Monthly Archives: January 2015

Blogs & articles re: virtual volunteering NOT by me

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Why no, I’m *not* the only person who talks about Virtual Volunteering / e-volunteering / digital volunteering, etc.

In addition to research and evaluations of virtual volunteering, that is tracked on the Virtual Volunteering Wiki, which has been put together as a supplement to The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, there are also various other web sites, blogs, publications and initiatives focused on virtual volunteering, often under different names (digital volunteering, online volunteering, microvolunteering, etc.).

It’s impossible to create a comprehensive list of such – just as it would be impossible to make a list of all web sites, blogs and other non-research related to volunteering, in general. But I have made a list gives an overview of the different ways various people and organizations are talking about virtual volunteering, especially internationally. There are links to information about virtual volunteering in Spanish, Catalan, German, Polish, Ukrainian, and a wee bit in French.

Also see this page tracking news articles, blog posts, and other updates on virtual volunteering and this page lists RSS feeds that automatically link to the latest web pages, blogs, and other online materials that use terms that relate to virtual volunteering.

And, of course, check out The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook.

UNHCR mobile phone usage in refugee situations – pilot project

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SMS as a tool for humanitarian aid is becoming an increasingly common tool, and you can find several examples of this highlighted on the TechSoup Public Computing, ICT4D, and Tech4Good forum branch – most posted by me, because I’m oh-so-interested in this subject.

UNHCR Innovation recently piloted an SMS system in two UNHCR operations: Esmeraldas, Ecuador and San José, Costa Rica. There is an online article highlight its experiences piloting FrontlineButt in San José, Costa Rica and lessons learned. The project, named Ascend, began as a collaboration between Stanford University and UNHCR Innovation.

The goals for this particular pilot were:

  1. How do we best utilize SMS to connect with refugees residing in an urban area?
  2. How do we embed a new tool like SMS in organizations to be sustainable, even after the pilot is over?
  3. What types of utilities does an SMS application need to appropriately handle the requirements of UNHCR and non-governmental organization (NGO) staff?

A few key takeaways were observed: one, the need for message classification to handle a large number of inbound SMS (think Gmail classifying messages as priority or not priority); two, the ability to have a feature rich application to conduct polls and surveys via SMS; three, a focus on visualizing the data received and report generation in order to convey effectiveness to potential donors.

Before the implementation of the project, project organizers sat down with four refugees to get feedback to help with this project. The interviews are available here. In short, some key takeaways were:

  • Phone presence – most of the interviewees had mobile phones and used them, though some only used them for family matters. The majority cited mobile phones as a good means of reaching them. There were also two who said it was better to call rather than send an SMS.
  • SMS uses – by and large, most of the interviewees wanted more information on activities and opportunities that were available to them. In addition, some thought it would be a good way to ask questions to UNHCR, ACAI, or Aprode.
  • Challenges faced – the biggest challenges for the refugees upon arrival was surviving in a context they were not used to. In a similar vein, they also found it very difficult to find jobs.

At the end of the monitoring and evaluation phase, UNHCR again contacted the same refugees to get their opinion on the project. These interviews were conducted over the phone and the interviews can be viewed here. The responses were overwhelmingly positive which is a big success for the pilot as a whole.

My favorite takeaway:

Initially we had started the pilot with a prepared list of contacts to message. Sending the blast welcome message explaining the project elicited many responses saying, “Who is this?” or “Why am I receiving this?” After interviewing refugees we began to see a pattern. People were hesitant to trust a message from an unknown number. We ended up tackling this issue by first advertising the number in UNHCR and the other NGOs so that people would become familiar with the project and expect to receive messages. In addition to that, we set up boxes in which people could drop their contact information and we would then add that phone number to the FrontlineButt database. In this way we increased trust in and awareness for the project.

Here’s the full article from UNHCR.

And for some perspective, here’s an article from October 2001: Handheld computer technologies in community service/volunteering/advocacy .

When Board Members (& other volunteers) Get in the Way of Much-Needed Change

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“While organizations should be grateful to their hardworking board members, too often members overreach and can have a negative impact on decision making. This is especially true when it comes to marketing, design, and communications, disciplines that seem to attract an outsize share of unqualified participation.”

That’s from When Board Members Get in the Way of a Great Redesign by   for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and it’s terrific. It not only shows what this interference can look like, it also talks about how to reduce the chances that a board member will derail a well-thought out, well-researched, much-needed strategy for social media, virtual volunteering, better financial management, adoption of new software, a logo change, and on and on. In fact, the advice is excellent for working with long-term volunteers as well, volunteers who may be resistant to change regarding policies and cherished-but-outdated practices.

The problem with Seth Godin

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logoThis blog was originally posted to my then-blog host on September 16, 2009.

To Seth Godin, in response to his blog about nonprofits using networking tools

Before you chastise nonprofits for their supposed lack of use of new technologies, you might want to do your homework first. If you had, you would have been overwhelmed with examples of nonprofit groups, large and small, using social-media tools. As the Chronicle of Philanthropy pointed out in its rebuttal of your blog, “shows nonprofit groups are actually well ahead of businesses in their use of social-media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.”

So what if there are no charities in the top 100 twitter users in terms of followers? The number of followers is NO determination of success that a message is really creating change, any more than number of cars passing a billboard or number of visitors to a web site. Big numbers of viewers does NOT equal big numbers of donors, big numbers of changed behavior, big numbers of event attendees, etc. If there are nonprofits out there who are turning Twitter followers, FaceBook followers, web site visitors, or email newsletter subscribers into volunteers, donors, clients or other supporters, good for them and who cares whether or not they are in the “top 100” group?

But what really infuriates me is your comment “The opportunities online are basically free, and if you don’t have a ton of volunteers happy to help you, then you’re not working on something important enough.” Here’s something you should know: volunteers are NEVER free. Never. Volunteers have to be screened, interviewed, trained and supervised, just like a consultant you hire to do something like manage online activities. That *time* costs *money*. So, yes, resources ARE an issue, particularly when you have corporate donors that balk at the idea of funding a volunteer manager.

Sorry if I sound upset, but I am. Another corporate guy mocking nonprofits, throwing around a lot of ignorant comments. Same old same old. Some paradigms never change. Meanwhile, nonprofits will plug along and keep doing really exciting, worthwhile things, online and off, and they will all be here, doing amazing things, when you’re long gone.

Reminds me of the 1990s, when all sorts of corporate folks did the same chastising regarding nonprofits’ perceived lack of use of the Web and email. Funny: so many of those hot new start ups those people represented are gone, but the nonprofits are still here.

Also see:  Corporations: here’s what nonprofits really need

Oregon global initiatives

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When you think of USA-based initiatives focused on development and humanitarian work in other countries, you think of New York or Washington, D.C. You will find a fair number in San Francisco and Los Angeles as well.

But there are organizations and initiatives all over the USA, in every state, with a primary mission of undertaking development and humanitarian work in at least one country overseas. Even in Oregon.

I come from a state – Kentucky – that most people I mean outside the USA could not locate on a map, and many have no idea its a real place. And I now live in a state that, likewise, most people I meet outside the USA could not locate on a map – in fact, many have never heard of Oregon. Yet, in both states, there are for-profit, nonprofit and university-based initiatives that are focused on other countries.

I decided to make a list of nonprofit and university-based organizations and initiatives in Oregon that were undertaking aid, humanitarian and/or development work overseas. I also added organizations focused on educating people regarding other countries/global affairs. The first draft was 10 organizations. It’s now a list of 21 organizations.

I started this page because, as a consultant myself for organizations working in development and humanitarian activities overseas, I would like to know who my colleagues in my own “neighborhood” are, and because I would like for people in the USA to be much better educated about other countries – so I’d like to know who is doing that. Also, Washington State has a formal umbrella organization, Global Washington, for groups in that state that work overseas, though it’s not focused only on humanitarian issues. Oregon doesn’t have such, that I can find.

If you would like to add an organization to my last, please contact me. But note: your initiative has to be officially registered in some way, or already part of an officially-registered organization, and there needs to be names of real people on your web site (one web site I found for a 501 (c)(3) organization claiming to work overseas had NO names of people on it – no names of staff, no names of board members – so they aren’t on my list).

 

What a meaningful “thank you” for volunteers looks like

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I love meaningful thank yous for remote volunteers, people who assist an organization but may never get to see the impact of their work firsthand, in-person. Within this blog is a great example of such a meaningful thank you for remote volunteers:

Pies for Peace is ending its long-running bake sale fundraiser for Mercy Corps, an international humanitarian nonprofit based in Portland, Oregon. After 12 years, Pies for Peace volunteers have decided to retire from their fundraising baking. They have been a wonderful fixture at the Forest Grove Farmers Market by Adelante Mujeres, just a few blocks from where I live.

Pies for Peace was never a formal entity: no 501c3 or even a website. The volunteers would just bring the cash from their pie sales directly to Mercy Corps’ Portland office. During its 12-year run, Pies for Peace raised between $40,000 and $60,000 for Mercy Corps (depends on if you count matching-grants). The volunteers also made smaller donations to other groups, but by far, most of the pie-money went to Mercy Corps activities in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

One of Mercy Corps projects was providing food baskets for displaced populations in Iraq. One of the Pies for Peace volunteers said in this article in the Oregonian:

There was even a little video that [Mercy Corps] showed us of a group of young Iraqis. Because I’m the one who signs the checks, they said ‘thank you, Carol’ from across the seas, and I will never, ever forget that.

Imagine that thank you for the volunteers! Not just a generic thank you, but one that is specific to the group in little Forest Grove, Oregon, baking pies to benefit women in Iraq, one that makes a group of women in one city feel connected to a group of women on the other side of the globe.

If you are an organization engaging with remote volunteers, whether they are baking pies or engaged in virtual volunteering, consider how you could use video to make a simple, personal thank you for a particular volunteer or group of volunteers. It’s an incredible motivator!

 

 

Both Mercy Corps and Pies for Peace would love for a new volunteer, or group of volunteers, to continue making pies, if any of my neighbors are interested…

the scale of how we communicate online

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From How to Fix Online Intimacy by Kyle Chayka for Pacific Standard Magazine:

Online exchanges that were once seen as too shallow to be authentic (we can’t have real relationships without face-to-face interaction, the critique goes) are now overwhelming in their volume and the degree to which they expose us to others… It’s not so much how we communicate online that has changed, but its scale.

Of course, I’ve never thought online interactions were shallow, and I’ve never thought you couldn’t have real relationships without face-to-face interaction. Maybe it’s because I’ve had long-distance friendships where old-fashioned postal letters and phone calls were how we communicated. Or maybe it’s because I just love the written word, and never think it’s somehow less intimate than having a live conversation (in fact, it can often be so much MORE intimate!). Still, I really liked this article because, for the most part, it reinforces my own feelings about online communications, which I’ve expressed on my blog, on my web site, and in workshops many times:

  1. online communications can be just as intense or personal as offline, face-to-face communications, and that’s both a blessing and curse,
  2. you need to think about your online activities in different personas, just as you do offline, and
  3. you DO have a lot of control your online interactions, how people perceive you online, and how you react to online perceptions.

Say you are a manager of volunteers. You don’t get to spend much time with individual volunteers, because you manage so many. But through social media, they learn you have a new dog, or that you ride a motorcycle on weekends, or that you weave – and perhaps that helps them relate to you more as a three-dimensional person, not just the person that schedules them to work and asks them to fill out program evaluations. That’s great! But then the downside: maybe a volunteer wants to go on a motorcycle ride together, or wants to meet up at the dog park – and you really don’t want to socialize with volunteers outside of work. Of course that’s a problem you can have even without social media, but the Internet makes such personal information MUCH easier to find and for communications outside of work to happen. That can be annoying at least and, at worst, creepy.

It’s not just comedians, movie stars and preachers that often have two different personas, one public for the audiences and the press, another for only very close family and friends. As I noted in my blog Why You SHOULD Separate Your Personal Life & Professional Life Online, you are already different people offline – what you say and how you act around your good friends in the evenings, away from families, is probably not exactly the same as what you say and how you act around your grandmother, or your employer. I remember dancing at a music festival… on stage… and being mortified when I realized a co-worker was in the audience. It’s why, on many social media platforms, I have two different accounts: one for the professional “me,” the one you are experiencing now, and one for the me I reserve for only my very closet friends or others that are really into Benedict Cumberbatch.

Chayka’s piece makes a great companion to these recent remarks by NewYorker.com editor Nicholas Thompson on “CBS This Morning” regarding Facebook “privacy” and my blog Freaking out over Facebook privacy? Both of those blogs offer steps to keep your online activities fun, to maintain and grow both personal and private relationships, but also to keep better control of what you share online.

How will you leverage World Youth Skills Day?

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I love leveraging (exploiting!) days designated by the United Nations for my own program use. Why?

  • Many of the days have a lead agency that builds a marketing campaign around the day’s theme. Any press or others paying attention to that campaign might, as a result, stumble upon whatever it is I’m trying to promote if I’ve aligned my messaging with the day.
  • The lead agency marketing the day often creates a Twitter tag to go with the day, such as #humanitarianheroes for World Humanitarian Day on 19 August. I can use the tag on my own tweets about the activity I want to align with the day and any press or others paying attention to that hashtag might, as a result, stumble upon whatever it is I’m trying to promote.

So, for instance, those that promote volunteer engagement / volunteerism might want to pay attention to this: the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, that addresses issues relating to a range of social, humanitarian affairs and human rights issues that affect people all over the world, proposed 15 July as World Youth Skills Day. “Recognizing that fostering the acquisition of skills by youth would enhance their ability to make informed life and work choices and empower them to gain access to changing labour markets, the General Assembly would, by the terms of the draft text, invite all Member States and international, regional and United Nations system organizations to commemorate World Youth Skills Day in an appropriate manner.” Here is the full text of document A/C.3/69/L.13/Rev.1. The UN General Assembly has now approved the designation, though the UN web site doesn’t reflect this at the time of this blog’s publication.

Millions of youth worldwide are unemployed, uneducated and un-engaged: 74.5 million in 2013, the majority of whom live in the developing countries. Teens and people in their 20s aren’t just bored – they are frustrated at how they are locked out of local decision-making as well as economic and life opportunities. These disengaged, disenfranchised youth are a growing concern of governments and various international organizations. For instance, you might recall that, in 2013, I was part of the ICT4EMPL Future Work project undertaken by the Information Society Unit of the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, a European Union (EU) body, to produce this paper: Internet-mediated Volunteering in the EU: Its history, prevalence, and approaches and how it relates to employability and social inclusion. As part of this project, I created a wiki of all of the various resources I used for my research, including a list of “>resources related to volunteering as a contributor to employability.

How could your nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO) or government program that involves volunteers or promotes volunteerism leverage this day?

  • Start asking teens and 20 somethings that have volunteered at your organization, or various organizations, if volunteering has taught them skills or given them experience they were able to use to get a job or to advance in their careers. Ask them if they have ever been asked about their volunteering experience in a job interview. Put together an article to publish on your web site about the comments from these young people. And hold on to this data: maybe you could use it in a grant application to get more resources to help you involve even MORE youth volunteers. Compiling this information would be a wonderful task for a volunteer or group of volunteers – maybe even youth volunteers?!?
  • Be on the lookout for a Twitter tag that might develop in conjunction with this day. I’ll certainly share such as soon as I know about it here on my blog. You can use this hashtag for tweets leading up to World Youth Skills Day that relate to youth volunteering at your organization that are learning skills they need for the work place and adult life.
  • Publish a blog for World Youth Skills Day talking about how and why your organization recruits and involves teen and 20 something volunteers specifically, and how this involvement not only benefits your programs, but communities as well – today and in the future.
  • Think about an event you might be able to host at your organization related to World Youth Skills Day.

Pay attention to the UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training and to the United Nations Volunteers programme, part of UNDP, on Twitter and Facebook – those are the two most likely candidates to be the lead agencies for World Youth Skills Day. Even if it turns out to be another UN agency, I suspect UNEVOC and UNV will somehow be involved in activities related to the day. And I’ll share here on my blog what I learn.