I am interested in using Facebook to build a community of potential donors. Anyone have expertise in this area?
Here’s what I think:
No one likes to be identified as a potential donor. They really don’t. You can think of me as a potential donor because I’m a volunteer, or because I’ve donated in the past, or because I came to your event, or because I’ve otherwise expressed some kind of interest in your nonprofit, NGO, charity, etc. But I won’t join a group called “potential donors,” because I don’t want to be thought of only as a financial donor, as someone that gives money, or should be targeted to give money.
People will join online groups that are focused on a cause they care about, or an online group that is going to educate them about that cause. They want to hear about the great work the program is doing. They want to know how to “live the cause” in their own lives: how they can recycle or how they can register voters or how they can explain the importance of vaccinations to their family or whatever. They will join online groups that discuss and debate topics related to the cause – how to advocate for accessible web design, how to rescue wildlife, how to run a youth soccer league, etc. And if those groups also, sometimes, solicit donations, that’s appropriate and will probably generate some donations – as long as no member feels that’s why the group exists (to ask for money). They are going to leave a group that just asks for money.
If you are going to call me a partner, by the way, that means I’m going to get to offer my advice, ask questions and disagree. If you don’t allow that on your online group, then I’m NOT a “partner.”
That said, in the 1990s I joined an online group for organizations that had received funding from one funder – the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation. It was wonderful: we learned so much from each other, and MEAF got to see the nonprofits it funded collaborate in real-time. It was one of the best online community experiences I’ve ever been a part of.
For advice specifically on how to create and leverage an online community for your volunteers specificallly, have a look at The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. It’s available both as a traditional print publication and as a digital book. And if you buy it directly from me, the last two boxes in my closet will soon go away! And your copy will be signed with best wishes from me! I also get a bit more money than if you buy it from Amazon (and it’s slightly cheaper to buy from me as well).
Leading in a virtual world: on engaging in activities that influence others online, that create a profile for a person as someone that provides credible, important, even vital information about a particular subject.
Cultivating Online Civility: Can online civility be restored? Is it possible to challenge misinformation and destructive speech in the strongest, most deliberate of terms without being accused of hate speech yourself?
If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, 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.
This is adapted from a blog originally published in January 2003 at the e-volunteerism Journal. I was living in Germany at the time, hence the comment at the start of the blog:
On a recent visit back to the USA, I heard very different opinions about volunteerism from two good friends.
The first said that she will never volunteer again. “I have tried to volunteer for more organizations than I can count. I have tried to volunteer with groups that help animals, with political groups, with women’s groups, and it’s always the same thing: they don’t return my calls, and if they do and they tell me to come in, they don’t care that I’m there once I show up. They don’t want to answer my questions, they look at me as a burden or, worse, as someone that has no feelings at all. I’m just free labor to them, and I’m sick of it.”
Harrumph.
The second friend said she couldn’t get enough of volunteering. Her favorite role has been head of the Parent-Teachers Association at her daughter’s elementary school. “I just love it! I get all this responsibility and respect I’ve never gotten in my job. I feel like I’m really doing something. I feel like I’m making a difference. I love just about everybody I get to work with and, when I don’t, I can still work something out. I just feed off this stuff.”
These two testimonies regarding volunteerism make me wonder if the organizations these two assisted are aware of their feelings. And so I ask volunteer managers reading this to consider: What would people who have volunteered with your organization say about their experience?
Do you know? Do you care?
If anything, these two episodes have made me realize yet again the value of surveying volunteers about their experience, and how easily this can be done using e-mail.
Granted, two people can have very different opinions about the same situation: one person will find my bi-weekly e-mail updates to current volunteers too detailed and too frequent; another will complain that there needs to be more information, sent more often. Still, for the most part, there will be enough similar responses to your questions about volunteering to see trends emerge for your organization.
Informal “Quickie” Surveys
Too many organizations survey only those who have completed at least one assignment with the agency, or survey those volunteers only once as part of some detailed, intensive evaluation program. Those kind of long, involved surveys are indeed important, but just as important are providing plenty of opportunities for current and potential volunteers to offer feedback, however brief, about their experiences at any point in the process.
Here are some suggestions:
Require all volunteers attending a group event to sign out and complete a brief three-question/five-minute survey right then and there before they leave. Examples of questions for group events include:
Why did you come here today?
What benefits do you think the organization got as a result of your service today?
If you could change one thing about your experience today, what would it be?
If you really can’t do a survey on the spot, then at least email everyone and ask them to fill out a quick survey. Follow up with reminders to ensure most volunteers respond.
Conduct “walking around” informal surveys during events and activities. Simply ask volunteers you encounter questions such as “What else would be helpful to you?” or “How would you change what you are doing?” Sometimes these “heat of the moment” questions can elicit more frank opinions than post-event questionnaires, especially from those reluctant to commit to a written response.
Once a year, send out an email to everyone who has ever expressed interest in volunteering and ask them if they did, indeed, volunteer at your organization and, if so, how would they describe the experience? If they didn’t volunteer, ask them what prevented them from doing so.
There are ways to get even more feedback:
Put a notice on the Web page that describes volunteering at your organization, saying: “Have you volunteered with our organization? Tell us about your experience!” This invites feedback from anyone at anytime.
Hand out a brief survey at a board meeting and ask the members three or four quick questions about their volunteering, to be completed in the first five minutes of the meeting. Let members stay anonymous in their responses. At the next board meeting, hand out their answers for discussion.
Conduct exit interviews of any departing volunteers, where possible. Ask the volunteers to evaluate their experience and make suggestions for improvement.
Finding the Right Question
There are questions I like to ask beyond the “what did you like and dislike” traditional queries:
What were your expectations before volunteering and how did your actual experience differ?
What did you learn because of your volunteering?
If you were to tell someone about your experience today, what would you say?
How do you think our organization has benefited from your volunteering?
How have you been recognized for your volunteer efforts at our organization?
How does staff support you in your volunteering with our organization?
Do you feel prepared for your volunteer work here? What else can we do to increase your skills?
These deeper questions may allow you to understand “why” volunteers are reacting the way they are and can surface helpful suggestions for improving your volunteer management system.
Here are sample questions a survey for volunteers at First Night Doylestown:
Did you enjoy volunteering? Would you be likely to volunteer again? How many hours were you on duty? Was that amount of volunteer time What could we have done better to help you in your volunteer position? What was the best thing about volunteering for First Night Doylestown? May we quote you? (we might want to use these comments in our recruiting efforts in the future)
Here are some survey questions that were asked by the Dartmouth University’s Oxbow student volunteer program:
What were your expectations at the beginning of the program? Were your expectations fulfilled? Why or why not? What were the strengths of the program? What was your favorite day and why? What were the weaknesses of the program? What aspects need work? Did you feel well informed and adequately trained? What information or training could we offer new volunteers in the future? Do you plan to continue participating in this program? What information can you provide that will be helpful to future volunteers?
Here is an example of a feedback form from the IVY project of Portland, OR
What would you tell your family and friends about what you did today?
Would you be interested in coming back to Forest Park to help with the Ivy Removal Project again?
What would you tell someone who came to remove Ivy for the first time in Forest Park?
What made the greatest impression on you today?
Do you have any suggestions or great idea to share?
Utilizing the Results
You will need to compile the feedback you receive from volunteer surveys and then share at least a summary with staff and the volunteers themselves. It’s especially important to note how any of the feedback is going to be acted upon in the coming weeks and months.
Just by asking such questions, you are demonstrating to supporters and potential supporters the importance of volunteers to your organization; the follow-up will reinforce that idea even more.
Reader Response Questions:
What are your favorite quick-survey methods to get information from volunteers?
What are your favorite non-traditional questions to ask of volunteers?
If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, 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.
Back in 2012 and 2013, I was one of many researchers in the ICT4EMPL Future Work project, focused on the countries of the European Union and funded by the European Commission. The overall project aimed to inform policy regarding “new forms of work” and pathways to employability that involved online technologies. For this project, I researched and mapped the prevalence of virtual volunteering in Europe and explored how virtual volunteering could support people’s employability. Here my complete final paper. And here is the Wiki I created for the project.
It is time for a new effort to research and map the prevalence of virtual volunteering in Europe. Because now, more than 10 years later, I’m sure the conclusions I found about virtual volunteering in Europe have changed, and it would be great to see what’s the same, what’s evolved, what’s reversed and what new insights have emerged – and see how this compares with past research.
Some of those conclusions from 10 years ago about virtual volunteering in Europe:
Organizations using the Internet to support volunteers, or that had roles and tasks for online volunteers, usually never used the term virtual volunteering. For instance, Germany hosted the FIFA World Cup in 2006 and recruited, trained and supported hundreds of volunteers all across Germany to help with the event; no doubt the Internet played an important role in the screening, training and support for volunteers, however, I could find no reference to activities related to Internet-mediated volunteering for the World Cup (and they also never responded to my emails).
Services where charities could recruit traditional volunteers might have talked about virtual volunteering 10 years ago, yet often did not allow for searches of just online roles and tasks opportunities on their platforms.
Online volunteering schemes come and go; for instance, while Samaritans was profiled for its involvement of online volunteers in the 1990s, as of the time of this paper’s writing, the web site did not note this past involvement, and a page on the site said that such an online program was “coming in the future.” Virtual volunteering activities were cited at a dozen European organizations in the paper – are they still happening?
10 years ago, there was no organization tracking the practice in Europe – or in any country outside of Europe, for that matter. Has that changed?
The research 10 years ago found at least 60 specific examples of organizations in the EU involving online volunteers, or involving online volunteers in the EU. The number of online volunteering opportunities, using a search of the services, was more than 1000, in total. And the research noted that Wikipedia already had contributors from every European country at that time. Excluding Wikipedia, a conclusion can be drawn from the research cited in this paper that there are at least a few thousand online volunteering opportunities available from organisations in Europe.
Spain was, by far, the country with the most virtual volunteering roles and tasks for volunteers, across a few hundred NGOs, and had a deeper history regarding digital volunteering than any other European country, by far. The UK, which was in the EU at the time, came in a distant second.
Far in the distance in terms of virtual volunteering, and well behind rates in Eastern European countries, was France – in fact, the lack of virtual volunteering materials in French was particularly shocking to me. I could find NO such materials in Europe – the few I found were in Canada. I so hope that’s changed in 10 years!
If you are looking for a research project idea, I highly recommend you take a stab at researching and mapping the prevalence of virtual volunteering in Europe – or even just one country in Europe. Or break entirely new ground: India? Certain countries in Africa? I will be happy to turn over all of my materials to you to help you in your research. I’m also happy to write a letter of endorsement if you want to shop this project around for funding. Contact me and let me know your full name, share your LinkedIn profile or another online profile where I can see your professional connections and research to date, let me know the kind of research you have in mind, etc.
Why am I not interested in doing this research myself? Both because I lack any funding to do this and also, I would really like to read someone else’s research!
If you are doing any research regarding virtual volunteering, or if your agency or organization is considering virtual volunteering as a path to helping people become more employable, check out the Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service Into Volunteer Involvement. This is the most comprehensive resource anywhere on working with online volunteers, and on using the Internet to support ALL volunteers, including those you might not think of as “online” volunteers.
If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site or my YouTube videos 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.
I’m reading materials about making volunteering more accessible for people with disabilities and my repeated thought as I read is These are great suggestions for ALL volunteers! There’s no reason to do this JUST with people you think might have disabilities!
Below are excerpts from various publications I’ve been reading that show what I mean: Some have been slightly edited for clarity (substituting one word, for instance). Don’t just do these with people who have disabilities – do them for ALL OF YOUR VOLUNTEERS:
Make sure that anyone who works with volunteers with disabilities always asks if there is anything that can be done to accommodate their needs. (Me: do this with ALL volunteers, not just those with disabilities).
Regularly ask volunteers is they are having any challenges carrying out a task and ask if some accommodation or different task would make the volunteer’s involvement easier.
Encourage a culture of watching out for volunteers while they carry out their assignments and making sure that their needs are met.
Regularly ask volunteers if they are having any challenges carrying out a task and ask if some accommodation or different task would make the volunteer’s involvement easier.
Formally adopt a policy that states that it is the right of your volunteers to ask for and receive alternative tasks or accommodations. Make all volunteers aware of this policy.
Adopt a formal policy that states that your organization will do a regular review of its volunteer recruitment and management procedures and practices to ensure that the organization’s needs are being met and that no group of people is being excluded.
Review the time commitments and schedules attached to your volunteer positions to see if there is a solid rationale for them.
Make it part of your volunteer management approach to adapt roles to volunteers and not volunteers to roles.
Regularly talk with volunteers to get an idea of what it is actually like to volunteer for your organization. If some volunteers have fixed time commitments, ask them if there is a better way to organize their work than the way you do it now. That is, ask if they would prefer a more flexible schedule.
Formally state in a written volunteer policy that volunteers will be assigned tasks based on their capacities and abilities and will be accommodated reasonably to carry them out.
When assigning tasks that are done every year (e.g. duties in an annual fundraising campaign), look at the health status and other factors of each volunteer before automatically assigning them the same tasks that they have “always” done. Consider alternative assignments where necessary.
Ensure that volunteer managers speak with volunteers before organizing an annual work plan and verify the volunteers’ ability and availability to do the same jobs as in previous years.
Ask volunteers what barriers they have encountered with your organization and how they have overcome such (if they have).
If you do interviews with candidates for volunteering, send the candidates the questions you are going to ask BEFORE that interview.
During an interview with a candidate for volunteering, plenty of time should be given for the volunteer to answer the questions, as some people might need more time to think about what has been asked.
During the interview, you may want to ask the candidate what support, if any, they feel they might need when volunteering. This is beneficial to both the organization and the volunteer so that any support needed can be planned and arranged before the volunteer begins the assignment.
It is very important that those that will support the volunteer meet with the volunteer before any volunteering begins. This will allow both people to decide if they are happy to work together and it is also a chance to get to know each other.
People have said they would prefer a trial period of 2 months. After the first month, at their supervision meeting, you should ask the volunteer if they are happy to go on to the next month.
You should feel comfortable in being able to say honestly what is working well and what, if anything, could be better.
Again – these tips were written to help staff work better with volunteers with disabilities, but the reality is that these are great tips for supporting and managing ALL volunteers.
If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, 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.
