunteering Project. We expect all such communications among volunteers to follow general netiquette guidelines. Other than e-mail addresses, the VV Project Manager will not share contact information about a volunteer with another volunteer without the express consent of all parties involved. We encourage volunteers to use common sense when communicating with other volunteers -- or ANYONE -- online. We suggest your following this rule: don't reveal anything about yourself online to someone that you would not feel comfortable revealing to a stranger you met on the street.

Inappropriate Communications
If at any point you receive ANY e-mail that you feel is inappropriate, for ANY reason, and you believe you have received it in conjunction with your involvement with the Virtual Volunteering Project, please forward the e-mail with complete headers and other details about the communication to the VV Project Manager.

Online Safety
The safety of our volunteers is important to us. To that end, the Project will not release a volunteer's phone number, age, or other personal information to anyone outside of our organization or to other volunteers without that volunteer's written permission to do so. We do list volunteers who have completed assignments for us, along with the city where they reside and their email address, on a page on our Web site. We are happy to remove any or all of this information for a particular volunteer per that person's request. Please note that we do not make your email address a "live link" on this page -- this is to prevent spambots from harvesting your email address to send you mass unsolicited junk email advertisements.

IF YOU ARE UNDER 18
Please let at least one of your parents know you are going to volunteer with this Project. We strongly suggest that you give your parents the URL of the Virtual Volunteering Project so they can read through the materials themselves, particularly our Handbook for Online Volunteers, and invite them to subscribe to our e-mail updates. We also suggest you copy one or both of your parents on your weekly reports to the Project when engaged in an assignment for us, and we will be happy to do the same, per your request. Your parents are invited to call or e-mail the VV Project Manager, Jayne Cravens, with any questions or comments about our program.

Anti-Virus Software
The nature of online volunteering means a lot of contact between computers -- e-mails, attachments, transfers of files, etc. Because of this interaction, volunteers and organizations can be at risk for transmitting computer viruses between each other. All online volunteers MUST have anti-virus software installed on any computer they use in conjunction with the Virtual Volunteering Project, and we expect you to update this software regularly. Likewise, the Virtual Volunteering Project has anti-virus software on its computer systems, and updates this software at least quarterly. The Handbook for Online Volunteers also offers information and resources for preventing and dealing with computer viruses.

Handbook for Online Volunteers

share with the VV Project

More Suggestions

Other organizations have even stricter rules regarding online volunteer safety and conduct, because of the nature of the agency's mission and because volunteers will have greater access to each other and to clients. Organizations should consider their own culture, the nature of their mission and volunteer assignments, their online volunteer screening process, etc. in adopting such rules for conduct:

Some organizations advise online volunteers to NEVER tell anyone personal information (where they live or work, their phone number, their full name, etc). Some organizations even have a special e-mail or bulletin board "alias" system, where no real e-mail addresses are used, and only the forum moderator knows what alias goes with what e-mail address. These stricter systems are usually used for online interactions involving children, or for people discussing a particularly sensitive, personal subject matter.
At the very least, volunteers should be advised to be very extremely careful about any offers that involve another volunteer coming to a meeting or having someone visit their house. If your agency has a policy against such meetings, make sure this is clearly communicated to your volunteers.
Some organizations tell their online volunteers never to meet anyone in person they have met online, even in conjunction with their online volunteering, except at agency-sponsored events.
People online may not be who they seem, even online volunteers, and sometimes both volunteers and volunteer managers need to be reminded of this. They should also remember that everything online may not be true.
Everyone should know to notify someone at your organization if they encounter inappropriate situations as a participant in your online program -- if someone violates your codes of conduct, encourages an illegal activity to other participants, engages in online harassment, etc. And you should have plans of action for any of those situations, rare though they will be. SafetyEd International has Research papers and resources on cyberstalking, gender issues in online situations, and online harassment that all staff and volunteer leadership at your agency should become familiar with.

Involving youth as online volunteers
Suggestions and examples for those managing such programs, including how to communicate with parents.
Bringing together youth and adult online volunteers
Suggestions for staff, parents and youth.
Internet Discussion Groups For Volunteers
http://www.serviceleader.org/vv/lists.html
Developed by the Virtual Volunteering Project. Discusses different roles volunteers can take on as part of an email-based discussion group or list, how to keep discussions active, and how to find existing lists for volunteers.
Using Real-Time Communications With Volunteers
A growing number of organizations are using real-time communications -- usually called "chats" -- to hold online meetings with volunteers, or to allow volunteers to interact with staff, clients, or each other. This resource reviews different roles volunteers can take on as part of a chat, how to keep discussions active, and examples of chats at various agencies.

Who has access to volunteer information?
How will volunteer information be used?

It's important that online volunteers know exactly how information about them will be used by the agency. Let your online volunteers know who at your agency has access to the information they submitted via their application to volunteer, if staff members other than the volunteer manager may contact them using this information, if this information is ever traded, sold, or given to any other agency, etc.

At the Virtual Volunteering Project, we have a list of the names, e-mail addresses, city and state of residence and contributions of all of our online volunteers on our Web site. Volunteers know this information will be listed on our site, and can request at any time that any or all of their information be removed from the Web site. We also do not make their e-mail addresses "live" -- you cannot click on an e-mail address to contact our online volunteers. We do this to protect our volunteers' e-mail addresses from "spambots," programs which search the Internet for e-mail addresses to harvest and sell to companies who then try to sell the individuals something (always something worthless and, often, illegal).

Consider developing a privacy policy for online activities, and post this policy on your agency's Web site. The U.S. Direct Marketing Association, "dedicated solely to the evolving practice of direct marketing," has a terrific tool on their web site that walks you step-by-step in creating a privacy policy for your organization, based on information you input about your organization into the tool (they don't keep this information, FYI). They also have background info on the hows and why's of creating a privacy policy for a Web site. The direct URL for this information and tool is: http://www.the-dma.org/framesets/pan/dmersframeset.html

What about confidentiality, privacy, security, etc.?
Doesn't volunteering virtually compromise these
for volunteers and/or clients?

In answering this question, let's start with a question: how do you currently protect confidentiality, privacy, security of clients and volunteers among staff? You will use these same methods for volunteers, and you will adapt these methods for online situations.

Your legal obligations will also be a factor. For instance, your agency may be required by law to conduct certain screening procedures and background checks on volunteers, because of the nature of their work (such as working with children or visiting people in their homes). How do you screen these volunteers now? Could you adapt those methods for online application, or will you need to bring potential online volunteers onsite to go through your current screening process? You may be required to bond volunteers who will deal with financial records; in such cases, you must do the same thing with online volunteers as with those whom you see on site.

More than anything else, confidentiality is a training issue. Emphasize the importance of confidentiality at every opportunity. Put a statement about it into every volunteer job description. Add it to orientation materials. Say it in training. Be sure you explain clearly what you mean by "confidentiality." It is more than not revealing a client's name; it's not revealing any information that would allow someone to guess the identity of the individual involved. You can (and, in some cases, should) develop a specific pledge of confidentiality, noting that violation of this key principle is cause for dismissal. Ask every volunteer to sign it, by fax or postal mail (don't hesitate to use real paper and real stamps!)

In some cases, however, "confidentiality" is a smoke screen put up by staff resistant to volunteer involvement, on or offline. It can be paternalistic to feel that clients must be "protected" against volunteers who might gossip or somehow betray confidentiality (as though volunteers are more prone to such activity than staff).

If you really wonder how clients feel about their situation being shared with a volunteer, ask them! If the clients give permission (freely, without any sense that they have to say yes), then it's ok to share their identities with a volunteer.

The Internet provides many ways for clients and volunteers to remain anonymous when interacting with each other, and it may be appropriate for your agency to utilize one of these methods. An agency could (and many do):

require volunteers and clients to have their own special e-mail address to be used exclusively for their work with each other, one that does not reveal personal information, such as last names. Make sure they have not registered this e-mail address in any way that can be traced to a real world identity, such as the "Member Profile" on AOL or linking it off a personal Web page. However, make sure someone at your agency has a record of what e-mail address goes with what volunteer or client.
require all volunteer and client interactions to take place via a private online chat room, where participants use screen names or aliases to communicate with each other (these screen names should not be first and last names). Again, make sure someone at your agency has a record of what screen name or alias goes with what volunteer or client.
set up a list (via e-mail) that allows participants to post under a screen name or alias, and hides actual e-mail addresses. As always, make sure someone at your agency has a record of what screen name or alias goes with what volunteer or client.
explore programs that will allow users to send and receive e-mail to each other, without being able to see each other's actual e-mail address; this can be done through programs for purchase, and by setting up a script using perl.

To keep volunteers and clients anonymous, participants should not mention any personal information in their online interactions that could allow someone to trace their identity, such as their real names, e-mail addresses, web sites, postal addresses, schools they attend or companies they work for, etc.

Having said all of this, there is no reason to believe that online volunteers are any more prone to be predators than any other volunteer--and the number of people who actually pose a risk to clients is quite small. By all means, take reasonable and appropriate precautions, and set and strictly enforce policies about confidentiality and security, but then move on with the work.