Author Archives: jcravens

About jcravens

Jayne Cravens is an internationally-recognized trainer, researcher and consultant. Her work is focused on communications, volunteer involvement, community engagement, and management for nonprofits, NGOs, and government initiatives. She is a pioneer regarding the research, promotion and practice of virtual volunteering, including virtual teams, microvolunteering and crowdsourcing, and she is a veteran manager of various local and international initiatives. Jayne became active online in 1993, and she created one of the first web sites focused on helping to build the capacity of nonprofits to use the Internet. She has been interviewed for and quoted in articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press, as well as for reports by CNN, Deutsche Well, the BBC, and various local radio stations, TV stations and blogs. Resources from her web site, coyotecommunications.com, are frequently cited in reports and articles by a variety of organizations, online and in-print. Women's empowerment and women's full access to employment and education options remains a cross-cutting theme in all of her work. Jayne received her BA in Journalism from Western Kentucky University and her Master's degree in Development Management from Open University in the U.K. A native of Kentucky, she has worked for the United Nations, lived in Germany and Afghanistan, and visited more than 30 countries, many of them by motorcycle. She is currently based near Portland, Oregon in the USA.

The Upsides of Working for a UN Agency

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Since early April, I’ve been writing and publishing my thoughts and advice related to a career in international humanitarian development. I think this will finally wrap up that series of blogs, though I’ll probably have more to say later.

To end this series, I’m going to share an answer that I posted to Reddit in response to this question:

Is there any thing that makes the UN a good place to work at? The upsides of working for UN agencies?

This question also asked lots about the “best” United Nations agency to work for, the “best” country to work in, etc. And, of course, that’s impossible to answer.

Here’s what I posted:

The UN isn’t a monolith when it comes to workplace environments nor the kind of work you do. And an office that everyone loves working in now can change drastically when a new person takes over.

Working at UNICEF isn’t the same as working at WHO. Working in the field isn’t the same as working at an HQ. Working in Kosovo isn’t the same as working in Congo. Working in procurement isn’t the same as managing a program focused on maternal health.

What I liked about working for UNDP the three times I did so:

  • I prefer working in organizations that are focused on a mission, as opposed to those focused on working for a profit. In that sense, I found it as satisfying as working for any nonprofit.
  • I loved the kind of work that I did. I worked in communications. I love writing reports. Yes, really. I love interviewing sanitation engineers about what they did last week. I love reading proposals and making them better. I love digging into data and finding things we should highlight or otherwise pay attention to. I love taking photos or going through the photos someone else took and picking the best one for a report. I love meeting with funders and “selling” what we’re doing. I love editing other people’s writing. And I loved that all of this very non-glamorous work was in pursuit of a mission to make people’s lives better, to make the environment cleaner, etc. I don’t know that I could do this kind of work for a company that makes toasters.
  • I loved working with local staff. I always considered them the real reason I was there – to build their capacities so they wouldn’t need me or anyone like me eventually. The best was in Afghanistan, when I got to work with federal government workers. I loved their energy, I loved their curiosity, I loved how much they wanted their country to be better, and I worry about them every day. Every. Day. Especially the women.
  • I loved working with the communities we were serving, on the RARE chance I got to be in the field and really experience that.
  • I really liked a lot of my co-workers that were also from somewhere else. Many were incredible workers who helped me SO much in my work. Many inspired me. Many got me through the rough times of the work.
  • I loved learning about development, and seeing what I learned about in a Master’s program really happening in real life contexts. I loved learning that a government-led community meeting in Ukraine is a heck of a lot like a government-led community meeting in Oregon.
  • There were two heads of mission that I ADORED and I am grateful to have worked with them. They were tough, they were inspiring, they were frustrating, they were demanding and they were utterly supportive. And it’s interesting to note that a lot of staff did NOT like them for all the reasons I did.
  • Yes, sure, absolutely, at times, it was a kick to get to say “I work for the United Nations.” No question.

I think that, because I was a seasoned nonprofit professional, I didn’t go into my first UN job with stars in my eyes. I also at that point had worked for a Fortune 500 company, so, altogether, I already knew the frustration of bureaucracies and encountering staff who were on power trips or who actually didn’t know what they were doing and didn’t care except for the paycheck. What sector does NOT have this? I get frustrated with people acting like the UN ecosystem is SO unique in these “negatives” – it’s not.

One last thing: I am so disappointed to be one of the few former UN workers who actively, deliberately gives career advice online to people that want to work in international development. When you take the elevator up to a higher floor, you should always send it back down. That’s common courtesy.

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. 

Advice for those looking to work abroad: choosing a second or third language

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two shadows of humans talk together, with a globe behind them.

All last month, I shared blogs related to advice for working in international humanitarian development. I had intended to stop at the end of the month, but I have a few more blogs to share on the topic.

This one is about choosing a second or third language to learn to improve your international development career opportunities.

First and foremost, when trying to choose a language to study, don’t get hyperfocused on what the “right” language might be. The demand for languages can ebb and flow: there have been times when I felt like every job that I would love to do and that is in high demand requires Portuguese (for work in Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Macau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe). And then, poof, a time comes when it seems no one is asking for that anymore. Instead, pick a language that you enjoy. Learning a language well enough to work in it is a MAJOR time investment. It’s like a marriage: you have to spend time on it every day for it to work, and you have to spend time with it even when you might not really feel “into” it at every moment. You need to pick something that you personally enjoy, as you are going to be spending a huge amount of time with it.

You also want to think about WHERE you want to work. If you really want to work in a particular region, what is the official language of that region? Sure, there are people that speak Spanish and then get sent to Armenia – a language isn’t a guarantee that you are always going to get a job in the region where that language is spoken.

French is a great choice, as it’s an official language in more than 25 countries. You will see it asked for regularly in job descriptions for UN positions. It is also a very popular second language. French is highly sought after for roles throughout Africa and the Caribbean.

Arabic is a great choice, as it’s the official language in 19 countries or so, many of them a joy to work in. Note that Arabic is going to be MUCH more difficult to learn than any language that uses the Latin alphabet.

Russian is still a good choice as a second or third language and will be for quite a few years to come. Beyond the obvious place it’s spoken primarily, it’s also an official language in Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan, and is widely used Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Estonia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. A lot of older people still speak Russian in Eastern Europe. You will have to learn an entirely new alphabet, as it is not written with the Latin alphabet.

You might want to pick a language that could serve you beyond a career in international development – as in a language that’s represented among immigrants wherever you hope to retire someday.

Picking a language that is more niche can also be a great choice for making you more competitive. For instance, I have a colleague who, MANY years ago, invested in learning Dari and Persian Farsi, knowing it would land her work in Afghanistan and Tajikistan regularly, where jobs were in high demand at that time, and it did, for years (along with her area of expertise, not just her language abilities). But then, wham, August 2021 happened and her job prospects got severely reduced. But for more than a decade, she was a hot commodity in international development circles.

I have a colleague who is fluent in English, French and German, and its the GERMAN that has sometimes been the biggest asset, because the project she applies for has a major German funder, and when they visit the country where she is working, they love that someone can speak to them in German. And when I did a motorcycle tour of Eastern Europe, I was stunned at how many people spoke German as a second or third language, especially in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro.

Another good way to choose might be regarding your area of expertise. What do you do? Public health? Small business development? IT? Elementary education? Emergency services management? What area of development is your area of concentration when it comes to international work, and regarding that, how many professionals are there that do that work and that, say, speak French? Or Arabic? Or whatever language you might be interested in?

As for my own story: before I knew I was going to pursue a career in international development, I focused on Spanish. It’s a language I like a lot and, living in the USA, I knew would be helpful. But it hasn’t helped me much in my international development career, because what I do as a professional in humanitarian development (and nonprofit management, for that matter) is EASILY found among native Spanish speakers throughout the Northern and Southern hemispheres. By contrast, if I’d chosen pretty much ANY other language, even French, I would have been way more marketable/competitive in this field. But it was something that I didn’t realize until I was almost 40, and by then, I just wasn’t up to a “divorce” and remarriage, when it comes to language… that said, my Spanish skills have served me well when I travel to Central and South America: I’m most proud of when I was in Paraguay with Habitat for Humanity and could talk with both local Habitat employees and the family where we were building a house. And in my nonprofit work, I’ve been able to use it on occasion, including when editing a video that featured a Spanish client.

There are benefits to learning a second languague (or more!) beyond your career:

  • Once you learn a second language well enough to have daily conversations in it, learning a third language (or more!) will be easier, because your brain better understands how to learn a language, you better understand parts of speech, etc. You may struggle at first, trying to speak that stronger second language when you should be using the third language, but trust me on this, it DOES get easier the more you do it.
  • A review of more than 20 existing studies determined that the onset of Alzheimer’s disease symptoms is slower to develop in bilingual individuals versus people who speak only one language, or monolinguals. The researchers discovered that the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are halted by up to five years, on average, in people who fluently speak more than one language (the study did not substantially show that bilingualism deters Alzheimer’s disease incidence rates; only that it helps to delay symptoms).
  • Learning another language contributes to forming new connections in the brain and strengthening nervous system links. Just one week of learning a new language has a positive impact on a person’s levels of alertness and focus. People who speak a second language regularly perform better on memory tests than monolingual people. 
  • Being able to communicate with someone that you could not communicate with otherwise, whether it’s someone on a bus, someone at a party, someone’s partner, someone you encounter while traveling, is amazing. It’s a superpower.

That’s my advice on learning another language specifically to improve your international development career opportunities. Really interested to hear what others say in the comments.

Also see:

Movies I recommend if you want to do international aid work, foreign affairs or journalism abroad.

Working abroad is not always looked on positively when looking for a local job.

US Citizen? Planning a career in international humanitarian affairs? You might want to rethink it.

All of my international development career-related advice. 

Reaching women in socially-conservative areas, even in other countries

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A Soviet-style drawing of a woman with a shovel

I’ve been reading through some of my first professional blogs, from back in 2009, on archive.org. Back then, my blog was hosted on another site and all the content went away when that site went under.

Some things have changed OH so much – and some things haven’t changed at all.

I found this blog from 19 October 2009 and thought it was worth re-sharing. The sadness as I read, of course, is profound, knowing the situation for women in Afghanistan now, versus when I was there in 2007. It’s also sad to read because, for thousands of people, a career in international humanitarian work has been put on hold – not just in the USA (foreign aid program funding has been slashed in countries all throughout the world). But I’m sharing it anyway, with the hope that someone out there might still find it helpful – and this is the last in my month-long series about working in interntional development:

While I was in Afghanistan, I was notorious for kicking-back field reports that stated “the community was consulted” about this or that project, but that never said if the decision-making included any women. Sadly, the report writers often came back to me with a scowl and lots of excuses about why women weren’t included when “the community was consulted.” Never mind that, even in Afghanistan, it IS possible.

When you work in humanitarian and development efforts, you must always be aware that talking to the official leadership of a community, a region, whatever, does not mean you are hearing about the needs of all citizens, such as minority populations or even majority populations — women. There are ways to seek out and include women in even socially-conservative areas so that they can be a part of decision-making.

A good example of this is an intervention in Egypt which used Egyptian women to reach other women regarding eye care, highlighted in a brief article by the Community Eye Health Journal. The successful strategy they employed was this:

  • The team undertaking the intervention held various meetings and presentations to establish a trusting relationship with local policy makers, local health authorities, local community leaders, local non-government organizations (NGOs), etc. 
  • The team used this network to explain that women weren’t receiving eye care at the same rate as men, and that saving or restoring women’s sight benefits the whole family.
  • The team used this network to identify local women with previous experience in community development projects who could be trained to reach female community members in the intervention villages, as they would be able to enter homes and meet with women without coming into conflict with local cultural practices.
  • 42 women were trained over three days, and 30 were selected. as “health visitors,”
  • The health visitors then visited 90 per cent of the population in the two intervention villages from March to December 2007.
  • During each visit, health visitors explained to women that saving or restoring their own sight would benefit the whole family. Each family received a variety of educational materials, including a calendar with illustrations relating to eye care and information on the importance of seeking eye care for the women in the household.

The result was a huge surge in the number of women receiving eye care as part of this intervention. And maybe something more: a change in the way the community viewed the value of its women? That wasn’t measured, unfortunately.

Ofcourse, Egypt isn’t Afghanistan. Every country presents special challenges when it comes to reaching women regarding development interventions. But there’s always a way! Regardless of your role in humanitarian or development efforts, always make reaching women a priority.

Postscript: even now, there are UN agencies working in Afghanistan and, even now, they are engaging with women. Look at their updates regarding their work there. I stand by the statement: there is ALWAYS a way.

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. 

Movies I recommend if you want to do international aid work, foreign affairs or journalism abroad.

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Three scenes from the movies listed. The first is a white man of European descent facing several angry Asian uniformed officials, the second is a white man using a phone in the middle of a chaotic African village, next to a wooden sign painted with the words "Public phone international", and the third is a woman in a head scarf and also wearing a vest that says PRESS, with shouting men and a car behind her.

For all of this month, each week, I’m publishing a blog focused on working in international humanitarian affairs and community development. This is part three of that series.

I know that, for many people, their career, or their career dreams, of working internationally in humanitarian development, or even as a journalist, are on hold. In fact, I’ve recommended that people who are pursuing a career in international development to rethink those plans. But the world cannot function without international aid workers and without international journalists. And maybe everyone needs to have a reality check on what the work REALLY looks like.

I’ve been thinking of this for a while: what movies would I recommend to someone who wants to work in international humanitarian development, in foreign affairs, or in journalism abroad, to give them an idea of what conditions and challenges are like? Or what movies do I think represent what it’s like to work “in the field” internationally, as we say?

Below is my list, in the order the movies were released. Most are not uplifting. Most are quite dark and even depressing. None are idealizations of aid workers or journalists: the people featured are flawed and white saviorism is on full display in many of them (and often not in a kind way). But, to me, what they collectively do is let you know that “doing good” and living abroad in country’s in post conflict situations and experiencing instability and poverty is not as easy as you might think, and not everything you see on the TV news is to be believed.

Black Narcissus (1947).

The Third Man (1949).

The Year of Living Dangerously (1982).

The Killing Fields (1984).

Volunteers (1985).

The Mission (1986).

The Constant Gardener (2005).

Shooting Dogs (2005).

The Whistleblower (2010).

A Perfect Day (2015).

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016).

The Night Manager (2016 – mini series).

A good source for more movie ideas are these movie lists from the Council on Foreign Relations.

Which are my absolute favorites? What if I could recommend only two? The Year of Living Dangerously and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

What would be your recommendation for films that are good representations of working abroad in humanitarian affairs or as a journalist – or even if they aren’t accurate, you enjoy them?

All of my blogs with career-related advice are here. What I have written lately may be in conflict with some of the things I’ve advised over the years. But I never saw this coming… Here are some highlights:

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. 

Working abroad is not always looked on positively when looking for a local job

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two shadows of humans talk together, with a globe behind them.

For all of this month, each week, I’m publishing a blog focused on working in international humanitarian affairs and community development. This is part two of that series.

Even in this climate of drastic cutbacks in foreign aid programs around the world, not only by the US government, many people want to work in humanitarian-related fields abroad. Many believe that such works means life-long employability, because they think international work is always perceived as a plus on a résumé.

I’m oh-so-proud of my work abroad, or my international work that I’ve been able to do while still in my home country, but my international work has not at all been the “wow” on my CV I thought it would be. In fact, sometimes, I think it has cost me some job interviews, and I am pretty sure it cost me at least two jobs I interviewed for. And the more I talk to others, the more I have realized that not all employers look favorably on work or volunteering abroad.

For years, I’ve gathered negative comments others have heard in job interviews with regard to their service abroad. Here’s a few that I think represent all that I’ve gathered. I’ve changed some comments slightly so that where they were said can’t be easily found with an online search.

I have been asked twice in interviews, almost with a scoff, “But why do you want to work HERE when you’ve done all this work abroad?” One of them followed up with, “Well, I just feel like if we hired you, you might run off at any moment to go back overseas.” Never mind that I had just bought a house – which I noted in both the interview and my cover letter.

I was giving a behavioral interview example using my time in the Peace Corps, and one of the panel interrupted me and told to instead pick an example from my “professional career”.

I had someone in an interview tell me it was a mistake to go off to Africa early in my career when I could be using my degree and learning the trade for the job I was interviewing for.

One interviewer just kept saying he feared I would be bored, because working at this local government agency would be COMPLETELY different than working abroad. I don’t think the interviewer had ever stepped out of his state, let alone the USA. And never mind that the work I would have been doing locally would have been almost identical to what I had done in other countries.

Two different interviewers implied I must not like the USA if I worked abroad. I wasn’t prepared to prove my patriotism in job interviews.

I have lots of advice for translating humanitarian work abroad such that it you present it in the same words as a federal, state, county or city job posting. But the reality is that, even if you were to follow that advice, you need to be prepared, if you are making the transition from international to local, that some folks don’t see how the work is oh-so-similar, and your work abroad may even make them suspicious of you, no matter how you phrase it. You may have to apply for far more jobs than you thought you would have to, to find hiring managers that see international work as an asset.

For sure, some regions are more friendly to international workers than others. In the USA, you are going to have a better reception from potential employers in the greater Washington DC and New York metropolitan areas, for instance, than you will in some other areas where there isn’t a large number of international agencies.

It’s such a shame that more local government agencies in particular don’t see international work as an asset among applicants. They are losing out on a tremendous amount of talent, ideas and experience.

All of my blogs with career-related advice are here. What I have written lately about working internationally may be in conflict with some of the things I’ve advised over the years. But I never saw this coming… Here are some highlights:

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. 

US Citizen? Planning a career in international humanitarian affairs? You might want to rethink it.

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two shadows of humans talk together, with a globe behind them.

For all of this month, each week, I’m going to write a blog focused on working in international humanitarian affairs and community development. This is part one of that series.

If you’re a US citizen with the goal of working in international humanitarian affairs or community development, even disaster relief, in impoverished regions not in the USA, it’s time to pick a different career.

The US Presidential order withdrawing the USA from 66 international organizations, including many United Nations agencies, means US candidates won’t be considered for most international development jobs. When qualified applicants are identified for such jobs, hiring managers will then look at the nationalities of those applicants, per the funder’s preferences. And the USA isn’t funding.

I used to work for the United Nations, and I was on a fair share of hiring committees. In my department, I was often the person who went through the stack of applicants to pick only those who were absolutely qualified, because I was really good at it (I was amazed at how others couldn’t figure out how to rank people). But then someone else would go through that first round of finalists and remove a person or two specifically because of their nationality – a nationality that the government funding the position didn’t like. Or was at war with. And if there was a qualified applicant from the country funding the position, very often, that person got the job.

The current US Presidential administration has not only withdrawn financial support for international humanitarian work, the leader has said vile things about the people and leaders of dozens of other countries. This can result in targeted hostility toward someone from the USA even if they do not at ALL support the current administration – so many international organizations will just avoid any potential problems entirely and not consider job candidates from the USA.

Even if a new administration in 2029 starts reversing the disastrous policies of the current President and his staff, the damage that has been done now is long-term and will take MANY years to undo. Why should another country believe any plans of the USA? Better to partner with other countries. That means that, despite the fact that there will always be a need for international funding for community development, environmental protections, help for refugees, job development programs in underserved countries, etc., what jobs are available are, more often than not, closed to citizens of the USA, and I don’t see that changing for at least the next five years even if the current administration changes..

Studying international development is a wonderful experience, and I hate advising anyone to not do it. I have a Master’s Degree in international development management, and while it was difficult and stressful and consumed my life outside of work for three years, it also made me a much better professional in a thousand ways. It not only helped me in my work with international agencies, it also made me more effective in working for nonprofits in my own country, particularly small ones. It’s made me a better citizen of my local community as well as the global community – I really believe that. I applied for work with several government agencies here where I live in Oregon because I knew that my Master’s Degree, as well as my work experience in various development initiatives in various regions around the world, made me well-prepared for local government work – and, plus, I really wanted to do it. But I quickly found out that working abroad is not always looked on positively when looking for a local job – my next blog will be about that. So if you are thinking your international development degree will help you in other work – it might not (even though it should).

If you are in the USA< should you chance it and still pursue a career in international humanitarian development? Only if you have a very strong backup plan for if it doesn’t work out, and only if you are ready for the long haul in terms of actually getting into the field – like, 10 years from now.

All of my blogs with career-related advice are here. What I have written above may be in conflict with some of the things I’ve advised over the years. But I never saw this coming…

For people in the USA, if you can afford it, I hope you will consider pursuing a two-year gig in the PeaceCorps (which I hope will survive the current administration), or participating in a short-term program like Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village program; I have a list of international development volunteering programs here. Or, when you travel abroad, make a deliberate effort every day toward transire benefaciendo: to travel along while doing good. If you do any of these things, be a living testimony that contradicts the things said and done by the current administration, and showing that not all US citizens are anything like the current administration.

Also, if you have a UN Association in your area, or an affiliate of the World Affairs Councils of America, join it, and go to their meetings. Come together with others in your own community that think globally. At the very least, you will know you aren’t alone.

And, finally: I hope I’m wrong. I really do. But I’m trying to be realistic, no matter how much it hurts my heart.

Measure the ROI of your nonprofit’s volunteer engagement by grading each volunteer activity

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graphic representing volunteers at work

Some organizations want to evaluate ROI (return on investment) regarding volunteer engagement by comparing the cost to the organization for a particular volunteer activity (staff time to support the activity, materials, etc.) versus how much that volunteer activity brings in in terms of financial donations or revenue generation.

I don’t think that’s a good evaluation method, in part because you do NOT know, for sure, which volunteer activities have resulted in donations. For instance, there may be no way to prove that, as a result of a group of employees from the local Amazon warehouse volunteering at an event, the nonprofit that was supported received a donation from Amazon two months later. There may be no way to prove that, as a result of regularly seeing social media posts featuring photos of volunteers engaged in activities to support a nonprofit that a person decided to donate financially to that nonprofit. 

I also think it’s a lousy method because the value of volunteers is rarely shown via a dollar value. And I refuse to measure volunteer value by assigning a dollar value to each hour a volunteer contributes, for the reasons I’ve written about again and again.

Here’s a method I think is a much better way to judge the ROI of volunteer activities. You can do this evaluation by yourself, as the manager of volunteers, or you can do this as a team exercise with a variety of employees and lead volunteers.

If you use this matrix at your organization, let me know in the comments or contact me! Let me know how it worked out and what you had to change to make it work for your organization. And if you think there’s anything I should add, or clarify, also let me know!

Also see

The Volunteer Management Audit by Susan J. Ellis.

Justifying a position as “volunteer” instead of “paid staff”

Reporting impact should be EASY – why do so many struggle with it?

Volunteer Bill of Rights – a commitment by a host organization to volunteers

Fun way to recognize a year’s worth of participation

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. 

UNHCR web sites are NOT focused on helping refugees & that is shameful.

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white outlines of human figures with luggage, on the move, trekking across various landscapes

I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who are refugees. They have fled dire situations in their home countries (countries that most of them did NOT want to leave) and they are now in a different country, either trying to figure out how to stay there or trying to get to somewhere else, often to join family or good friends. I can’t help them with much: I’m not a lawyer and have no legal training. But I can help with tracking down information they are looking for and debunking things they have heard (usually something about how easy it is to get into some South American country).

I have been pleasantly surprised and grateful regarding the web sites of a variety of countries for their clear information, in English, about exactly how someone can legally migrate to their country. Even tiny countries that aren’t at all wealthy often have very clear, up-to-date information on their web sites for anyone thinking of coming there under any circumstances. These web sites have been incredibly helpful in my efforts to help friends and acquaintances to get accurate information and to avoid scams.

The same CANNOT be said of the web sites of UNHCR , the United Nations agency that is supposed to be the leader in protecting refugees – people forced to flee conflict and persecution, as well as those denied a nationality. UNHCR web sites based in various countries all over the world are NOT focused on providing critically-needed, up-to-date information for refugees. And that is inexcusable.

UNHCR country web sites are often focused primarily on enticing donors rather than helping refugees access the critical information they need:

  • the information refugees would be looking for is either hard to find or not there at all,
  • many pages that are supposed to have information for refugees are horribly out-of-date,
  • the information for refugees that is there is usually is NOT the info refugees want most,
  • and the sites are so full of jargon I can’t understand the information and English is my first language!

An example of what I’m talking about: UNHCR Pakistan: this web site is NOT focused on refugees. I wish it was an exception, but it’s not. I have an Afghan colleague now in Pakistan trying to register as a refugee, but the UNHCR office is closed! There’s NOTHING on the web site saying it’s closed.

Each and every UNHCR web site in ANY country should have a link called “Help for Refugees” on the home page as prominent as any link to donate. That link should be on EVERY page and be as prominent as any link to donate.

And when someone clicks on that “help for refugees” link, they should be taken to a page that has this information (or links to such):

  • How and when to register with UNHCR in that country.
  • Notices about office closures.
  • UNHCR office hours.
  • Statement regarding who is considered a refugee.
  • Rights and obligations of asylum seekers in dealing with UNHCR.
  • A list of the first things someone should do upon arriving in that country as a refugee.
  • How to apply for refugee status in that country.
  • How to contact the UNHCR office in that country.
  • Where UNHCR offices are located in that country.
  • Where or how to find shelter in that country (if this information changes frequently, then tell refugees how to find the most up-to-date information themselves).
  • What NGOs are in the country that help refugees, or how to find them (NGOs that can help with education, legal matters, shelter, dealing with the police, etc.).
  • Information regarding working in that country.
  • How to avoid scams that target refugees.
  • Tips for staying safe (including for children, for women, how to avoid traffickers, etc.).
  • How to research rumors (and why it’s so important to do so).
  • Why requests for asylum take so long to process.
  • The dangers of lying or misrepresenting information to UNHCR or any immigration authorities.
  • A list of reliable news outlets.

UNHCR, you would reduce the amount of phone calls and visits to your offices if you made the aforementioned information available and kept it up to date on your individual country web sites. You would prevent at least some of the harm that refugees experience because they are targeted for crime and otherwise exploited. You would help stop harmful rumors before they get too widespread. And you would be fulfilling your mission!

Have you ever asked refugees themselves what information they need most?

Do better, UNHCR.

And for those who wonder why I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who are refugees, or who desperately want to be such: it’s because I have worked for the UN and talk about that work, as well as other humanitarian-focused work, online in various online communities and via my own social media channels, and because I frequently write about refugee-related efforts:

You can volunteer to address the critical needs of refugees IN YOUR OWN COMMUNITY

Our Lady of the Manifest: the icon for a very particular community of online volunteers

Digital Dunkirk: online volunteers scramble to help endangered Afghans get visas & out of Afghanistan

My request to my US congressional representatives regarding Afghan refugees

If you’re promoting AI to nonprofits, be SPECIFIC about benefits. No more generalizations!

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HAL from 2001 a space odyssey

The hype regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI) is out of control, including regarding mission-based organizations. There are blogs, webinars, YouTube videos and more, all singing the praises of AI for nonprofits and NGOs. Various companies, nonprofits and consultants are falling over themselves to say that AI can do ANYTHING a nonprofit or NGO needs done: raise funds, manage volunteers, talk with clients, administer programs, manage all incoming calls, all with little or no human involvement.

Yet, these promoters are rarely specific. “You can use AI to research grants!” Okay, how? Tell me exactly what that looks like and how it’s different than just typing in keywords to an online search engine?

“You can use AI to screen volunteers!” Great. How? Tell me exactly what that looks like and how it’s different than just requiring certain fields in a volunteer application to be filled out or require a certain number of characters in that field? And is the goal to eliminate all human interaction until the volunteer shows up for the scheduled volunteering gig, because it’s that personal, human interaction that often seals the deal for a volunteer to show up at all.

So many of you are breathless about your use of AI, but you aren’t being specific about what that REALLY looks like. Specifics and obvious, real-world benefits are what lead to tech adoption.

Back in the 1990s, when the Internet started going mainstream, I started my own web site as a place to be specific about how the Internet could be used by nonprofit staff, specifically those responsible for outreach and those responsible for recruiting and engaging volunteers. Lots of makers of software and computers were making claims about what these tech tools could do for nonprofits, but they offered no specifics and no detailed guides, probably because they were talking in theory, not actual practice. As a result, a lot of nonprofits were dragging their feet about switching from index cards to track contacts to software that would manage clients and donors – they relished their personal relationships and saw tech eliminating something fundamental to their fundraising, outreach and program management success. A lot of nonprofits balked at the idea of creating a web site when they weren’t using any web site themselves: if a web site wasn’t the primary way they got info, why should they care? Of course, the reluctance of government and corporate donors to fund tech equipment, Internet subscriptions and training for staff also had something to do with many nonprofits not adopting computers and the Internet for so long.

I was one of the first people to start talking online and in workshops, in low-tech PLAIN language, about practical, real-world applications of online and computer tech for nonprofits. I could see the digital divide emerging between nonprofits that were adopting tech, especially online tools, and doing so much more with less, and those that still hoped the Internet was the CB Radio of the 1990s. But those latter nonprofits were providing critical services, and I did not want to see them die due to lack of understanding about emerging tech tools. In my work, I emphasized not only the practical applications and the specifics of tech use, but also that I would never propose the Internet or software as tools to replace humans; I always emphasized the application of tech tools with the goal of increasing meaningful human interactions, to increase support and help for humans, both clients and volunteers, and to free up time for staff so that they could spend more time in real-time work with clients, donors, the press, potential partners, other staff, etc.

(if you want to see those early versions of my web site, type the URL into The Internet Wayback Machine.)

That web site and my trainings launched an entirely new career for me. One of the things that made me so successful was that I was SPECIFIC: I didn’t just say, “The Internet can help you reach new audiences!”; I gave specific details on what that looked like, and exactly what a person would need to do to replicate those results. The Virtual Volunteering Project (1996 – 2001) was laser-focused on specifics and practical applications. I wrote one of the first articles (October 2001) about how hand-held technologies – what we now call smart phones – were being used in humanitarian and public health field work and grass roots organizing.

In all of this work, I also never stopped emphasizing the human aspect: when I talked about online mentoring, I noted that success was NEVER about the tech tools, but about the HUMANS involved and how well they were trained and supported.

As a result of my approach, via my web site and via workshops, I regularly got comments like, “This is the first time I’ve ever understood why I should care about the Internet at my job” and “I finally know what questions to ask software salespeople.”

To all of you promoting AI for nonprofits: you have to be as specific as I was. For instance, be clear about why using AI would be preferable to just a web search on Google or Duck Duck Go. In fact, in my opnion: it’s not AT ALL preferable, and if you use AI to make suggestions about small-budget fundraising events for an animal shelter, you should still go to the search engine of your choice and look for fundraising events for an animal shelter, because you will find even more ideas. YOU should know the full range out there, and no AI tool provides that.

And also to all of you promoting AI for nonprofits: you need to be clear in warning nonprofits NEVER to take an AI-produced product, whether it’s a graphic, a press release or a social media strategy, and use it as is. AI makes mistakes (link goes to one that was very personal for me and would have been traumatizing). AI hallucinates and FREQUENTLY puts incorrect info into the written text it produces. AI not only claimed Ananda Valenzuela was speaking at an upcoming conference, it doubled-down when she tried to correct it. AI also doesn’t adhere to standards of accessible or even GOOD design: you can use an AI tool like Canva to produce your event flyer, but a HUMAN still has to make sure it adheres to standards of good design (like appropriate color contrast).

One final note to all of you promoting AI to nonprofits: the energy needs of AI are threatening to overwhelm the power grid. They are increasing our need for electricity at a time when we need to be DECREASING that need and RAISING energy prices for regular folks. You had better acknowledge this, full disclosure, when talking to nonprofits, many of whom are trying to adopt greener ways of doing business (and some of whom are focused on addressing global climate change specifically).

Yes, I use AI. One cannot use anything is on a network of any kind, or even a stand alone new computer, without using some form of AI. My spell checker and grammar checker tool is considered an AI tool, because, supposedly, this tool “learns” from me. I use Canva sometimes. I was once charged with writing a poem that might be a part of a fundraising campaign, and after I wrote my poem, I then asked AI to write a poem, giving it the same parameters that I was given, just to see how it compared. The AI poem actually wasn’t horrible. Mine was better, of course, but if all I had had to work with was that AI poem, with some tweaking, it would have been okay. But just okay. But I never trust the AI summary at the top of an online search – I always go looking for the source. WIkipedia remains a far superior resource for explanations and summaries, IMO.

Think of AI-produced material as something that a new employee from the corporate world or volunteer fresh out of high school, someone who might be able to use the latest computer tech to play video games and watch TikTok videos but does not understand that not everyone has the latest tech tools, not everyone has great eyesight, not everyone uses their hands to navigate web pages, not everyone speaks English as a first language, not everyone understands your soon-to-be dated jargon, etc. You are always going to have to correct and refine the material AI produces, just like you would that new employee or volunteer.

Why am I not taking up the challenge myself and researching and compiling real-world, practical examples of specific ways nonprofits and NGOs are using AI?

  • I do not have the finances to do yet another mostly-unfunded project. I was paid when I managed the Virtual Volunteering Project. I have not been paid for any of the research and resources I’ve produced for my own web site, nor for the Virtual Volunteering Guidebook (when it comes to the book, which I paid to publish, I barely broke even).
  • I think it should be NOT ME. It’s overdue for someone else to take up this let’s-talk-plain-language-about-tech challenge.
  • I am much older now and would like to focus on other things.

I really hope someone out there is reading this and will take up the challenge.

Also see:

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What some nonprofits ask for in job candidates is ridiculous.

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a simplistic drawing of a wizard

Within one week, I saw three different job announcements at three different mid-size or large nonprofits that, altogether, were what I did part-time at a small nonprofit for the last three years. And much of the activities in each of these roles are, altogether, what I have done at nonprofits for the last thirty years.

What each job listed for qualifications was so specific that the organizations are going to end up excluding MANY qualified people – and, probably, the best person for the job. Despite my extensive professional background, despite being expertly qualified for some positions, I don’t even bother applying because so many people don’t see a journalism degree as something desirable now.

When your small or medium-sized nonprofit is looking for someone to be a videographer or photographer, who you are going to pay a salary FAR below the market rate, what you need from job candidates is work portfolios, not a degree in videography or photography. Same for a web designer or a graphic designer or a communications manager and many other positions. And for education, what you may need most is graduation from a recent certificate program, not a full-fledged BA. You need people who can do the job, and since you cannot afford to pay people with the training and experience you are demanding, you need to adjust your expectations.

There’s a better way to attract and screen candidates for roles where the person will produce communications pieces – and will do the job you need done:

(1) Ask applicants to note in their résumés or applications where (in what professional and volunteer positions) they used the tools or produced the projects or demonstrated the skills you are asking for. If your job involves setting up press conferences, or designing web sites, or managing web sites, or designing brochures, or distributing brochures, etc., ask applicants to note in their résumés or applications where they have experience doing that.

(2) Note that you will be asking later for online portfolios from the top 10 candidates, what you will want in those portfolios, and approximately how many weeks you will contact the top 10 candidates to ask for those portfolios. Note how many people you will choose to interview from those top 10 candidates and approximately when those interviews will take place. If someone doesn’t already have the material for a portfolio, they aren’t going to apply – and if they do, they now know they need to make sure their portfolio is full of fantastic examples of their work.

And if you are going to demand that the person use certain specific software – Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Illustrator, InDesign, Final Cut Pro, etc. – then you had better say what YOU are going to provide the selected candidate. What kind of laptop or desk top are you going to provide? Running what software? What kind of camera are you going to provide? Do you have a quiet room for creatives to create and edit? Are you committed to web accessibility and will give your web designer the tools needed to make that happen?

Be flexible in asking for a degree. I know amazing photographers with English degrees. I know very talented videographers with music degrees. I know kick-ass web designers with philosophy degrees.

And, finally: what you see as an entry-level job may be, particularly for seasoned professional in their 50s or 60s, a way to work for a few more years, work at a pace that is better suited to their life now than the senior and executive positions they held in the past, and apply a vast amount of skills and experience that your organization may be in much more need of than you might think. If you are thinking, “Oh, but what about health problems they might have?”, then also consider that it’s likely that candidates in their 50s or 60s aren’t starting families in the next few years, aren’t going to quit to pursue other, better job opportunities, and aren’t going to move across country to get married. And they are no more likely to have home-care obligations than a 30 something.

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.