Monthly Archives: January 2011

Children in the USA should learn a 2nd language – but it shouldn’t have to be Spanish

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Most of the time, I agree with Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times. But I think his recent column Primero Hay Que Aprender Español. Ranhou Zai Xue Zhongwen. (First learn Spanish. Then study Chinese) misses the mark hugely. His proclaiming that “Every child in the United States should learn Spanish” gets people’s hackles up, and anything that comes after a statement like that isn’t going to be taken well, even if the reasons for recommending Spanish as a second language are good ones.

I chose to study Spanish in high school. For me, ultimately, it has turned out not to be the best choice for a second language, either personally or professional. I work internationally, and I know now that French would have served me far, far better. But back in the 1980s, my mother kept telling me, “They only speak French in France.” And I was just a small town girl from Kentucky – what did I know? I believed her. When I moved to Germany, I resumed studies in Spanish when found that my employer, the UN, offered free classes in such, forgoing not only French, but German as well (I thought I would be in Germany for only a year or two). And it was only after a couple of years I realized just how much I had handicapped myself by my second language choice, both personally and professionally. Most of my colleagues at the UN in Germany spoke French, most Africans I met (and continue to meet) speak French before English, and most international workers I have worked with outside of Germany speak French as a second language. Had I learned French, I would probably still be living in Europe; I certainly would have a full time job with an international development agency by now.

I ended up living in Germany for eight years, marrying my husband, a German. When a few years later my husband and I traveled throughout Eastern Europe, almost everyone spoke German – it’s by far the most popular second language among anyone working in the tourism industry in most of Europe. Germans seem to be everywhere in the world, and I would have had endless opportunities to speak German over the years outside of Germany — but Spanish, not so much. German would have not only served me well living in Germany, it would have served me well in my travels.

Even Arabic would have been a better second language choice for me than Spanish. Persian Farsi or Dari would have been a better second language choice for me than Spanish.

Spanish has not been a worthless investment at all, and I don’t at all want to imply that I’m saying it’s not a good second language choice for someone in the USA. Knowing Spanish (well, at least a bit) has brought me some benefits: I had a wonderful time in Spanish classes at the UN, as well as my intensive classes in Avila, Spain. My Mexican neighbors here in Oregon seem to appreciate my attempts to communicate. In Romania, on a rare evening when we stayed somewhere that didn’t have anyone that spoke German, I was able to secure a room in a guest house where the owner spoke some Spanish. There was one Afghan-American guy in my office in Kabul who spoke Spanish, and it was fun to say something to him and watch my colleagues stare at us in confusion. My German mother-in-law speaks some Spanish, and it’s fun to speak it with her and leave my husband out of the conversation. And I have many friends from Spain who really appreciate my language skills.

Again, I don’t at all want to imply that I’m saying Spanish is not a good second language choice. I’m sure it’s going to serve me professionally at some point in the future, and that’s why I’m going to continue to cultivate my skills in such. But a lot of factors go into a parent’s selection of their child’s second language, everything from their ethnic or cultural heritage to the neighborhood where they live to their career hopes. Spanish is, indeed, the best choice as a second language for most native English-speaking American children. But it is not automatically the best choice for ALL children.

What’s more important than Kristof’s idea of requiring every American to choose Spanish as a second language: I could totally get behind requiring that every American child both master English and learn a second language, whatever that second language is. Americans are getting their butts kicked in the global marketplace by other countries, where even the working class speaks at least two languages. In the USA, the tragedy isn’t that rich parents are choosing Chinese as their child’s second language; it’s that learning any second language is reserved almost exclusively for only rich school districts and private schools.

And I’ll end with this: my German husband is on a business trip right now. He’s in China.

Giving the wrong way

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I regularly read the questions posted to the Community Service section of YahooAnswers. It helps me to know what is trending regarding volunteerism, philanthropy, community service, especially among pre-teens and teens.

One of the many things I’ve learned from participating on YahooAnwers is the ongoing misconception people have, particularly in the USA, that collecting items to send abroad is a great idea and something NGOs and international agencies will help you coordinate. Most organizations do not want donated items. There are a number of reasons why:

  • Donated items can take away desperately needed local jobs. Even donated food can hurt, because how are local farmers supposed to get people to buy their food if a rich country dumps huge amounts of such into a country? There are local people in poor countries barely getting selling clothes, paper, pencils, building supplies and more – and donations of these materials flooding a country can drive them out of business.
  • Donated items shipped from the USA to another country can cost more to ship than simply buying the materials locally, or closer to the affected area.

That’s why many aid agencies try to buy needed materials and supplies locally, whenever possible, in cities near an area in need of such assistance: it helps the local economy, which is often in tatters because of the crisis, and stretches donor dollars much farther.

In addition, a lot of people want to donate their “gently-used clothes and toys” to people in need, not understanding that even the poorest people want their children to have new clothes and new toys, not people’s cast offs, however “gently-used.” Maybe the last thing they have to hold on to is their dignity.

That isn’t to say people shouldn’t donate used items appropriately: I’m a strong advocate for Goodwill, because it is a secular organization, accepting all people as volunteers and recipients of service, and it is focused on helping people to enter or re-enter the workforce. Goodwill stores aren’t just the places where the organization raises funds for its programs; they are also training grounds for those the organization is trying to help. Volunteers work alongside clients on the sales floor and behind the scenes in inventory.

My friend Ann in Ukraine wrote an awesome blog that talks about how international donations of stuff can be giving the wrong way. She wrote about a US NGO that wanted to send a humanitarian aid shipment to a hospital in a Chornobyl-affected area of Ukraine. It turned into a DISASTER. She isn’t trying to discourage people from giving:

There are extremely important reasons to give to humanitarian aid organizations. They do valuable and critical work, and they are essential in conflict zones, disaster areas and other at-risk places around the globe. I don’t want the “take-away” of this post to be that you should never give to a humanitarian aid organization. You should!

That said, her blogs about her situation with the US NGO will give you wonderful insight into why many NGOs in the developing world just-say-no to material donations.

Embrace FOSS and Open Source

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There is free software and there is open source software. They aren’t the same thing. But whatever they are — WHY AREN’T YOU USING THEM?!

Free software refers to software that grants you the freedom to copy and re-use the software, rather than to the price of the software. The Free Software Foundation, an organization that advocates the free software model, suggests that, to understand the concept, “think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.” (“The Free Software Definition”. GNU.org. Retrieved Jan. 12, 2011). It’s often refered to as FOSS (Free and Open Source Software).

Open source software allows users to study, change, and improve the software at the code level, rights normally reserved for the copyright holder. Open source, in contrast to free software, accepts the idea that people might build proprietary extensions to open source programs. In fact, most open source software does not come from open source companies, or the open source community. (more here).

You don’t have to be a programmer to use these tools; they are ready for you to download and use right away, just like proprietary software. But I’m sorry to say that most of you — nonprofits, NGOs, government agencies, indivdiual users, etc. — remain afraid of these amazing tools. And in this time of dire economic news, it’s long overdue for you to embrace FOSS and Open Source.

Since January 2008, I have used FOSS software for my office software needs (word-processing, slide show/presentation development, spreadsheets, simple databases), as well as for email, for browsing the web, for creating graphics, for altering graphics and photos, for design of various printed publications, to develop material for and manage my web sites, and on and on. And most of you that I work with haven’t noticed: you send me something in whatever you use — usually some Microsoft product — and I work on it and send it back to you and you are none the wiser. Or I send you something I’ve created in my FOSS software and you have no idea — you just open up what I send and it looks just like something created in proprietary software. There are the occasional translation issues — sometimes the fonts don’t translate ideally between NeoOffice and Microsoft Powerpoint, for instance, or the bullets in a word-processing document sometimes goes wonky from one software to another — you know, the same problems that happen between different versions of the same software. But for the most part, it’s worked oh-so-well.

I’m in good company: there are entire countries that get FOSS. Sourceforge, a web-based source code repository that acts as a centralized location for software developers to control and manage open source software development, gets more traffic from Brazil, Russia, India and China (the so-called BRIC countries) than it does from the good old USA. These countries have a top-down approach to open source, with government and schools adopting it as a matter of policy, and this has led to a large increase in the voluntary adoption of Linux and open source by businesses there. (more about this here).

Africans are in on the game: Ushahidi (it means testimony in Swahili) was created by Kenyan programmers around that country’s 2007 election, was deployed in South Africa and Uganda during 2008, and was used to crowdsource reports on the Haiti earthquake this year. The software maps SMS text messages. Even people in the Sudan have access to text messaging now. And the benefits flow worldwide — here is a crime map, created using Ushahidi software, covering part of Atlanta. Read about the May 2010 Idlelo conference in Ghana, which Dana Blankenhorn blogged about in June; as he says, “it was a small thing, but it may have been the most important open source conference so far this year.” Indeed! As he notes, “Because open source gives you equal rights with other software developers, it can be used effectively to localize software in small language groups, such as those found across Africa.”

So many NGOs, community organizations, schools, government agencies and others in developing countries (and even in so-called developed countries) struggle with software costs, and many resort to using illegal copies of MS and other popular software, meaning they have no official support for these products — and, in most places, they are breaking the law by using these illegal copies. I saw it for myself in Afghanistan and Egypt. Those of us who claim to be trying to help nonprofits, NGOs, grassroots organizations and others have an obligation to let these initiatives know at least about free office suites that offer viable alternatives to using illegal software or paying the huge fees to use MS and other products. There is really no excuse not to.

Convincing nonprofits, NGOs, government agencies, individual users and others that I work with to embrace FOSS and Open Source remains a massive challenge. You all remain skeptical. You have worries about security, stability, being able to work with documents generated by people using other software, features, and on and on — never mind that FOSS proves again and again to be just as secure, stable, frequently-updated, feature-rich and reliable as proprietary software.

Evaluate and choose free software the same way you choose fee-based software:

  • how long has the software been around?
  • how often is the software upgraded?
  • how much documentation for the software is provided?
  • is there an online forum where users freely post questions and offer support to each other?
  • look for reviews of the software (these are very easy to find online). Read many different reviews from many different sources, not just one or two, and not just the “official” review from the software’s manufacturer(s).
  • beware of unsolicited email offers or web page pop-ups for free software. These are often associated with malicious software, viruses, and scams.

It’s easy to find quality free, open source software. When such is reviewed by web sites, magazines and other sources that review proprietary software, links are provided to download the software yourself. For Macs, my favorite source to find such software is Opensourcemac.org. For Mac users and non-Mac users alike, try C-NET’s download.com.

If you are wondering how to get started, I recommend that to do so when it’s time to upgrade your office software (word-processing, spreadsheets and presentations). For Mac users, try NeoOffice. For non-Mac users, try OpenOffice. (2021 update: I switched all my devices to LibreOffice years ago). 

It’s not easy to make the switch from one software to another. Bruce Byfield notes: “When you first switch to a different software, any claims that its better than what you were using probably won’t fly.” You will be too busy trying to find your favorite features and functions, first believing that they don’t exist and then, once you find them, thinking they aren’t as good. But being able to use different software than what you have been used to is a learned skill, and will make you a better user of all software. And there’s also the reality that some upgrades of your favorite fee-based software are so radically different from what you have been using that it’s the same experience as switching to a completely different package — in other words, there’s no getting away from having to continually learn how to use software, even if you choose not to switch to open source.

 

If you discover that a feature really, truly isn’t a part of the free software you are eyeing, remember more words from Bruce Byfield: “features are an arms race in which superiority rarely lasts for more than one version.”

Also see:

Breaking Barriers: The Potential of Free and Open Source Software for Sustainable Human Development – A Compilation of Case Studies from Across the World — this free publication (103 pages, PDF), features 14 projects using free and open source software (FOSS) to help bring about socio-economic development and empower people in developing countries or regions in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Latin America. The benefits obtained, challenges encountered, and lessons learned are highlighted. The benefits offered by free and open source software (FOSS) have been extremely useful for developing countries around the world. In particular, the ability to obtain and upgrade FOSS without licensing fees has proven to be beneficial to users in these regions as this makes information and communications technology (ICT) more affordable for them. With the publication of this compilation, it is hoped that there will be greater awareness of the ability of FOSS to empower and help poorer and less developed communities.

A new version of the free NOSI primer “Choosing and Using Free and Open Source Software: A Primer for Nonprofits” has been released. This is a no-nonsense, easy to read report that helps nonprofits understand what free and open source software (FOSS) is, what options are available for their organizations, and how they can access support for using FOSS. The primer includes all of the basics, and also discusses how to look at TCO and strategic value in making decisions about FOSS. There are many case studies describing the use of various FOSS applications in the nonprofit sector. It also includes a live feed via API from Social Source Commons of a particular set of 5 FOSS toolboxes: software for the server, for the web, and for the three flavors of desktops, Windows, Mac and Linux. You can read this guide on the web or download it in PDF. NOSI is looking forward to your feedback and contributions; create an account on the NOSI site to comment on the primer.

Tech@State will explore Open Source at its event on Feb. 11. That includes subjects like:

  • Open Source vs Government Culture: Creating Change
  • Open Architectures for Public Health
  • What’s the Status? Federal Open Source Acquisition and Policy
  • Open Source Software: Enabling National Security
  • Open Source To The Rescue: Disaster Response & Humanitarian Assistance
  • Open Cities and Open States
  • An Open Model for Social Change: Changing Philosophies About Development and Aid

 

And my own previous blogs on this subject (sorry, these links actually no longer work and are not archived at archive.org):

the power of open source and volunteers (20 March 2009)

Will the donor dictate the Girl Scouts discussion? (4 March 2009)

I am not a techie & I use free, open source software (22 January 2009)

Free, GREAT alternative to MS Office? You bet! (18 June 2008)

Grandma can run Umbuntu Linux  (13 March 2008)

open source primer for nonprofits (22 October 2007)

NeoOffice & OpenOffice (5 May 2007)

Do online petitions work?

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Online petitions got off to a very rough start when the Internet went mainstream back in the early 1990s. You may remember one of those early efforts, if you have been on the Internet as long as I have: it was the 1990s, and you got an email written by someone at Brandeis University who wanted to help the women in Afghanistan suffering under the warlords and the Taliban. That email accurately told you about the situation for women in Afghanistan. But the email was inaccurate in suggesting that signing your name to the bottom and forwarding it to all your friends would have any impact on those in power in Afghanistan. The petition’s author was totally unprepared for the consequences of her email petition, and hadn’t thought through how her efforts would pressure any change on a country that had no means to receive her petition, let alone take it seriously. It was one of the earliest forms of Slacktivism or Slackervism – all sorts of people signed it, and I’m sure most of them did nothing else, like giving money to an NGO that was actually trying to help in Afghanistan, because, hey, they signed a petition!

I’ve always wondered what happened to that woman…

Online petitions have evolved since then. While some remain ineffective — just unverifiable names on an online document no one who matters will read — some do generate impact. Online petitions that generate impact have this in common:

  • They are web-based. People sign them via the web, not email. That puts the petition in ONE place, and makes it easier to find online.
  • Signers are required to use a verifiable email address (one that actually works), and to submit full names and full mailing addresses.
  • Each time a supporter signs the petition, an email is automatically sent directly to the person or organization at the government or company being targeted, with the supporter’s full name, full mailing address and his or her message.
  • Signers receive tools and information to help them talk about the issue via their other online activities, as well as their face-to-face, offline activities with family, friends and colleagues.
  • Signers are encouraged to take offline action, and are given all the information they need to do this: to make phone calls, to hand write and mail letters through the post, and to contact their elected officials regarding the issue.
  • The petition has momentum in the media; there are stories in newspapers, on TV, on the radio and in blogs about the issue, and at least some mention the petition drive.

Change.org credits its online petitions with a number of public relations victories on many different issues, including:

Here is more about How Change.org petitions work.

I’m quite transparent about my petition activities.

More about Online Action Creating & Supporting Offline Action

Aid in Haiti is failing

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A few weeks ago, the radio show This American Life did an great show focused on aid in Haiti. If you want to understand the roadblocks to improving things in Haiti, it’s worth your time to listen to this show. Notice how some of the blocks are because of policies donors have implemented to try to prevent corruption.

It can be hard to get your mind around, but aid actually sometimes harms people, rather than helping, even in Haiti. There are stories of rice farmers in rural parts of Haiti not being able to sell their crops because, with all the rice donations from other countries, there is no market for products. Would-be Haitian contractors are also missing out on jobs because foreign contractors are being chosen by aid agencies instead. Sometimes cheaper, or even most modern, doesn’t mean better, in the long-term, for local people needing the aid.

Time has a story Haiti’s Failed Recovery: Who’s to Blame? that presents the two camps regarding why recovery in Haiti is failing:

For the anti-NGO camp, Haiti is a case study in the hypocrisy of the global relief bandwagon that descends on poor countries victimized by wars, famine and natural disasters. A growing chorus of critics accuses humanitarian-aid groups of using misery to validate their existence, spending funds inefficiently and creating a culture of dependence among the people they are supposed to help… If you belong to the “blame Haiti” camp, you’re less likely to ascribe the post earthquake mess to outsiders than to the country’s defective political culture. In recent years, development economists have sought to explain why some countries lift themselves out of poverty while others chronically underachieve. Stable, transparent institutions – like police, courts and banks – are critical to the success of poor nations. But Haiti’s long history of disarray has left it with few institutions worthy of trust. For those who emphasize such internal factors, Haiti wouldn’t be saved even if every dollar of aid money were spent and every NGO disappeared tomorrow. Until the country’s political class proves it can govern, Haiti’s people will continue to suffer.

I certainly offer no solution — it’s a systemic problem across sectors that defies a simplistic solution. I will say that aid agencies need to be reading these stories and looking at their messages to the public and to donors. They need to be showing how many local staff they are hiring versus how many foreign staff they are bringing in, and highlighting what steps they are taking so that Haitians are not just contributing to their own relief, they are leading it, and will eventually take over from the aid agency completely. They also have to be open about corruption – don’t shy away from talking about problems with transparency, even if it’s just in internal reports or reports to donors.

It’s not time to give up. But it is time to pay greater attention.

ADDITION ON JAN. 12:

John Mitchell, Director of ALNAP (Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action) has posted a blog about how the media is portraying what is happening in Haiti. It’s very much worth your time to read.

What online community service is – and is not

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There is a for-profit company based in Florida, Community Service Help, Inc., that claims it can match people have been assigned court-ordered community service “with a charity that is currently accepting online volunteers” – for a fee, payable by the person in need of community service. There is no list on the company’s web site about what people do as online volunteers through the company, and no list of “charity partners” that use this service – at least not as of the day I’m posting this blog. There is a list of testimonials from people who have supposedly used the service — testimonials which all sound amazingly the same, as though they were all written by the same person. There is also no listing of the names of the staff people and their credentials to show their experience regarding online volunteering or community service.

I found out about this company because someone was posting about it on YahooAnswers > Community Service in response to anyone who was seeking community service per court order.

I was alarmed for a number of reasons, most of which I’ve noted in the opening paragraph, in bold, and also because online volunteering opportunities are plentiful – so plentiful that it’s nothing short of exploitative to charge people to find them. Here’s just a FEW of the many, many places to find online volunteering (Aug. 14, 2015 clarification: note that this is a list of examples of legitimate virtual volunteering with legitimate nonprofits, and it’s offered to show what online volunteering really looks like; not all of these nonprofits meet the standards required by courts or probation officers for community service):

Distributed Proofreaders. These online volunteers turn public domain books into online books, mostly for Project Gutenberg.

Electronic Emissary, one of the best known and most respected online tutoring programs, where adult volunteers help students in a variety of complex academic-based projects.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Volunteer Monitoring Program
This is a mix of online and remote volunteering. Volunteers collect data from the environments around them and submit the information online to the EPA.

Idealist/Action Without Borders has many of the volunteer tasks listed on its site that are online. To find them, do keyword search using online and virtual. You will have to read each assignment carefully to ensure they are actually virtual.

Extraordinaries, hosts a database of micro-volunteering assignments (tasks that can be completed in around an hour or two) in support of different nonprofit organizations.

Infinite Family, an online mentoring program matching adults and families in the USA with at-risk, impoverished children in South Africa.

LibriVox, a nonprofit that coordinates online volunteers to record audio versions of public domain books.

Nabuur, which recruits online volunteers to support organizations working in or for the developing world.

TestPrepPractice Math Tutors

United Nations Online Volunteering Service lists at least a few hundred online volunteering opportunities at any given time, at organizations working in or for the developing world (not just UN agencies). This is the largest database anywhere of online volunteering opportunities.

VolunteerMatch has many of the volunteer tasks listed on its site tagged as virtual volunteering.

That’s not only a short, not-at-all comprehensive list of organizations that are focused specifically on online volunteers: there are thousands of traditional organizations that involve online volunteers as translators, web page developers, researchers, writers, subject-matter experts (SMEs), pro bono consultants, and on and on (I volunteer with the Girl Scouts, and my service is 90% online; I help with communications issues). And there’s also dozens of organizations that allow volunteers to engage in home-based volunteering, knitting blankets for babies who are HIV positive, or organizing food drives for local free food pantries or local animal shelters, and on and on. (Aug. 14, 2015 clarification: note that the aforementioned is a list of examples of legitimate virtual volunteering with legitimate nonprofits, and it’s offered to show what online volunteering really looks like; not all of these nonprofits meet the standards required by courts or probation officers for community service. You can find a comprehensive listing of where to find legitimate online volunteering here, but note that not all nonprofits, online or onsite with traditional volunteer engagement, can accommodate court-ordered community service folks)

So, of course, I was alarmed to find a for-profit company charging people for access to online volunteering opportunities when such opportunities are so freely and easily accessible. In addition, there is no guarantee that an agent of the court will accept online service as fulfillment of community service; I have been approached by dozens of people who want to volunteer online for community service fulfillment, and when I’ve told them to get permission from the court first, they call or email back to say the judge or probation officer refused, because the judge or probation officer felt there was not enough monitoring/supervision. Even so, many courts have been open to the idea, so long as the nonprofit or government agency that will involve the online volunteer can provide proof that the person really did the hours needed.

(I’ve been lucky enough to have involved some court-ordered folks as online volunteers – and I have to say that all of them have ended up volunteering for more hours than they were required to do.)

I started investigating this company immediately. I contacted several associations of nonprofits, including the Florida Association of Nonprofit Organizations (FANO), a couple of DOVIAs (directors of volunteers in agencies) in Florida and various colleagues that research volunteering, including online volunteering. Not one had ever heard of this organization. So I filed a notice with the Florida State Attorney General’s cyberfraud division. The Consumer Services Department of Miami-Dade County began its investigation in December.

Today, the owner of Community Service Help, Inc. called me because of the investigation. He wanted to explain what his company does. And what does his company do? A person pays him $30, and he gives you access to online videos that are supposed to help you be a better person. You do not perform any community service at all; you watch videos. The company’s representative was adamant that watching videos is community service — and that watching them online makes it online community service. The people who use his service do no activities other than watching videos as their “community service.” Through a nonprofit organization in Michigan, he arranges for paperwork to be sent to the court or probation officer that says the paying customer has completed the “community service” and how many hours they spent doing such.

Of course, watching videos is not community service. Court-ordered community service offline looks like this. Or this. Community service involves activity, it involves engagement, it involves an action to do something that needs to be done and that actually helps the community or a cause. Note that there’s no mention at all on these real community service pages regarding watching videos to fulfill court-ordered community service.

Online community service activities look just like online volunteering activities – and also don’t involve watching videos, outside of a person training to be, say, an online volunteer mentor or, perhaps, judging videos that have been submitted to a nonprofit or government agency for some kind of contest. Or maybe watching videos to find information an organization is looking for as part of the person’s online research assignment.

One can only imagine what the paperwork that Community Service Help, Inc. submits to the court or a probation office, or that is submitted by its mysterious “charity partners,” says that the person actually did to complete his or her community service hours (good luck finding an example of such online). I’m sure the judges or probation officers have no idea that all the person did to complete his or her hours was to pay a fee and watch videos on his lap top or smart phone (or, at least, someone watched those videos — who knows who!), that there was no completion of an actual activity that helps a nonprofit, a government agency or those such agencies serve.

The further shock is that, as I’ve researched, there seems to be many of these organizations charging people who have been assigned court-ordered service for freely-available information and resources! Another one is Community Service 101, which charges a monthly fee for users to track and report their hours – something they could do for free on a shared GoogleDoc spreadsheet. There’s also this nonprofit, Facing the Future With Hope, which also offers to find online community service, for a fee. Note that neither web site offers any examples of what online volunteers actually do, what nonprofits actually involve these online volunteers, etc.

While I have no issue with a nonprofit organization, or even a government agency, charging a volunteer — a person who is helping on his or her own, or because a court or school is requiring such — to cover expenses (materials, training, staff time to supervise and support the volunteer, criminal background check, etc.), I have a real problem with companies charging people for freely-available information, and for judges and probation officers accepting online community service that consists of a person watching videos.

If it’s a for-profit company, you should be able to find on their web site:

  • A list of courts, by name, city and state, that have accepted community service arranged through this company (not just “courts in Florida”, but “the circuit court of Harpo County, Florida”
  • A list about specific activities that people do as volunteers through the company
  • A list of “charity partners” or nonprofit partners or government agency partners that use this service
  • The names of staff and their credentials to show their experience regarding online volunteering or community service.
  • A list of all fees – specific dollar amounts
  • A scan of a letter they have provided to a court, a probation officer, a school, a university, etc. (with the contact name for the person blocked out, ofcourse), so you know exactly what the organization says to confirm community service.
  • A list of every court, school and university that has accepted the community service hours this company has ever arranged for anyone.

If it’s a non-profit company, you should be able to find on their web site:

  • Their most recent annual report that notes their income and expenditures for their last fiscal year
  • The names of the board of directors
  • The names of staff and their credentials to show their experience regarding online volunteering or community service.
  • A list of courts, by name, city and state, that have accepted community service arranged through this company (not just “courts in Florida”, but “the circuit court of Harpo County, Florida”
  • A list about specific activities that people do as volunteers through the nonprofit organization
  • A list of “charity partners” or nonprofit partners or government agency partners that use this service
  • A list of all fees – specific dollar amounts
  • A scan of a letter they have provided to a court, a probation officer, a school, a university, etc. (with the contact name for the person blocked out, ofcourse), so you know exactly what the organization says to confirm community service.
  • A list of every court, school and university that has accepted the community service hours this company has ever arranged for anyone.

Good look trying to find this information on the pay-a-fee-for-community-service sites named on this blog.

Will organizations that claim to represent the community service sector such as the Corporation for National Service or AL!VE, investigate? And take a stand? Stay tuned…

November 6, 2012 update: I just got got email from a TV reporter in Atlanta, Georgia who used my blogs about this scam to create this excellent video about this scam and the people behind it. Thanks Atlanta Fox 5!

February 2013 update: Here’s the latest on what’s going on with this company.

2014 update: The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook offers detailed advice that would help any court understand how to evaluate the legitimacy of an online volunteering program. It’s geared towards nonprofits who want to involve volunteers, but any court or probation officer would find it helpful, as more and more people assigned community service need legitimate, credible online volunteering options.

August 14, 2015 update: this company continues to try to lure people with false promises about online community service. I have info on how they attempt to harass me online, and the blog links to all of the blogs I’ve written about this and other countries to date, including accounts of people whose community service through this company was rejected by the court.

July 6, 2016 update: the web site of the company Community Service Help went away sometime in January 2016, and all posts to its Facebook page are now GONE. More info at this July 2016 blog: Selling community service leads to arrest, conviction

Also see:

My voluntourism-related & ethics-related blogs (and how I define scam)

This blog is one of the most popular I have ever written. However, all of the time and effort that has gone into researching this topic and sharing what I’ve learned here has been entirely unfunded – I’ve done it entirely as a volunteer. f you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.

New Congress Brings Stark Agenda for Nonprofits

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The new Republican majority in USA Congress will have a big impact on programs that affect charities and the people they serve. The Chronicle of Philanthropy lists what the nonprofit world can expect from the new Congress. It’s must reading!

This is a followup to my earlier blog warning that the Fall 2010 election in the USA should have every nonprofit’s attention – and every NGO’s attention abroad that receives money from the USA in some way, directly or indirectly. It provides links to commentaries by other organizations as well as ways to address the proposed changes.

As I noted in that earlier blog, US government budgets have already been cut severely, and the cuts that are coming will become even more severe — and the irony is that the same local, state and national governments cutting nonprofit budgets are also asking nonprofits to maintain their services in the face of these cuts.

Also see these tips to use your web site to show your organization’s accountability and results.

Aid workers need to help local staff avoid scams

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Today, I got an email from a close friend in Kabul, a young Afghan woman who works in an Afghan federal ministry. She forwarded me an email from another Afghan colleague, telling her she had “won” a USA visa and that she had to pay $150 in order to finalize the process. She wanted to know if it was real.

Most every young Afghan woman I know is trying to get out of Afghanistan. They are not only terrified of what the withdrawal of coalition forces will bring; they are terrified of being forced into marriage, and forced to give up their jobs, being imprisoned in a stranger’s home with a family who treat female non-blood relatives as indentured servants – or worse. Afghan women are desperate and vulnerable — in a perfect position to be taken advantage of by someone promising exactly what they want to hear.

For someone with intermediate English skills, the email looked oh-so-real. For me, it was obvious that it was fake, but I’m a native English speaker, a pretty savvy Internet user, and an amateur researcher regarding myths and urban legends. I did my best to explain to my friend how to know when something like this is fake, as this email is. And it made me wish I was there to do a workshop for all of my Afghan colleagues, especially the women, to show them how to avoid email scams.

If you are working in aid, development or humanitarian affairs on site in a developing country, I hope you will consider doing a lunchtime workshop for your locally-recruited colleagues about online scams. Just 30 – 45 minutes would be so helpful. Talk about visa scams, inheritance scams and phishing. Even if locally-recruited staff are particularly savvy about knowing when something is a fraud, their family and friends may not be, and you would be helping them to help their family and friends avoid being taken advantage of.

I am the first to tell a friend that a warning they have posted in their Facebook status or an email warning they have sent to all their friends is a fake. It turned a couple of people into ex-friends – how dare I tell them such a thing is false? Where’s the real harm in forwarding these kinds of messages? Today, I was reminded yet again where the harm is — the very real harm.

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Cell phones and handhelds in humanitarian, aid and development

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For the world’s poorest, cellphone technology provides access to information and resources few ever imagined possible.

Back in October 2001, I wrote an article for the United Nations (originally part of the UNITeS online knowledge base) on handheld computer technologies in community service/volunteering/advocacy. It was on both cell phones and stand-alone tech used for reference and recording in the field and then connected to a network later. It provided some of the earliest 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.

Text messages and other mobile applications have created platforms for aid groups to reach the most remote farms and crowded urban slums of Africa, Asia and Latin America as well. This article back in September 2010 was the latest in profiling some of these activities.

I’ve continued to pay attention to this subject, though I haven’t been in a position to do any further in-depth research at all. Some web sites that keep me up-to-date on what’s going on:

A word of caution: cell phones and other hand held technologies also provide a way to instantly misinform. I touched on this back in 2001:

Hand held technology must be used with great caution, however. Musician and U.S.A. Green Party activist Jello Biafra noted in an article on Zdnet.Uk: “Be careful of the information gossip you get on the Internet, too. For example, late in 1997 I discovered out on the Internet that I was dead.”

More about how quickly misinformation can now be spread in this resource: Folklore, Rumors (or Rumours) and Urban Myths Interfering with Development and Aid/Relief Efforts, and Government Initiatives. Also lists tips on how to address widespread misinformation.

Being emotionally ready to volunteer – or to continue volunteering

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graphic representing volunteers

Culture Matters is an online curriculum specifically developed by the Peace Corps to help newly-accepted members acquire some of the knowledge and skills they will need to work successfully and respectfully in other cultures. It’s not just about cultural sensitive or cultural awareness, however; it’s also about knowing what to do when one is personally stressed out, feeling overwhelmed, etc. It’s a combination of self-evaluation and self-strategizing. It not only helps to build volunteers’ awareness of how to handle a variety of challenges, it also might help to screen out people who are not emotionally nor mentally prepared, or not emotionally resilient enough, to serve overseas.

Even if your volunteers are not going overseas, they can face feelings of isolation, stress, even fear, especially if they are in high responsibility or high-stress roles, such as

  • counseling women who have been abused (including rape victims)
  • fighting fires
  • providing emergency health care
  • participating in search and rescue missions
  • counseling low-income people regarding financial management
  • repeatedly communicating about a controversial issue that often incites hostility among some audiences
  • working in a facility that houses abandoned animals
  • mentoring high school students
  • serving food to people who could not eat otherwise
  • working with clients in a hospice program
  • helping at a free clinic
  • leading entire teams for a high-profile project
  • providing services to people who have lost everything to a fire or natural disaster
  • providing services to crime victims
  • training people in activities related to any of the above

Volunteers in these and other situations may need mental and emotional health support — activities that will relieve stress, address emotional conflicts, and help them explore how to balance work, volunteering, family and social activities. Otherwise, you risk volunteer burnout, or volunteers providing sub-par service.

Creating such an online curriculum for your own volunteers can be as easy as finding or recruiting a volunteer to interview current and previous volunteers, compiling their feedback into a draft curriculum, and then asking the volunteers to offer edits and suggestions. What a great assignment for someone looking for an internship as a part of their university studies, a retired human resources professional looking to volunteer for a limited task at your organization, someone who wants a project that will look great on their résumé, and on and on.
As part of creating your online curriculum for volunteers to help them handle stress, map resources in your community that can support your volunteers’ health and mental well-being. These can include:

  • communities of faith and secular/ethical societies
  • debt counseling services
  • for-profit and non-profit exercise clubs (private health clubs, the YMCA and YWCA, community pools, T’ai Chi clubs in the park, yoga classes, sports clubs. etc.)
  • centers for aging/senior support
  • free and low-cost health clinics

Also, develop a list of “escape hatches” — lists of of free or very low-cost places nearby where your local volunteers can get away, relax and recharge. This can be a list of nearby city, state and national parks, a list of cinemas in the area, places to get a massage, a manicure, a pedicure or a facial, dance studios, golf courses (even miniature golf courses), art museums, and on and on. If you visit each of these places, you may be able to establish discounts with these organizations for your volunteers.

Provide information about these resources (web site address, physical address, hours of operation, etc.) to all volunteers. Provide the information via a regular group meeting, and/or via your online community. Put brochures for these resources in a place where volunteers take breaks. You can also use the information in one-on-one situations, but the information should be provided to all volunteers, not just those you think might need it.

Provide information on how to reach these places by mass transit and by bike — or provide web site URLs where your volunteers can find this information.

Compiling all of the above information and putting it together on an internal web site or on paper, or gathering brochures from all these various different sites and making a display of them in a staff break room, is a great task for a volunteer.

Even if most of your volunteers don’t take advantage of these free and low-cost services, think of the message you are sending to your volunteers by providing this information: that you value them and their health, that you understand that their volunteering activities can be stressful, and that your organization CARES. What a powerful form of volunteer recognition.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.