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.

My top blogs for 2019

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It’s the time of year when I have a look at what people read most on my blogs. It helps me to know what resonates and what I might need to do a better job of promoting. Blogs that get a lot of traffic are the result of people who post about them on their own social media, or refer to them in a workshop they are doing, so if that’s you, THANK YOU.

I was quite pleased to see a lot of my blogs that have to do with communications, with community relations and with ethics end up in my list of most popular blogs this year – usually, the list is dominated by blogs related to volunteer engagement, which is fine, but I pour just as much energy into those blogs about outreach, so it’s nice to see that, this year, that reached a good number of folks.

In case you are wondering, I promote my blog through my Twitter account, my Facebook account, my LinkedIn account, some Subreddits, and some LinkedIn groups. I’m a one-person shop and create and promote these resources entirely on my own – and it’s getting harder and harder to get my voice out there in a sea of noise.

The visitor numbers are great – but the emails and comments on resources are what really keep me going, so please keep them coming!

What did I write that got people’s attention in 2019? Here’s the list:

Here’s to 2020!

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. 

Before you recruit any volunteers

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As the year comes to an end and things slow down at your organization for a week or two, this is a good time to think about reviewing some of the basics your organization should have in place to ensure you are getting the most out of your volunteer engagement and that volunteers are properly supported at your organization and feel like their donated time is being properly valued.

In fact, before your program recruits any volunteers – before you post anything to your web site or social media or a third-party site like VolunteerMatch, there are three things that I believe you absolutely should have in place first, and if you don’t have them already, this is a good time to get that taken care of. Having these three things in place will help:

  • ensure volunteers are engaged and supported appropriately – and that helps prevent volunteer turnover, misunderstandings, conflict, etc.
  • ensure volunteers are onboarded quickly – and that helps prevent volunteer turnover AND sets a tone with new volunteers that these are serious, real commitments.
  • inappropriate volunteers self-screen themselves OUT of your program – dropping out before they’ve gotten far along in your process and started an assignment. That means fewer people who drop out and leave you with unfinished activities and a scramble to get things done.

I get a lot of pushback when I try to implement these three things at any organization where I’m working – lots of complaints about bureaucracy and increased work, etc. But I regularly encounter a range of problems at programs where these three things are NOT in place, and I see just how much more work comes with NOT having these things in place. And, so, I’m going to keep saying it.

Here are the three things:

  • Have a mission statement for your volunteer engagement
    (Saying WHY your organization or department involves volunteers)
    This is at the heart of everything I say and recommend regarding volunteer engagement. This idea is what I would like to be identified with even more than virtual volunteering: that, in addition to carefully crafting the way you talk about the value of volunteers, your organization creates a mission statement for your organization’s volunteer engagement, to guide employees in how they think about volunteers, to guide current volunteers in thinking about their role and value at the organization, and to show potential volunteers the kind of culture they can expect at your organization regarding volunteers.
  • Required Volunteer Information on Your Web Site
    To not have this basic information about volunteer engagement on your web site says that your organization or department takes volunteers for granted, does not value volunteers beyond money saved in salaries, or is not really ready to involve volunteers.

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. 

United Nations site for people with disabilities is inaccessible

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The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) created a web site for the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) initiative called the UNDP-UNV Talent Programme for Young Professionals with Disabilities. It’s a program to recruit people with disabilities to serve as UN Volunteers. Its web site opens with this: 

UNDP and UNV commit to leaving no one behind. As part of this commitment, the Talent Programme promotes the inclusion of persons with disabilities into our workplace. The Talent Programme also aims to build a talent pipeline of highly qualified professionals with disabilities who can contribute to the development sector, and to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at national and global levels.

In addition to the grammar problem in the first sentence, the UNDP web site for this initiative leaves lots of people behind: the web site is not accessible for people with disabilities.
The web site does not meet even basic accessibility standards as outlined by numerous organizations, including the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The UN General Assembly has designated the Department of Global Communications as the focal point for web accessibility in the United Nations, and this UN web site talks about the UN’s commitment to online accessibility – which, unfortunately, UNV and UNDP haven’t followed for their initiative specifically focused on people with disabilities.  How can an initiative that says it promotes the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the workplace exclude those same persons online? As someone who has worked for the UN, I know the answer to this question, but shall save that for another time…

Highly qualified professionals with disabilities absolutely can contribute to the development sector and to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at national and international levels. In fact, they do already – if you don’t know that, you truly are not paying attention.

I have worked with highly-skilled people with a variety of disabilities – as employees, consultants and volunteers, online and face-to-face serving as web masters, editors, researchers, designers and more. It’s not unusual for me to find out someone I’ve been working with for weeks or months is, in fact, legally blind, or deaf, or is a person with limited mobility. We meet regarding what they CAN do, not what they cannot, and I’ve benefitted greatly, personally and professionally, from their expertise and talent.

I emailed representatives of UNV and UNDP in early December, saying pretty much the same thing I’ve just blogged, and I tweeted to UNDP and UNV as well. In my post, I also recommend to UNV and UNDP the nonprofit organization Knowbility to help their web designers and developers to fix this dire accessibility issue on the web site. 

I got a reply via email on December 11th from “Erik on behalf of the UNDP-UNV Talent Programme for Young Professionals with Disabilities”:

Thank you very much for your feedback. We are aware of the limitations of the websites and currently have teams working on projects that are focused on making them user-friendly and compliant with accessibility standards. Since we launched this initiative, we have been able to reach a wide range of persons with disabilities as evidenced by increased numbers of candidates registered and of applications. We also provide the option to reach out to us in person in case specific assistance or concerns are needed in the application process. As we are a continuously learning organization, our goal is to strive for a fully inclusive working environment and take every opportunity to improve. We appreciate your patience and understanding. Please let us know if we can further assist you in navigating the site.

So, in other words, they mean to say: the site is working just fine, people are applying for this program, people who can’t navigate our website can just email us and we’ll help them with the process, and being a “continuously learning organization”, we can’t be faulted for not having an accessible web site for people with disabilities for a program designed especially for people with disabilities at the get-go. Don’t bother us.

I really hope that UNV and UNDP will realize how bad this makes the agency and this program look, and choose to RAPIDLY remedy this situation regarding the accessibility of their web site for a program meant to increase inclusion of professionals with disabilities. They made a mistake – no excuses. Let’s hope UNV and UNDP not only fix this web site, but make a future commitment to digital inclusion in all of their web sites – especially those that are supposed to cater specifically to people with disabilities.

If you would like to let UNV and UNDP know what you think of the site and their response, I urge you to email these four addresses:

  • Talent Programme <talent.programme@unv.org>
  • Anant Sharma <anant.sharma@undp.org>
  • Anjali Kwatra <anjali.kwatra@undp.org>
  • UNV Media <unv.media@unv.org>

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What should be on a corporation’s website re: CSR

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If your company has a corporate philanthropy program – it gives money to nonprofits, it supports nonprofit events by buying a table or other sponsorships, its employees volunteer as a part of a volunteer leave program or at events in partnership with the company – it should have at least a page on its website that offers an overview of these activities and your reasons for engaging in such.

Having corporate social responsibility information on a company’s web site not only helps communicate to people outside the company: it also helps a business’s employees to understand the company’s CSR activities and philosophy. Remember that ALL employees and consultants are potential messengers regarding a business’s CSR activities – they need to have a reliable reference point when friends, family and others ask them questions about their company. Having this information on the company web site ensures that there is a uniform message regarding CSR activities.

The link to a company’s CSR information can be on its home page, but most companies put the link on their “About Us” page. 

Here’s what absolutely needs to be on a company’s web site regarding its CSR activities:

  • A statement that provides an overview of the company’s CSR policy, especially with regards to its commitment to a particular cause or the community where employees work, send their children to school, etc.
  • An overview of what the company’s employees do as volunteers and how employee volunteering activities are structured (do they volunteer during company hours, as part of an official program or are employees encouraged to volunteer outside of work hours, but entirely independently? Is the company looking for volunteering opportunities that groups of employee volunteers can do together? Is the company looking for volunteering opportunities that groups of employee volunteers can do with their families?).
  • Information on how a nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO), school or other initiative can invite a company’s employees to volunteer with them.
  • An overview of how the company makes financial or in-kind donations, including sponsorships, and information on how a nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO), school or other initiative can apply for funds for financial and in-kind donations and sponsorships. If the company does not make financial or in-kind donations, nor purchase sponsorships, it should say so explicitly on its web site.
  • An overview of the financial contributions they company and employees make to the community – not just in donations, not just employee donation matching, but in tax payments to city, county, state and federal treasuries through tax payments.
  • Anything the company requires on the web sites of organizations it funds.

What can also be on a company’s web site regarding CSR activities:

  • An overview of what the company does to be a good to the environment. Does the company recycle materials that employees produce in the workplace? Does the company use recycled materials in its workplace? Does the company recycle all of its old computers, printers, smart phones and other electronics in an environmentally-appropriate way? Does the company have programs that encourage employees to carpool and use mass transit?
  • An overview of the company’s commitment to ethical business practices such as fair hiring, pay equality, safe working environments, adhering to fiduciary responsibilities, having an employee handbook with policies regarding harassment and discrimination, etc. If “corporations are people,” then this information is a must.
  • A statement of the company’s commitment to having an accessible web site, one that meets at least the basic guidelines for digital inclusion (videos are captions, people who have sight-impairments can navigate the web site because it’s been designed so that their assistive technology tools can navigate it, etc.).
  • Photos, videos and other updates about the company’s CSR activities.
  • Evaluations of the company’s CSR programs and their impact. What difference has employee volunteering made for nonprofits? Remember, that doesn’t mean a number of hours or a dollar value for those hours – it means how nonprofit clients or the community actually benefited from the time and talent.

It’s a good idea to invite representatives from nonprofits, charities and schools to provide feedback about a company’s online information about CSR activities. Can they find what they are looking for? Did they understand how to apply for funds – or understand that the company does not give financial donations? This can be done with a focus group or by simply offering a feedback form on the web site.

Look at the site’s web analytics regularly to make sure online CSR  information is being viewed and to see how web visitors are being directed to this information. Are they finding it using keywords in a search engine? From links from a certain page on the web site? Links from a nonprofit blog?

For more tips, see my list index of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) resources & advice for ethics, strategies & operations.

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. 

Call for papers on Marketing to Cultivate & Retain Donors, Members & Volunteers

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Call for papers: special issue of International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing on marketing to cultivate and retain donors, members and volunteers. Submission deadline: June 15, 2020.

From the marketing blurb:

Charities and other nonprofit organizations rely upon marketing to cultivate and maintain relationships with supporters, without which most nonprofit organizations would not have resources to fulfill their missions.  Given the mission-critical need for effective marketing strategies and tactics in order to attract and retain supporters such as donors, members, and volunteers; this special issue is especially timely. 

Manuscripts that further our knowledge on cultivating and retaining support from donors, members, and volunteers are encouraged.  A wide variety of related topics are desired beginning with identifying prospects to deepening the commitment of supporters.  Theoretical, empirical, and literature review articles (including meta-analyses) are welcome.

Manuscripts should be prepared following the normal guidelines for the journal and should be submitted through the journal’s online system.  Please be sure to submit your manuscript for this special issue when submitting through the online system.

The guest editor is Professor Walter Wymer, University of Lethbridge, Canada and he can be reached at walter.wymer@uleth.ca – for more information, refer to the journal’s website at https://www.springer.com/journal/12208

How long should text be to communicate effectively?

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  • How long should a web page be?
  • How long should text on a brochure page be?
  • How long should a press release be?
  • How long should a blog be?

I get these questions fairly often from nonprofits, NGOs, charities and small government offices.

Tweets have a text limit. Facebook posts have a limit on the amount of text you can post that will be seen in your timeline at a glance, without someone having to click “more.” But other communications products, in print and online, don’t have such strict character limits. So, how long should they be when it comes to their text?

A lot of communications professionals will tell you to make web page text, blogs, brochure text, etc., no longer than what would fit into a social media post. I am NOT one of those communications professionals.

I’m hearing people say, “People don’t read. Don’t write long bodies of text EVER, especially online.” I am NOT one of those people.

People have different learning styles: some prefer learning by engaging in an activity, some prefer learning by listening, some prefer to learn by watching, and some prefer to learn by reading.

People have different reading styles as well, even just online: some prefer reading short bits of text and seeing some short videos. But some do still like prefer – and WANT – to read comprehensive text, even if it’s “long.” What is great about a website is that your organization can easily cater to both of those groups: you can have a web page with introductory, summary, “catchy” text, or a video that’s just a minute long and gives the overview you think certain groups want, but that page or video can then link to the more in-depth information for all those many other people that want more information.

It’s worth noting that some people may want a bit of information today, but may come back later for more in-depth information. People rarely stay in exactly the same categories when it comes to how they want to access or consume information.

It’s also worth noting that by having in-depth information on your website, you create the messaging that everyone on your staff can refer back to, and that better ensures everyone is saying the same thing – that everyone is “staying on message.” It means your Executive Director, your receptionist, members of your board, volunteers – EVERYONE – can find the exact wording to describe absolutely everything about your program.

Catering to just one group of people when you are trying to communicate a message is a mistake. Don’t let any communications consultant or marketing manager pressure your organization into creating communications products only for the people that supposedly don’t like to read. Don’t be convinced that you can eliminate all of your long-form communications – you absolutely still need those.

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. 

Volunteer controversy in archeology

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

Volunteer engagement is controversial, and I do my best to keep up with the controversies, like movements opposed to volunteerism, or politicians that think volunteers are free. The most common conflict regarding volunteerism, at least in my opinion, arises regarding volunteer engagement as a way to replace paid worker, usually the result of statements by management and funders about how “volunteers save money” and what their dollar value is (something the Points of Light Foundation and others heavily promote). But there are other controversies, like the appropriateness of volunteers undertaking certain roles, or the ethics of volunteering at all, per the criticisms of people on both the far right and the far left of the political spectrum.

An example of several controversies regarding volunteering rolled into one conversation is a debate that recently broke out on Twitter about the ethics of involving volunteers in archeology (or archaeology, as the British spell it). I found out about it because I was doing my usual search of the word volunteer on Twitter, just to see what might come up. As a result, I found this thread from Open Access Archaeology (@OpenAccessArch), which said:

Myth dispelling time: “Volunteers take away jobs from professionals”. I hear this a lot from professional archaeologists and lets be real – they are full of shit.

The thread goes on to talk about all the reasons that volunteer engagement in archeology does NOT take paid work away from professionals, and I believe it does a good job. My only addition would be that, by involving volunteers, the field of archeology greatly expands the number of people who can talk from a place of first-hand experience about the importance of historical discovery and cultural preservation, thereby, potentially, cultivating and an even greater number of supporters for its cause. Volunteer engagement lets people who are NOT professionals into seeing work firsthand, and that can translate into donations and more public support.

Too often, people think involving volunteers means allowing anyone, with no training and no supervision, to do highly-specialized work or work on sensitive issues. It does NOT, anymore than you are required to hire a professional with no training and no supervision, to do highly-specialized work or work on sensitive issues. You still get to have standards! You still get to have a bar for participation and require volunteers to be able to clear that bar.

Coincidentally to all this, just two months ago, I found out that the Oregon Archaeological Society provides Archaeology Training for potential volunteers: OAS Basic Training, also known as Archaeology for the Curious, is an annual program taught by experienced regional professionals from organizations such as the U.S. Forest Service, BLM, and the University of Oregon. The sessions are typically held on six Saturdays starting in the early part of the year at a local university.

Topics for the first two sessions include archaeology basics as well as information on artifacts, laws and ethics, Northwest archaeology and rock art, site stewardship and volunteering. The four additional training sessions cover field excavation, laboratory methods, site mapping, cataloging and compass reading. The program is a great way to network with other archaeology lovers and to learn how you can get involved in the field.

So, that’s the bar for involving in archeology in Oregon: you have to take this class, you have to fulfill that training commitment, and only then can you apply to be a volunteer and be a part of digs. That means not anyone can come in and just start digging. That means people who might be careless or disrespectful are more likely to be screened out. Plus, imagine what this program cultivates: people from various professions, various communities, who get a greater appreciation for archeology and historical preservation in this state, and that appreciation has the potential to get translated into donations and pressure on government to support historic initiatives and, yes, research. It translates into people talking to friends and neighbors about NOT disturbing sites, not marking such with graffiti, not taking artifacts, and on and on, in a way that just a flyer or lecture may not. THAT is the power of volunteer engagement – not money supposedly saved.

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. 

Taking control of your web site when you aren’t the web master

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Most web masters at mission-based organizations – at nonprofits, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government agencies and schools – want to do the best job possible in creating and managing the initiative’s web site.

Unfortunately, there are situations where staff at mission-based organizations are intimidated by the people that manage their web site, to the point of being afraid to ask questions, even to ask for a change in the site. All a web master has to say is, “That can’t be done” or “that’s too expensive” or “I won’t be able to do that” and many of these staff members will not pursue an issue further. After all, the web master is the expert, right?

It is unfortunate that there are so many web masters that take advantage of their expertise and will use it to claim certain things cannot be done on a web site when, in fact, they can be done. Perhaps they don’t see it as a priority and don’t want to do it. Perhaps they don’t know how and don’t want to admit it. Whatever the reason, it holds a lot of organizations back from doing all that they should with their web sites, like making them designed for their particular audiences, or making them accessible for people with disabilities.

Here are things staff at mission-based organizations can do to set a tone with IT staff regarding who has input into web-related decisions, including design:

1. Ask your web master what company hosts your organization’s web site, how your domain name is registered, and for all passwords. Your web site should be hosted by a reputable company in the business of hosting web sites, not the web master’s side business or through a company he or she has a “special deal” with. You can look up your domain name registration here and make sure it’s registered in such a way that your organization owns it, not your web master, and that it matches what your web master tells you. You need all of the passwords associated with the web site in case the web master leaves.

2. Ask your web master what the 10 most visited pages are on your web site are. This is a very easy question to get answers for, and there should be no reason for your web master to hesitate to provide this information. 

As you review the data he or she provides, ask yourself, the web master, and other staff member these questions:

  • Is there a page on your web site that is more popular than the home page? Why is that?
  • Are these the 10 pages you want to be the most visited on your web site? If not, what should you do to increase the number of visitors to the pages you most want users to visit?

Don’t just think about increasing visitors to certain pages. Sure, you could get more people visiting your donate to us page if you made it your home page, but would it increase the number of donations your nonprofit gets? No. Think about what you want to happen as a result of people visiting your web site, what you want users to do as a result of navigating around your web site, and remember that different people will have different wants regarding your web site. Have your web master in on these conversations, so he or she can understand your organization’s communications priorities, which program staff should set, not the web master.

3. Invite volunteers to your conference room and have them navigate your web site with their own laptops and smart phones. Have the web master there to observe. Ask the volunteers to find information on how to volunteer, and quiz them on what they found. Ask them what donations pay for at your organization, based on what they found on your web site. Ask them what difference your nonprofit makes, based on what they found on your web site.

Take notes on their answers and then have a followup meeting with communications staff, including the web master. Talk about what you learned from this feedback, and either develop a plan on how to adjust your web site so that it does what you want it to do, or ask your web master to develop such and then present it to staff.

4. Six months after the changes have been made to your web site, do steps one and two again. Are the top 10 pages visited on your web site the pages you want most visitors to see? Are volunteers able to more easily find information about how to volunteer, what donations pay for, what difference your nonprofit makes, etc.?

5. When you want a feature on your web site, find an example of it on another web site, particularly at a company or agency about the size of your organization. Have this ready to show the web master, to prevent the “that can’t be done” argument.

6. Tell your web master which staff members need to be able to make simple text changes without his or her support. Whomever is in charge of communications at your organization should have this ability. Maybe you want a small group of reliable volunteers with some web design experience who can step in to do such when the web master is not available. And then have your web master show exactly how those staff members should make those changes via whatever content management system he or she prefers. Maybe there is a WordPress interface. Maybe there is another type of interface (I use BlueGriffon). The point is that you should never have to wait for the web master to make time to merely add a paragraph or two to a page, or to correct a typo.

These six simple things will let you take back control over your organization’s web site, and help you have the documentation you need for when your web master moves on – and your web master WILL move on!

Also see:

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.

United Nations scales back online volunteering program

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The United Nations Volunteers program, an initiative under the UN Development Program (UNDP), has stopped accepting new nonprofits, NGOs and others who apply to use the Online Volunteering Service, onlinevolunteering.org.

Organizations that have already been accepted into the Online Volunteering service can continue to use it to recruit online volunteers, but no new volunteering hosts are being accepted, and there is no word on whether this is a temporary or permanent change – and what this changes means for the future of the UN’s pioneering virtual volunteering initiative.

I found this out when I tried to register the nonprofit where I am working now – the nonprofit where I work is an international program and one of our nonprofits clients, in Congo, is familiar with both the OV service and my own work in virtual volunteering (it’s a small world, truly!). It reminded me that the organization where I am working now needs to make sure people in other countries know about our many online volunteering opportunities – we strive to be an inclusive organization, and involving international online volunteers is a part of that. As our program works to address at least three of the Sustainable Development Goals, the UN’s Online Volunteering service seemed like an obvious choice for the organization.

But after I filled out the application, I received an email from UNV that pointed me to this announcement on the home page:

April 5: The UNV Online Volunteering service has suspended acceptance of new registrations from non-governmental (NGO) and other civil society organizations (CSOs).

The Find out more link after this announcement makes no mention of the suspension. The other pages on the UN site make no mention of this suspension. The how does it work page makes no mention of this suspension. The page with the heading “Organizations that find volunteers through us are”, says that organizations need to be officially registered with appropriate government authorities and provide proof of such, be a nonprofit, an NGO or other civil society organization, a government or other public institution, a United Nations agency or other intergovernmental institution, and active in the field of sustainable human development. There’s no mention at all of on this and other pages that the OV service has suspended acceptance of new registrations from organizations that want to host online volunteers.

Because the application on the OV service for new hosts of online volunteers still works, and all of the links to it still function, I’m not sure if the suspension is for all new users of the online volunteering service that want to host online volunteers, or if United Nations agencies are still allowed to apply to use the service. Is this ban just for NGOs and other non-UN agencies? Is it temporary or permanent? Is this the first step in getting rid of the OV service altogether? And why have these changes been made? I have asked UNV but have not had a response in more three weeks.

If UNV is getting rid of the Online Volunteering service, it will be devastating news. The OV service is one of the most successful programs the UN has launched outside of is emergency humanitarian response programs and its post-conflict-rebuilding programs. Yes, I feel that strongly about the OV service. I think the lessons from the OV service regarding virtual volunteering can still be helpful to any tech4good, micro-volunteering initiative starting now. Note when you read these lessons that the early adopters of the service were NOT UNITED NATIONS AGENCIES, nor were the organizations that most online volunteers supported through the service: they were nonprofits and NGOs, some of them quite small – the kinds of organizations that aren’t allowed to use the UN Online Volunteering service anymore.

This is particularly bitter news on this the 20th anniversary of NetAid, which launched the UN’s online volunteering efforts that became the Online Volunteering service.

What could cause this radical change? Lack of funding and, therefore, a lack of staffing for the OV service? Lack of support from senior management? I would love to know. Let’s hope for a quick and clear response.

And let’s hope someone takes the lessons from the OV service regarding virtual volunteering and creates a viable alternative for those organizations that want to involve online volunteers from outside their country’s borders in their initiatives, and for online volunteers that want to help programs serving the developing world specifically.

Update: UNV has sent a cryptic reply on Twitter that reads: “Thank you for your comment. Online Volunteering continues to be a integral part of the @UNVolunteers offer. The platform will be enhanced in the coming months as the organization expands digital-savvy solutions for all involved.” Answers nothing brought up in the blog. Frustrating!

January 2, 2020 update: UNV now has a new message on its OV web site that says: “Effective 1 January 2020, the Online Volunteering service is free of charge to all eligible partners. Eligible partners are: UN entities, Governmental or other public institutions, and Civil Society Organizations.” But if you click on the link for more information, you discover that UNV has a VERY narrow version of civil society organizations (CSOs): it has to be a CSO already registered with the OV service, or the organization has to provide evidence of accreditation with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), or the organization has to be working with a UN Country Team as an implementing partner or through an agreement and submit a form signed by the UN Entity they are partnering with.

So, in short, the OV service no longer can be used by most nonprofits, NGOs and CSOs. There’s no explanation as to why this decision has been made. So, if your nonprofit, NGO or CSO doesn’t meet the criteria, you can’t use the UNV Online Volunteering service to recruit online volunteers. If you want to recruit online volunteers, I recommend these resources:

Your own country’s volunteering center. Your own country may have a web site that recruits volunteers, online or onsite, for nonprofits, NGOs or CSOs in your country. I have list of many of these here. And use this advice when posting your opportunities to such a site.

Finding a Computer/Network Consultant (you can adapt these for online volunteers, not just tech folks)

Required Volunteer Information on Your Web Site – how to use your own web site to recruit volunteers (not just online volunteers)

Adam ruins everything & educates a LOT

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There is a television show in the USA called Adam Ruins Everything. It is both a comedy show and an educational show that uses humor to debunk myths and misconceptions. I think it’s a great example of how to use an entertaining approach, even a provocative approach, to educate about science, including accurate health information. I think humanitarian aid and development agencies, particularly those concerned with public health education, should take note of it.

An example is the show’s comedic and medically-accurate presentation about the misunderstandings many – maybe most people – have regarding female physiology, particularly regarding the hymen and virginity. This is a good model of how much more interesting public health and women’s health videos could be:

It’s not a video that would be appropriate in every culture and country, but its frankness, fast-pace, humor and accuracy can’t be denied.

This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten good advice for outreach by nonprofits, including humanitarian organizations, from TV:

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