Monthly Archives: September 2020

Study measures interest in volunteering in May 2020

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

Points of Light commissioned a research study to understand the state of American civic engagement – in all its facets – as of May 2020, and to explore the path forward for catalyzing deeper and broader civic participation. Researchers surveyed 1,441 adults in May for the report, which says it has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

The study found that the pandemic and other catastrophes prompted a surge in interest in volunteering in May: While only 36 percent of American adults say they volunteered within the last year, 60 percent said they are interested in doing so in May, and 73 percent said volunteering is more important than ever. According to the survey, Gen Z already demonstrates higher rates of civic engagement than older generations.

The study also found that 75 percent of Americans said in May that donating to nonprofits is more important than ever because of the Covid-19 crisis, while 54 percent reported giving to charity a year ago.

Note that by civic engagement, the survey did not just mean volunteering. Activities measured included:

  • Donated money to a nonprofit
  • Signed a petition
  • Purchase decisions based on company’s social responsibility
  • Participated in volunteer activities
  • Posted or started group/campaign for issue on social media
  • Contacted elected official about issue
  • Considered applying/taking job because of company’s social responsibility
  • Attended demonstration or rally for issue
  • Public service thru military, elected office, nonprofit board
  • Voted in every/almost every election in past few years

Volunteer Preferences and the percentages of people that selected such:

  • Focus on global issues impacting our world: 18%
  • Not interact directly with people benefiting: 24%
  • Volunteer directly or with friends/ neighbors, not through organization: 28%
  • Participate at home/online: 30%
  • Activities where I help someone one-on-one: 27%
  • One-time activities: 29%

A much bigger group selected these “opposite” options of each of the bulleted items above:

  • Focus on issues directly impacting my community +37 —> 55%
  • Interact directly with people who are benefiting +22 —> 46%
  • Volunteer through an organization +15 —> 43%
  • Participate in person +12 —> 42%
  • Activities where I help groups of people +14 —> 41%
  • Activities that I can do on a regular basis +10 —> 39%

I hope that the way this was presented wasn’t done to imply that volunteering from home, online (virtual volunteering) doesn’t allow for volunteering activities that many people preferred: interacting with someone one-on-one, interacting directly with people benefitting, and focusing on issues directly impacting a volunteer’s community. All of these things are possible in virtual volunteering and have been the preferred activities of online volunteers, at least according to all of the research I’ve done since the late 1990s – indeed, when I’ve said that a greater portion of online volunteers want a more substantial experience than a few minutes of microvolunteering, a lot of tech bros – people with corporate backgrounds and tech backgrounds, not volunteerism backgrounds – have really pushed back. Yet, once again, the latest research shows it’s true.

According to the survey, the top barriers to volunteering (among those interested in volunteering who have not done so) are the following – the same things those of us in the volunteer management field have heard year after year:

  • Unsure how to get involved or where to find opportunities 44%
  • Cannot find opportunities near me 44%
  • Not sure what I can do that would be helpful 43%
  • Busy, don’t have time to volunteer 42%
  • Haven’t found a group of volunteers with whom I fit 41%
  • Haven’t found opportunities matching my skills, abilities 41% ‘
  • Rather do other things when I have free time 34%
  • Uncomfortable volunteering with people I don’t know 33%
  • Don’t believe my efforts will make a difference 26%

From the volunteer perspective, a worthwhile experience is:

  • discoverable. Can be easily found online.
  • local. Addresses an issue important to my community.
  • credible. Delivered by an organization with local/issue expertise.
  • social. Allows me to invite my friends and family.
  • authentic. Explains why my actions will matter, upfront.
  • personal. Allows me to engage with beneficiaries.
  • impactful. Shows me the outcomes of my actions.
  • repeatable. Provides an avenue for me to reengage.

This part was my favorite part of the study, in fact – what makes a worthwhile experience. How many managers of volunteer programs are going to use this to improve their own volunteer engagement schemes? And, again, this supports everything I’ve said about micro volunteering – it’s nice, it’s worth exploring, but it’s NOT what most volunteers are looking for.

Here’s the full research study. It would be fascinating to compare this to now – in May, the country was experiencing a pandemic “surge”, where people were feeling optimistic and community-minded. Now, it’s almost October, and we’re most definitely in pandemic “fatigue” where people are feeling anxious, even negative, and rebellious.

Also see:

The Nonprofit & NGO Guide to Using Reddit

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A new resource from me: The Nonprofit & NGO Guide to Using Reddit

As of July 2019, Reddit ranked as the No. 5 most visited web site in the USA and No. 13 in the world. Reddit is a community of communities, and its communities are called subreddits. Statistics suggest that 74% of Reddit users are male. Users tend to be significantly younger than other online communities like Facebook with less than 1% of users being 65 or over.

If you want to reach a younger demographic regarding your volunteering opportunities, your awareness messages, your data that shows your value to the community and more, you need to build posts to Reddit into your marketing strategy, no matter what your nonprofit’s size or focus. This resource tells you how to do it. It covers how to find subreddits to join or read regularly based on your nonprofit or NGO mission, how to choose a user name, how to guide staff who may already have a Reddit user account, whether or not you should create your own subreddit and more.

And note: manging your Reddit presence and monitoring Reddit for discussions about your organization or program is a terrific role for an online volunteer!

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. 

One-ish Day Activities for Volunteering Using IT (Hacks4Good, for instance)

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UPDATED: One-ish Day Activities for IT Volunteers or Volunteering Using IT (Hacks4Good, for instance)

image of a panel discussion

For a couple of decades now, volunteers have been getting together for intense, one-day events, or events of just a few days, to build web pages, to write code (hackathons, apps4good, etc.), to edit Wikipedia pages, to transcribe historical documents and more. These have usually been, in the past, gatherings of onsite volunteers, where everyone is in one location, together, but even before the global pandemic, these activities were involving or mobilizing remote volunteers – online volunteers helping from wherever they were in the world.

This resource has been revised to take into consideration more virtual volunteering / remote volunteering, rather than everyone being in the same room. The revision, with greater emphasis on remote volunteers, was prompted by probably half a dozen inquiries to me in the last four months saying something along these lines:

We have all these corporations / businesses calling us because nonprofits have suspended their onsite volunteering. These companies want to engage in group online volunteering, but don’t know what that would really look like.

In addition to updating One-ish Day Activities for IT Volunteers or Volunteering Using IT (Hacks4Good, for instance), these folks should also view these ideas for high-impact virtual volunteering projects.

But with all that said, businesses/corporations also need to keep in mind that nonprofits are under terrific financial strain right now. They need to consider this recent blog by Jerome Tennille, which says in part:

Many companies are seeking to pivot successfully from in-person employee engagement to forms that allow for social distancing whether virtually or remote. In their quest to achieve this some companies have sought to place that burden on their non-profit partners in the communities they serve. Unfortunately, by placing this responsibility on the non-profit organizations…

Remember: Volunteers are not free for the nonprofit or community group expected to involve them. If you ask an agency to create volunteering opportunities specifically for your employees, you are asking them to spend money and resources they may not be able to afford – so be ready to make an appropriate financial – CASH – donation to a nonprofit or school if you want a customized volunteering gig for your employees at that nonprofit or school. Here’s more advice on how to create successful and appropriate volunteering activities for employees.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

For much more detailed advice on creating assignments for online volunteers, for working with online volunteers, for using the Internet to support and involve ALL volunteers, including volunteers that provide service onsite, and for ensuring success in virtual volunteering, check out The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. Tools come and go – but certain community engagement principles never change. You will not find a more detailed guide anywhere for working with online volunteers and using the Internet to support and involve all volunteers – even after home quarantines are over and volunteers start coming back onsite to your workspace. It’s available both as a traditional paperback and as an online book. It’s co-written by myself and Susan Ellis.

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. 

A review of The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook

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How did I miss this wonderful 2014 review by Thomas W. McKee of The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service into Volunteer Involvement, a book I co-wrote with Susan Ellis? Somehow I did – I just recently found it on the Amazon page for the book:

Since most books on technology are outdated by the time the ink dries on the printed version, I teased Susan Ellis about using the word “LAST” in the title of a book about virtual volunteering. She assured me, however, that the word “LAST” was carefully chosen for a very specific purpose. After reading the book, I now understand the wisely chosen word “LAST.” The authors do acknowledge that the technology tools we use today will change, but the principles outlined will always apply to future virtual volunteering because Guidebook is not just another book on technology. It is a book on the integration of technology into all aspects of volunteer engagement so that organizations avoid the silo compartmentalization of virtual vs. traditional volunteers.

Wow. This is exactly how Susan and I tried to write this book!

What we don’t mean is that there will or should never be a further need to write or talk about the latest developments in engaging volunteers online.

What we do mean is that, from this moment on, we hope that talk about virtual volunteering won’t be segregated to a separate book or separate chapter at the end of a book about volunteer management. Our dream is that this is a turning point regarding talk and training about volunteer engagement, and

  • any book about volunteer management, whether it’s a book about basic principals in general, group volunteering, episodic volunteering, skills-based volunteering, teen volunteering, whatever, has advice about using the Internet to support and involve volunteers integrated throughout the material.
  • any workshop about some aspect of volunteer management, whether it’s about the fundamentals of volunteer management, recruitment, risk management, adults working with children, whatever, fully integrates advice about using the Internet as a part of those activities.

In short, NO MORE SEGREGATION OF INTERNET-MEDIATED VOLUNTEERING in books about volunteer management, in workshops about volunteer management, and in references to volunteer engagement, as a whole. Virtual volunteering should not be an “add on” in any of these scenarios – not only in a book or training about volunteer engagement, but also, not in any volunteer engagement scheme at any organization. In fact, our dream is that we no longer hear about onsite volunteers as one group and online volunteers as another, separate group when talking about how to work with volunteers – how about we talk about volunteers, period? The exception: research. Absolutely, let’s have research on virtual volunteering, specifically – but NOT the motivation of online volunteers (enough!). Let’s have research that organizations actually need. What do they need? ASK THEM.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service Into Volunteer Involvement is available both as a traditional print book and as an e-book. Tools come and go, but certain community engagement/volunteer management principles never change. You will not find a more detailed guide anywhere for working with online volunteers and using the Internet to support and involve all volunteers – even after home quarantines are over and volunteers start coming back onsite to your workspace. Reviews assignment creation, changes you will need to make to policies and procedures, how to evaluate your program’s effectiveness, how to build a sense of team among online volunteers and so, so much more. And if you are a volunteer at a school or a concerned parent of a student at a school and you know that school might be considering online mentoring or online tutoring, I hope you will consider buying The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook and giving it to the volunteer coordinator at the school, who may not have the budget for such.

We published this six years before COVID-19 / the novel coronavirus, and never thought about how a global pandemic, social distancing and home quarantines would lead to a sudden, urgent rise in interest in virtual volunteering. I’m just glad the book is seeing such renewed interest (far more have been sold this year, in 2020, than even in the first year it was published).

Also see:

Why did we call it the LAST guidebook?

LinkedIn Group for the discussion of virtual volunteering.

When Words Get in the Way (Like “Virtual Volunteering”)