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.

In-person / on-site work & meetings automatically better than online? NOPE!

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image of a panel discussion

Quit saying that to be productive, staff – employees, consultants and volunteers – need to be onsite. 

Quit saying that, to be productive, we need to return to onsite meetings. 

Quit saying that, to build trust and to be more personal, we need to be talking face-to-face in the same room. 

Stop it with that nonsense. 

Why do you think face-to-face meetings are more productive or are better ways to build trust in a team? I have had enough time wasted in onsite meetings to last a LIFETIME. I have sat in more onsite, face-to-face meetings than I can count where nothing was accomplished.

I’m not saying never to have onsite meetings. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t ever work together in the same time and place.

But this assumption that onsite meetings are somehow automatically better, more productive, have more personality, allow people to get to know each other better, is just BOLLOCKS. 

If your team doesn’t trust each other, if your team feels it can’t rely on certain members, if your team isn’t communicating well with each other, none of that is going to be automatically solved by changing from online to onsite meetings. 

None of what makes for an effective meeting automatically happens just because you are meeting onsite. NONE of it. Quit implying that it does. 

Effective meetings, whether onsite or online:

  • have clear agendas that are communicated before the start. 
  • have an agenda that is results-oriented/mission-focused.
  • start at the time they say they will and they end at the time they say they will. 
  • are effectively facilitated so that attendees stick to the agenda and scheduled decisions are made. 
  • allow everyone to speak within the time frame given.

The meeting facilitator needs to have recognition from members to be the person to remind attendees if the discussion period for an agenda item is finished now and it’s time for a decision, or when to table a decision for the next meeting. The facilitator needs to be empowered to remind people who didn’t read the meeting materials beforehand that, in the future, they need to do that. 

Case in point: I served on a board for three years. Our meetings became vastly more productive when we moved ONLINE because of the pandemic. I even got to know some of the board members more in our online meetings – the side chats on Zoom allowed truly EVERYONE to express their opinion, even their humor.

Meeting face-to-face, in the same place and time, does not magically create better communications and does not automatically create a sense of team. If your online meetings aren’t working out the way you want, the problem is probably not that you are all online.

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

Want to learn more how to effectively work with people online? The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. The lessons here are focused on engaging volunteers, but all are easily adapted for working with paid staff. If you want to learn how to leverage online tools to communicate with and support volunteers, whether those volunteers are mostly online (virtual volunteering) or they provide service mostly onsite at your organization, and to dig deep into the factors for success in supporting online volunteers and keeping virtual volunteering a worthwhile endeavor for everyone involved, you will not find a more detailed guide anywhere than The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. It’s based on many years of experience, from a variety of organizations. It’s available both as a traditional print publication and as a digital book.

If you have benefited from any of my 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.

AI: great for simplistic poems about virtual volunteering, not so great for biographies.

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A drawing of a woman holding a smart phone. The drawing is done in the style of a pictograph (cave painting).

Last week, I used Chat AI to create a history of virtual volunteering. And it did an excellent job, better than any journalist or blogger (other than me) has ever done. It was almost as good as the history I wrote of virtual volunteering. I was surprised because I use GoogleAlerts to let me know about new mentions of virtual volunteering online and about half of the alerts come from AI-generated clickbait sites that are painful to read: clunky sentence structure, incoherent (but grammatically correct!) sentences and at least a few inaccuracies. But let’s be clear: the history generated used a lot of phrasing I have authored and that can be found in a variety of web pages, blogs, etc.

I used Chat AI to create a biography of me, and it flunked HUGELY. It got a lot right, but also had me born in Buffalo (I was born in Kentucky), attending a university that I don’t even know where it is, had my birthday and birth year wrong (which I credit to how I refuse to share my real birthday online except when I have to), and lots of other inaccuracies. My husband had it write a biography of him and got a similarly inaccurate biography.

Then I used Chat AI to write a poem about virtual volunteering and… I have to say, it did a decent job. It’s not earth-shattering. It’s quite simplistic. It’s about as good as a greeting card poem or a very old-fashioned volunteer recognition event, but still – it works. Here it is:

In the digital age, a new way to give,
A chance to serve, to connect, to live,
From anywhere, with a single click,
Virtual volunteering, it’s the trick.

The world’s at our fingertips, the internet’s the key,
To lend a hand, to help those in need,
Through emails, chats, and video calls,
We spread our kindness, break down walls.

Distance doesn’t matter, time is no issue,
We can make a difference, with virtual tissue,
Writing, coding, designing and more,
We’re part of something greater, that’s for sure.

In a world that’s ever-changing, virtual volunteering’s here to stay,
To touch a life, to brighten a day,
We give our time, we share our hearts,
And though we’re apart, we’re never far apart.

Virtual volunteering, a new way to serve,
To use our skills, to use our nerve,
A world of good, we can do online,
We’ll make a difference, one heart at a time.

Only thing wrong: virtual volunteering is NOT new… which the history it generated noted.

Anyway…

I can absolutely see using Chat AI or something like it to write a cutesy, silly poem in a pinch – and that is something nonprofits often need for a gala or celebration. A friend that works in real estate told me she uses it to generate descriptions of houses she is trying to sell. But otherwise, be careful regarding what narratives these AI tools generate – they are NOT always accurate in the information they generate.

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

There’s no poetry in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook but it does contain the most comprehensive and detailed guidance regarding using the Internet to engage and support volunteers (and some sci fi references, per the authors both being geek girls). It’s for organizations that want to get started with virtual volunteering or to expand a program they already have, as well as those researching virtual volunteering. The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is based on many years of experience, from a variety of organizations. It’s like having me do an in-depth analysis of your program, or me helping you set up your own program, but without having to pay my hourly rate as a consultant. It’s also better than any AI. It’s available both as a traditional print publication and as a digital book.

If you have benefited from any of my 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.

Corporate employees are often not successful at virtual volunteering. Why?

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In the 1990s, when I began promoting virtual volunteering – people engaging in volunteer roles and tasks via their computer from home, work, or wherever else they might be – many corporations balked at the idea of allowing employees to from their desktops. The reason given was usually that it would take away from employee’s productivity and profitability on behalf the company. The Disney Corporation happily put an item in their employee newsletter about virtual volunteering back in the late 1990s, but talked about it being a great thing employees could do from home, after work.

Now, almost 30 years later, I’m seeing a new trend: people promoting virtual volunteering as a great way for corporate employees to engage in philanthropy – in this case, the giving of their time and expertise – from their workspace, whether that workspace is at home or onsite at the company, but claiming that one of the benefits is that it is “time agnostic”, as one company put it: you do it when you have some extra time between work responsibilities, and it doesn’t come with all the challenges of traditional volunteering, like taking up SO much time.

I’ve seen this kind of thinking from the corporate world about all volunteering, not just virtual volunteering, and the results are poor, even disastrous, for the nonprofit, charity, school, NGO or community group trying to engage that employee as a volunteer:

  • The employee never does find that “extra” time in the work day, or after the work day, to complete the assignment. This is because, for volunteering to happen, you have to make the time for it – even if that time is at 8 p.m. in the evening, for an hour, that time has to be reserved and honored.
  • The employer is thrilled to celebrate that employees are undertaking virtual volunteering, but balk at the idea of the employee setting aside time during the work day to do it. Mentoring that young person or designing that brochure suddenly is not something the employer wants employees focused on – there is WORK to be done!
  • Both the employer and the employee don’t treat the host agency as a client, with real deadlines and real needs. Yes, very often virtual volunteering can be done on your own schedule, but only up to a point: there is a deadline associated with the role or task, or their are meetings or real-time, online activities associated with the task. If the volunteer doesn’t fulfill that role or task, the client – the nonprofit, the charity, the school, etc. – suffers. For one example, think about that student expecting to be mentored: what are the consequences for that student when the mentor cancels repeatedly? What does this do to one of the program goals, which was to build a trusting relationship between a mentor and that student?

Virtual volunteering is REAL volunteering, and so much of the “rules” of traditional volunteering still apply. Commitments are REAL. Deadlines are REAL. There’s nothing “virtual” about it. Corporations need to have strategies to address all of the aforementioned bullet points if they want virtual volunteering to actually make a difference for anyone.

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

If only there was a detailed guide that could better guarantee their success in their virtual volunteering endeavors… oh, wait, there is! The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is for those that to dig deep into the factors for success in supporting online volunteers and keeping virtual volunteering a worthwhile endeavor for everyone involved. You will not find a more detailed guide anywhere than The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. It’s based on many years of experience, from a variety of organizations. It’s like having me do an in-depth analysis of your program, or me helping you set up your own program, but without having to pay my hourly rate as a consultant! It’s available both as a traditional print publication and as a digital book.

If you have benefited from any of my 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.

When volunteering is bad for your mental health

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graphic representing volunteers

This is an excerpt from a comment on a Quora post from last year, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I read it:

Honestly, volunteering was really bad for my mental health.

The thing was, the bosses all thought they were doing my a favour by letting me work with them. They appreciated their other volunteers but they didn’t really want a depressed and disabled person working with them. They didn’t see it as me giving up my time to support a charity I cared about – they saw it as them ‘finding me something to do’, that I needed this in order to fill my time, that they were kind to let me.

I didn’t need to fill my time. Filling my time has never been an issue for me. I just wanted to help others, to contribute to a cause I cared about…

I’m very shy and not a natural chatter. I also had limited life experiences so I had nothing to contribute to most of their conversations… I’d been there 4 months before I discovered there was a weekly trip to the pub which everyone else went to but which I had never been told about. I just happened to be within earshot when it was explained to someone else on his first day…

My mental health got worse and worse. I felt humiliated… I quit in the end because I couldn’t take it anymore… Volunteering makes me feel depressed, anxious, worthless and a total freak. I wouldn’t do it again. I will happily donate money or possessions but I don’t want to be made to feel that way ever again… This probably isn’t the sort of reply you’re looking for and I know that a lot of people find volunteering a really valuable and helpful experience but I thought maybe it was important to hear all points of view?

This should give pause to every person who works with volunteers, and every person who promotes volunteering. This is why I have so many cautions regarding people who tout volunteering as a great way for a person to improve their mental health issues – the reality is, volunteering, in the wrong circumstances, can make mental health issues WORSE.

I wrote about this before, back in 2019, quoting people who were posting online looking for volunteering and had wildly unrealistic expectations about how volunteering might help them, as well as about their abilities to step into a volunteering role, especially one abroad. And as you see at the end of this blog, I take protecting the mental health of volunteers very seriously. We need to not only make sure we aren’t being unrealistic about what volunteering can do positively for a volunteer’s mental health, but also make sure we are better ensuring volunteers’ mental and emotional safety while volunteering.

Let’s be realistic about volunteering and mental health. Otherwise, we’re going to turn more people off to volunteering – and that’s not helpful for anyone.

Also see:

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. 

Love for NGOs in Belize

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A montage of four photos, each representing one of the NGOs that is highlighted below. The first photo is of a gift shop, the second is of an adorable puppy, the next is of children in a library, and the last is of a natural spring swimming hole in Belize.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and in honor of love, I’m going to show some love for the NGOs I interacted with or noticed while on my recent two-week trip to Belize.

I was not volunteering in Belize; I was vacationing. But when I travel, I always do so with a mind to transire benefaciendo: “to travel along while doing good.” So here’s a thread to highlight some awesome NGOs I encountered as a tourist in Belize:

The Belize Audubon Society. They staffed some of the sanctuaries and parks we visited. And staff was always AWESOME. Note: they have volunteering opportunities!

Cayo Animal Welfare Society. It’s the Humane Society serving San Ignacio / Santa Elena and the Cayo District of Belize. I wrote them about a disturbing incident of dog abuse by the people operating a snack shack at Cahal Pech & they promptly wrote back.

Maya Center Women’s Group. They have a cultural center & gift shop at the entrance of Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary. They are local artisans & by purchasing from them, you help sustain their families. They are lovely to talk to.

Miss Bertie’s Hopkins Community Library. We walked by it every day we were in Hopkins, Belize. But I never went in, because it was either closed or OH so busy & I didn’t want to be a bother. But what an important resource!

Please show them some love as well: go like some of their Facebook posts. If you can, make a financial donation to any or all of them!

Why did these groups get my attention? Because I encountered them while visiting a site and they were particularly helpful, because they had a great presence wherever they were located and that presence jumped out at me when I went by, and/or because I asked them a question online and they responded. Does YOUR nonprofit or NGO meet all of that criteria, wherever it is in the world?

And next time you travel, I hope you will consider keeping in mind transire benefaciendo.

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

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Four human figures hold hands and lean back, none of them falling because they are all holding each other.

The Earth is experiencing unprecedented numbers of refugees and asylum seekers – people who have left their countries of birth, desperate to escape dire economic and environmental circumstances or threats to themselves and their families. They are looking to find a new home in another, more stable country. There are also record numbers of internally-displaced people (IDP) – people in the same situation, fleeing their homes but staying within their country of nationality.

Once a refugee, asylum seeker or IDP reaches a place of sanctuary, their struggles are far from over: they need permanent, affordable housing, the adults need jobs, the children need to be enrolled in school, the entire family needs language instruction in the local language, they need to know how to access health care (including dental care), they need to know how to access things like playing soccer at school or in a local league, when shops are closed for various holidays they may not be aware of, how to open a bank account, how to use mass transit, how the garbage system works, and on and on and on. It’s a huge amount of help that’s required.

Nonprofits, government programs and systems designed to help refugees are overwhelmed. In the USA, refugees and asylum seekers receive most of the help they need from VOLUNTEERS – people who are donating their time to help, time that competes with work and family requirements. And there are not enough volunteers to help address all the needs that refugees have, not in the USA and not in most other countries.

Before you start pursuing a volunteering gig abroad to help refugees, I beg you to look for opportunities in your own community. I live in a small town in Oregon and have discovered volunteering opportunities all around me to help refugees from Sudan, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Somalia and more. I have seen similar opportunities not too far from my hometown in Western Kentucky to help Afghan refugees.

I’m volunteering to help a family that is just around the corner from me. I’m volunteering through Portland Refugee Support Group. So far, I’ve:

  • found information already in Arabic from various government offices.
  • helped the children 16 and over, only two of whom speaks English, apply for jobs (three have found employment).
  • helped the oldest child, who is 20, find free English classes.
  • explained how to try out for the high school soccer team for the 16-year-old interested in such.
  • explained how Thanksgiving and Christmas affect store closings, bank closings and traffic.
  • taken the mom to the Halal groceries.
  • read through their postal mail and explained what they are receiving.
  • explained how the green card and citizenship process works (the official web site of the US government has complete details, plus I helped a family member of my own get a green card).
  • recruited two other volunteers to help (and I’m working on more).

Google Translate has been essential in communicating with most of the family members, but I can translate only two or three sentences at a time using that tool. Through my Reddit activities, I connected with a young woman abroad who is fluent in Arabic and wanted to volunteer as a translator – she translates large amounts of text for me, like explaining how the garbage bill works.

Other volunteers have helped with jobs research and interviews, as well as transportation, filling out government program applications, moving items, even getting a Christmas tree. One volunteer just drives the mom to the grocery once a month, nothing else – and that’s GREAT!

You can volunteer as much or as little as you want to – you don’t have to volunteer every day or even every week. You can volunteer just once a month. But you need to help on an ongoing basis. And when you sign up, you will need to go through a criminal background check and a short training – and the training will probably be online.

How do you find opportunities to work with refugees and asylum seekers near you? You go to Google and type in the name of your city, or the nearest big city, and the phrase help refugees and nonprofit (that’s how I signed up to volunteer where I live). You might find such opportunities on VolunteerMatch as well.

I signed up initially just to help with recruitment of more volunteers. I had no intention of working with refugees directly, because I live far from the center of the nearest metropolitan area, and most of the refugees live far from me. But after just two months, it turned out there was a refugee family right around the corner from me, and my help was welcomed.

I recommend volunteering through an existing nonprofit that helps refugees. But if you are ready to take on a lot more responsibility, including fundraising, and you are in the USA, note that, the Department of State, in collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services, has created the Welcome Corps, a new private sponsorship program that empowers everyday Americans to play a leading role in welcoming refugees arriving through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) and supporting their resettlement and integration as they build new lives in the United States. Groups of at least five individual American citizens or permanent resident adults will be able to apply to the Welcome Corps to privately sponsor the resettlement of refugees in the United States. Private sponsors, as volunteers, will be responsible for independently raising funds and directly providing essential assistance to refugees for their first 90 days in their new community. This assistance includes helping refugees find housing and employment, enrolling children in school, and connecting refugees to essential services in the community. Sponsors must raise a minimum of $2,275 in cash and in-kind contributions per refugee newcomer being welcomed. This is used to secure and furnish housing and provide for the refugee’s initial basic needs.

As for me, speaking as a volunteer through PRSG helping one family here in the town were I live, as a part of a team of three volunteers: it hasn’t been easy and sometimes, it’s been quite stressful. They need an enormous amount of help, far more than we can give. And the more successful I’ve been as a volunteer, the more I’ve been asked to do. It’s been essential for me to be realistic about the time I really can give and to set boundaries, and to recruit other volunteers to help.

If you are volunteering with refugees in the USA, or want to, you might find this resource helpful: Helping Refugees In Your Own Country. It’s USA-centric, but is adaptable to other countries. It outlines exactly the kind of help refugees need that you, as a neighbor, can realistically help with.

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. 

For Your Volunteers, Is Help Just a Phone Call or Text Away?

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Volunteers need support. Just like most humans, they cannot memorize an operations manual, they are going to be asked questions they don’t know the answer to, and no matter how benign you may think the roles and tasks for volunteers at your organization are, volunteers WILL sometimes face a situation where they need to talk to someone, immediately, for guidance. And if they don’t have that, they will feel frustrated, angry, even scared, and definitely unsupported.

Do volunteers at your organization know exactly who to call or text when they face a situation they don’t know how to handle, or when they are asked a question by a client that they don’t know the answer to, or when they are dealing with an angry client, or when they are feeling unsafe? And will that call or text get answered immediately?

Are volunteers encouraged to seek help in the aforementioned situations? How, beyond telling them in the volunteer orientation they should do so?

I believe very strongly that immediate support for volunteers should always be just a phone call or text message away.

Someone at your organization must be available to volunteers for consultation and direction throughout their service. That should go without saying. But I also believe that, for volunteers working with clients or the public in ANY capacity, immediate support for those volunteers should be just a phone call or text away.

For your volunteers, if they face any of the aforementioned scenarios: do they call or text the manager of volunteers? An employee that is the manager of the program they are participating in? A lead volunteer? A WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal or Slack group where they will get a response quickly?

And do you evaluate what you have told volunteers, to see if they are using it and getting the answers they need, and getting those answers quickly?

It is impossible to anticipate all problems. It is also not appropriate to have to have an immediate answer to every question – maybe things can wait for an email reply or for a regularly scheduled staff meeting to discuss them. But volunteers should know who they can call or text with a question they feel needs an immediate answer, or for a request for guidance in a situation they deem urgent.

It’s also a good idea to detail for volunteers exactly what you mean by urgent, as well as what an emergency situation is where they should call 911 first. Talk about possible scenarios together – don’t just issue a written memo.

And volunteers, if you are realizing you need more guidance, ask for it! Feel free to share this blog with those you work with at a nonprofit or government program and say, “I think we need this. Here are some things I’ve faced and I wish I’d had someone to call or text for guidance…”

Remember: the support of volunteers is THE key to retaining volunteers.

If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

Online spaces reflect your onsite vibes? What about vice versa?

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Do your organization’s online spaces reflect its onsite vibe?

I have been volunteering for Red Cross blood drives. Often, these take place in fellowship halls of churches. One was remarkable to me: the space was full of welcoming symbols and social justice messaging. The message was: “We’re so happy you are here, no matter who you are.” Later looked at the church web site, and was stunned to see that the onsite messaging wasn’t similar – that welcoming feeling was not also there online.

Do your organization’s onsite spaces reflect what you do well online?

I’ve also seen the opposite: a web site full of images of people and messaging that make me think, wow, this organization really cares about people and really makes a difference. And really wants me to be a part of it! But onsite, when you enter, those images, or similar images, are no where to be found, the mission statement isn’t in big bold letters in the lobby, and the first employee or volunteer I encounter when I walk in doesn’t make me feel welcomed – I feel like I’m bothering the person by being there.

Potential and current clients, customers, donors and volunteers want to feel like you want them to be there, onsite or online. They want to feel welcomed. They want the space to be accessible. They want the doors to open easily and the web site to load quickly. They want to know where to find things in your lobby and on your web site.

No need to hire a consultant: just ask a friend to walk into your space to ask about volunteering. Ask another friend to go to your web site and look for information about volunteering. Ask more than one friends to do this. Ask them about the experience later. Did they feel encouraged? Enlightened? Discouraged? Confused?

Use the results to develop a strategy to improve both spaces, as needed.

In the case of your in-person, onsite space, it may mean reminding staff how to answer the phone or how to greet people when the come into your space. It may mean stopping by your local Habitat for Humanity ReStore and buying some picture frames and using them to display your mission, some photos from your program (clients or volunteers – but only if you have asked folks to sign a photo release!) and a QR Code allowing people to easily donate online using their cell phone. It may mean making sure someone in a wheel chair can easily enter your establishment, or someone using a walker can find a place to sit quickly in your lobby.

In the case of your online space… go over these resources with your web designer:

Your biases in screening volunteers

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Years ago, I got a job out of the blue – an employee at a nonprofit had to be dismissed quickly and a replacement was needed immediately. There was no time for a usual recruitment process that included interviewing of several people – someone said I would be a good candidate and could start immediately, I got a call asking if I was interested, I got interviewed, I got the job and I began working – all within the span of maybe a week.

Months later, I found out that the Executive Director had not been happy at first when I was hired because she didn’t like how I dressed and, therefore, thought I wasn’t good at my job – which involved IT, and not any in-person interaction with the public or the high-profile Silicon Valley partners she collaborated with regularly. The office was very corporate: men in suits, women in business dress. I, on the other hand, was Silicon Valley casual long before it was the norm: I was neat, clean and quite presentable, but in comfortable clothes (I was very fond of flowy dresses and skirts in those days) and comfy shoes (never sandals, but also, never heels). She also didn’t like my hair: it’s clean, but it’s kind of all over the place a lot of time – unless I wear a head covering or cake it in product, that’s just how it is. However, she was very pleased with me once she saw my work and heard from my colleagues about my job performance. She ended up being a very enthusiastic professional reference for me for many years. But she said at one point to a colleague later, “I need to work on my assumptions about people based on how they dress.”

After hearing about that comment and spending a few days of feeling like I didn’t look very nice (I got over it), I ended up really appreciating that remark, because it meant I was being judged by the content of my work and my character, that she was learning that people who weren’t completely corporate could be more than competent and that she was willing to change her mind, something I always admire in people. But I’ve taken her comment to heart in my own interviews of candidates, not just with employees, but with volunteers as well. And not just about how people dress.

I know a lot of people who talk about the importance of “trusting your gut” when screening volunteers. But what if your gut is prejudiced? Let’s face it: we ALL have unconscious biases, at the very least, and if we aren’t constantly looking for those, and looking for ways to eliminate the possibility of them creeping into our decision-making, we’re going to miss out on some great volunteering candidates.

Unconscious bias can show up when we see and judge someone’s weight, or a certain brand of clothing they are wearing, or a hairstyle or hair color they are sporting. Or perhaps we’re judging them negatively because of hair loss. Or because of wrinkles on their face. Or perceived age. Or physical features. Or a regional accent.

It’s important to always be thinking about why you are saying no to a candidate for employment or volunteering, and having reasons that you feel confident in writing down on an evaluation sheet – and, potentially, having such read aloud in a civil suit.

Remember that just because someone doesn’t look like you or doesn’t look like someone you would socialize with, it shouldn’t exclude them from being a volunteer.

And on a side note: your program can certainly let applicants know, in your role description, that you have a dress code. But remember that there needs to be a rational basis for each dress code requirement, it must be applied in a consistent fashion, it should not obviously discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion and ethnicity and it should not overburden a particular group. For instance, requiring clean hands, faces and hair, and prohibiting shirts or pants with any words or graphics, prohibiting clothing that exposes legs above the knee or even the ankle, prohibiting torn clothes, prohibiting sandals, etc., can all be justified regarding safety and maintaining a neutral, positive image and culture in the workplace. Requiring people’s hair to be off the shoulders or even covered altogether for safety reasons can be appropriate, but having one rule for men and another for women can get you into legal trouble. And note the many reasons that the US Army had to change its hair policies for women.

If your reaction to all this is “I have no unconscious biases regarding people,” I would like to remind you that denial is not just a river in Egypt.

Today is Martin Luther Kind, Jr. Day in the USA – an excellent day to own up to the reality that we all have unconscious biases that we should all work on, as well as that there are profound social inequities in the world that are long overdue to be addressed.

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Volunteer engagement could help address negativity that rose in recent years.

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I’m a fan of The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. The Center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of human well-being. It uses these science-based studies to promote skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society. I find it a wonderful pushback to the pseudo-science that too many people are falling for. I follow the Center on social media and encourage you to do so as well.

In the end-of-year article The Top 10 Insights from the “Science of a Meaningful Life” in 2022, the center highlights what it considers the most provocative and influential findings published during this past year. The entire article is excellent, but this part of the article stood out to me in particular, and I hope you will consider what this could mean regarding volunteer engagement:

In a September paper published in PLoS ONE, a team of researchers studied more than 7,000 U.S. adults whose “Big Five” personality traits had been monitored from 2014 onward.

Observing people over time, the researchers didn’t find significant changes in personality through the start of the pandemic. But then, as time wore on into 2021 and 2022, personalities did in fact start to shift:

  • Extraversion: We became less likely to seek out company and enjoy time with others;
  • Openness: We lost capacity to seek out novelty and engage with new ideas;
  • Agreeableness: Sympathy and kindness declined, affecting our ability to get along with others;
  • Conscientiousness: We became less motivated to pursue goals and accept responsibilities.

Another study published just this month by Biological Psychiatry combined mental health assessments with brain scans of 163 adolescents, before the pandemic and then two years later. The results are startling: “Youth assessed after the pandemic shutdowns had more severe internalizing mental health problems, reduced cortical thickness, larger hippocampal and amygdala volume, and more advanced brain age.”

Yes, these studies document negative changes—but if personalities can shift in that direction in so short a time, they can shift in positive directions, too. 

I think that, in the USA, the political situation also has greatly affected our capabilities at civility, and not in a good way. I think these personality shifts are real – but not entirely the fault of the pandemic.

Could more volunteer engagement help address these negative personality shifts? Do these personality shifts explain, in part, why so many organizations have experienced a drop in volunteer engagement? I say yes to both, and call on funders, especially corporations, to invest in volunteer management at nonprofits to help increase the number of volunteers across the USA. Here’s what funding volunteer engagement looks like.

This isn’t the first time I’ve said increased volunteer engagement could help address a negative trend in our society: I also believe that volunteering can help to build community cohesion. But none of this is going to happen without vast increases as funding for volunteer management.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into developing material, researching information, preparing articles, updating pages, etc., here is how you can help.

Also see: