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.

How are you supporting the mental health needs of your volunteers?

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

People in the USA are struggling with the basic decisions required to navigate daily life as the effects of pandemic-related stress continue to take a toll, especially on younger adults and parents, according to a national survey from the American Psychological Association. The global pandemic, rising prices, the housing crisis, climate change, violent political rhetoric targeting specific groups and people and world events are all adding to the stress and anxiety people are feeling, and that’s in addition to the stress they may experience through social interactions, family interactions, their professional work and, yes, volunteering.

No volunteering is stress-free. Cleaning up a beach means seeing all sorts of plastics and it can mean that volunteers begin to realize that merely cleaning up beaches occasionally won’t ever be enough to get rid of the garbage that is harming our environment. Serving on a board can mean feeling like if you fail in fundraising and/or in appropriate oversight, the nonprofit will cease to exist. Volunteering in a high-stress environment – helping women who have experienced domestic violence, working in an animal shelter, working with people experiencing homelessness – all come with intense mental pressures. As one nonprofit put it on the TechSoup community:

My nonprofit provides free home repairs. Many of the homeowners we serve are living in tragic conditions – without heat, hot water, full bathrooms or kitchens. It’s a lot to process and my team has been asking for upgraded mental health support. 

Your nonprofit needs to think about the mental health needs of your volunteers (and your employees, for that matter).

Some suggestions:

  • Remind volunteers regularly that it is okay to take a break – AND MEAN IT. If a volunteer says, “I need to take a break from volunteering for four months,” your reply should be, “Thank you so much for telling us. What date do you want your leave to start?” And then you work with the volunteer so that you have all the information you need from them so that you don’t have to bother them during leave. Remind volunteers that taking a break can better ensure they are able to succeed at volunteering and that it further helps them have a balanced, healthy life and, therefore, be even better volunteers. Remind them that working for prolonged periods without a break is bad not only for a person’s psychological and physical health but also for their volunteering: the more tired and burnt out a volunteer feels, the less effective and productive that volunteer will be.
  • Consider mandatory leave for volunteers – that they MUST take a month off once a year, for instance, especially if they work directly with clients. While I was not a volunteer, when I worked in Afghanistan for the UN back in 2007, they required me to take at least a week’s leave every nine weeks. When I found this out during my first week, I thought it was ridiculous; in my ninth week, I couldn’t sleep in anticipation of getting out of the country and back to my family for a much-needed vacation. Volunteers sometimes feel like they cannot take leave, but the reality is that breaks make us better upon return.
  • Remind volunteers that they have the right to say no to a new assignment or to continuing an assignment. Remind them that saying no isn’t selfish, that it allows them to better ensure they are able to succeed at the opportunities they say yes to and that it further helps them have a balanced, healthy life and, therefore, be even better volunteers.
  • Post the names and phone numbers of help lines and mental health resources in a common area frequented by onsite volunteers, in emails to volunteers and on your online community for volunteers. In the USA, your county’s department of health probably has such a list on its web site.
  • Remind volunteers to set boundaries with clients, other volunteers and employees. No volunteer should be required to socialize with other volunteers or employees, and an organization needs to be careful to not show favoritism to volunteers who do socialize with stNo volunteer should be required to friend a volunteer or employee at your organization on Facebook or to follow someone on Instagram, for instance, and you may want to have a policy that they are forbidden from friending or following clients. No volunteers should be required to join a Facebook group, since they very likely use Facebook with family and for personal social interactions.
  • Shop around for special discounts and freebies for volunteers:

— Is there a spa that would give your volunteers a special discount on manicures, pedicures or massages?

— Is there a movie theater that would give your volunteers and their families a special discount on theater tickets?

— Is there an arts organization that would give your volunteers a special discount on ceramic, drawing, dance or other classes?

— Is there a sports team that would give your volunteers and their families a special discount on tickets to a game or match? Don’t limit yourself to the big three – baseball, basketball or American football. Also look into hockey, soccer and roller derby.

— could you get a donor to pay for yoga or tai chi classes onsite at your nonprofit? Or would a studio offer a discount for your volunteers?

Don’t require volunteers to do one of these fun events together, if possible – like all going to get a mani/pedi the same day. They often need a break from each other, not just volunteering service itself.

  • Ask volunteers in different settings what brings them stress or anxiety in their service: you can do a survey (and make identities of those that answer anonymous), you can ask the question on your online community for volunteers, you can ask at face-to-face meetings of volunteers and you can call or meet with volunteers one-on-one specifically to ask. Showing that you care will be valued by your volunteers – but be sure you also act on their feedback.
  • Refer your volunteers to other resources, like:

– “Staying resilient while trying to save the world” by Amnesty International

– Protecting your mental health and well-being while speaking out, from the Malala Fund.

  • Ask volunteers how they would like to be supported as well.

How does your nonprofit support the mental health care of its volunteers? Please share in the comments below.

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. 

Ensuring cultural & social interactions: as important as water, food & shelter.

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ACAPS is a nonprofit, nongovernmental project founded in 2009 with the aim of conducting independent, groundbreaking humanitarian analysis to help humanitarian workers, influencers, fundraisers and donors make better-informed decisions. ACAPS is not affiliated with the UN or any other organisation, allowing it to be a more neutral, critical voice regarding such initiative. ACAPS is overseen by a consortium of three NGOs: the Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children and Mercy Corps.

ACAPS published a report in May 2022, Life goes on in Yemen: Conversations with Yemeni families as the war nears its eighth year, that illustrates why humanitarian response cannot be just about providing water, food and shelter, and why it’s a mistake for charities to limit their communications with donors to only these needs. Water food and shelter are often called “basic needs”, but the reality is that social interactions, cultural practices and trust in the strength and work of institutions are all a part of basic human needs as well. The report is about Yemen, but it applies to every country.

This image is, to me, oh-so-powerful – and applies to every community, not just Yemen:

An image of a family as a part of a cycle that includes life-cycle events like weddings, deaths, births, etc., and the essential nature of having a social and cultural life.

This excerpt from the report is a good summary of what the image and the entire report is trying to say:

This research serves as a reminder that Yemenis are interested in more than just the satisfaction of their essential needs (such as water, food, and shelter). It highlights the diversity of households and the creative ways people adapt to economic challenges and accommodate long term strategic needs. Yemenis continue to participate in life-cycle events, celebrations, and social obligations. Having a social life maintains and creates networks and connections that build social capital, enhance the quality of life, and form the support network people can rely on when they most need it. Understanding the key role social capital plays in Yemeni life highlights that social capital is something built, maintained, stored, and used in a continuous cycle. Connections are important, but social capital is the glue that keeps these connections alive. When Yemenis keep celebrations modest by inviting fewer guests or keeping events shorter, they build less social capital. Similarly, they lose social capital when they hold fewer gatherings or visit extended family in their ancestral villages less.

So many people want to volunteer and/or donate financially to help people experiencing extreme poverty caused by social injustice, historic oppression and inequities and armed conflict. That should continue to be encouraged and cultivated – but people also need to understand that community development is every bit as important as charity and the provision of water, food and shelter.

Shout out to the Aidnography blog for bringing this to my attention.

Also see:

Decolonizing International Aid (including international volunteering).

humanitarian stories & photos – use with caution.

Extreme poverty is not beautiful.

Advice for teaching children compassion & understanding instead of pity with regard to poverty.

Nope, volunteering is not always inherently “good”.

A blend of international & local volunteers can “decolonize” humanitarian development

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image of four human like figures holding hands in a circle

A May 2022 report from VSO and Northumbria University in the UK says that changing how international and local volunteers work together, rather than eliminating the involvement of foreign volunteers abroad entirely, can decolonize humanitarian development, so that foreigners are no longer in control of decision-making and so that racist and discriminatory structures are addressed and dismantled.

The research, based on interviews and participatory workshops with volunteers, community representatives and VSO staff, found that there was no “one-size fits all” approach to designing and putting in place successful “volunteer combinations”. The report emphasizes that there is a need to adapt volunteer planning and management in programs based on local requirements and local learning.

The presence of international volunteers brings energy and donor attention to projects, whilst community and national volunteers enable effective engagement with local communities and increase the likelihood that impacts can be sustained due to their particular knowledges and longer-term involvement. However, there is no simple one-size-fits-all approach that can be applied to constructing a blend of volunteers, as the combination is dependent on the individuals within each blend, the environment around the project and the phasing of the work itself.

The report also warns that “community volunteers” – local volunteers, while crucial to the effectiveness of each blend, risk being sidelined.

Here is the press release summarizing the report.

And here is the full report (PDF).

Also see:

Either be committed to quality or quit involving volunteers.

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

I will always be fascinated by people at nonprofits, employees or volunteers, who will write a LONG post to an online forum about their lack of staffing for all that needs to be done or a safety issue regarding volunteers and clients, & when they read recommendations about how to address such, reply, Oh, yuck, bureaucracy… we’re non-traditional! We’re dynamic and nimble and get things done and rules are such a drag!

Being a dynamic, nimble startup nonprofit that GETS THINGS DONE! with NO RULES is lots of fun until volunteers start harassing clients or the executive director cries every night under all the stress and core volunteers quit because they just can’t anymore – and they aren’t replaced because the word is out about just how overwhelming volunteering can be.

Planning, policies and structure are NOT BAD THINGS. And they do NOT mean your organization can’t be dynamic and nimble and use all the latest jargon.

Put the mission of your program first, put your clients first, commit to quality, and remember that sometimes the reason for traditional ways of doing things is because traditional ways of doing things can WORK.

If you don’t have time to learn and apply the essentials, you’re being reckless with both volunteers and those they serve.

  • Foundations of Volunteer Engagement: Before you recruit volunteers, these are fundamental pieces that MUST be in place. If you choose not to do these and, instead, start recruiting volunteers right away, you are setting up your organization and those volunteers up for failure.
  • Support for Volunteers/Management of Volunteers & Safety Considerations: All of the resources I have regarding the support for and management of volunteers, as well as safety in engaging volunteers, are on one page because I believe they are inextricably linked – it’s impossible to separate these two issues. Also, I believe that these MUST be explored and drafted BEFORE you start recruiting volunteers.
  • Creating Roles & Tasks for Volunteers: A key to retaining volunteers is having roles and tasks well-defined and IN WRITING, so that expectations are clear. This is yet another step to undertake BEFORE you start recruiting volunteers – and if you don’t, don’t be surprised when you can’t keep volunteers and your volunteer engagement flounders.
  • Ethics in Volunteerism & Court-Ordered Community Service: If your organizations involves volunteers, you should also be thinking regularly about the ethics of such. Involving people who are not financially compensated for work that they do carries with it regular questions and criticisms. Exploring ethics in volunteerism has not won me many friends. Exploring ethics in volunteerism can help you avoid public relations disasters later.
  • Harumph.

Note: I will be quite hard to reach from Monday, June 20 through Wednesday, June 29. I will be checking email and social media only sporadically in that time.

Volunteer turnover isn’t always a bad thing

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

High turnover of volunteers at a nonprofit, NGO, community program, etc., usually is not a good thing. But I hear nonprofits often talk about how they don’t want to lose any volunteers, or how they see a large number of volunteers leaving as an automatically negative thing.

No volunteer is forever. People’s lives change: they get married, get divorced, have babies, get new jobs, move, have a change in their health, have new caregiving responsibilities, develop new interests and on and on. Their interests also change: they may decide they want to do something that your organization doesn’t offer – work with animals, develop web sites, mentor young people, do outdoor service projects – and all of those changes are fine and normal.

Absolutely, you should do exit interviews when a volunteer formally quits, and surveys of former volunteers that stopped signing up to help, to find out if there is an issue you need to address. And if you see a problem – complaints about a toxic work environment, or volunteers being asked to do too much, or volunteer burnout – you need to address those.

But some volunteering turnover should not only be expected, it should often be welcomed. Volunteer cliques don’t welcome new members and exclude volunteers that are different than the clique’s status quo – so if you have a lot of long-term volunteers, is it really a sign that you do a great job of supporting and engaging volunteers or is it that you’ve created or enabled an unwelcoming clique of volunteers? How volunteers do what they do needs to evolve with the times: there are approaches that worked previously that don’t now, and new approaches that need to be considered and explored – is your lack of turnover really a sign of stagnation of ideas and methods?

I saw this message posted to social media from someone talking about an event that is staffed primarily by volunteers.

Longtime volunteers feel pride & ownership in what they do (which is generally great). But because they feel ownership, they dismiss any suggestion to change anything they do, even when that would help the event & the organization.

I’ve heard this complaint by managers of volunteers for many nonprofit initiatives, especially animal shelters, thrift stores and rural firehouses. Volunteer ownership is a blessing for the commitment and responsibility it can inspire, but it also can be a curse, for the inflexibility and unwelcomeness it can cultivate.

Maybe it’s not such a bad thing if you lose some volunteers because you introduced more thorough safety policies, or because the volunteers wanted to rally around a volunteer who was dismissed for sexually-harassing clients or other volunteers. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing if you lose some volunteers because you now require them to go through a training to better protect and serve clients. Maybe it’s not such a bad things to lose some volunteers who don’t like your new focus on inclusion and diversity. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing if you lose some volunteers who are opposed to all change and like to say, “But we’ve always done it THIS way…”

Do you think some annual turnover of volunteers at a nonprofit might actually be a good thing? Comment below.

Also see:

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

Donors offering feedback on humanitarian projects & proposals

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image of a panel discussion

Years ago, I was a part of an online community for humanitarian aid and development workers. It wasn’t a group for the sharing of best practices or professional development. It was a group for venting and kvetching.

The group didn’t last long in that form – as the group became more and more popular and new members came in, venting started to be frowned on, because of the expectation of such workers to always be positive took over – as it always does in the offline world. The snarky commenters were shamed into silence and the group became yet another boring, rarely-controversial discussion group for best practices and where to find jobs and funding.

One of my favorite times on the group were when conversations would break out about eyebrow-raising comments that came from funders. I loved the comments so much, I saved many of them. I just found them as I was cleaning out a hard drive and decided to share my favorites. No actual humanitarian groups or donors are named here.

These are reported to be actual comments humanitarian workers have gotten from foreign funders:

For the household disinfection kit you are proposing, could you please explain the purpose of the mop? I mean, I know people use it to clean their house, but could you write a justification to that effect?

Email conversation:
Funder: “Hey, can you include some photos of children. They usually look good for fundraising”.
Agency: “No. I cannot.”
Funder: “Why not?”
Agency “Because the project is NOT about children”.

Funder: “When refurbishing the health facility, ensure that a maximum of 2 coats of paint is used”.

After sending a very long and detailed report (according to the donor’s format and per their request), including photos showing the progress of each activity, I got this email response: “Hi. Can you give me some quick updates on the project?”

Funder, regarding the alphabetization component of a rural development program: “Why would women living in the desert need to learn how to read and write anyway?”

Funder: “We don’t understand why you want to do contingency activities due to increased fighting. Could you just solve the conflict?”

Funder: “Why do they need a gravity-fed spring water system? Don’t they have normal tap water?”

Funder said they would rather spend $200 US per day renting cars for a five-year project rather than actually buying cars, which would be far cheaper, “because we don’t support the purchase of assets.”

Funder, at our first meeting: “I thought you would be a man.”

I submitted a very long, detailed research report for a donor. Got it returned with feedback. Throughout the 120-page report there is a comment from the funder, stating “you should mention xyz government and UN report here.” The comments were given at least 20-30 times, and the comments got angrier and angrier throughout the report because we’d missed such an important document.
Me in follow-up call with the donor: “I have searched all of the documents you sent that you wanted us to include and the Internet, I can’t find xyz report.”
Donor: “It hasn’t been released yet.”
Me: “errrrmmmm… Could you send me a copy? That way I would be able to mention its contents” (and actually know it exists which obviously I didn’t before).
Donor: “I don’t have a copy.”
Me: “errmmmmm… have you even read it?”
Donor: “No, I just heard about it.”

Funder: “So are you actually a spy for the British Government?”
Worker: (nervous, confused) “No, I am sure my Government considers me far too troublesome to employ” (i.e. sweary with an inability to toe the line), “Why?”
Funder: “How else would a woman end up working in Mine Action here?”

Donor: “We are paid for a children’s rights project. We cant support you in a nutritional crisis.”

Had a potential donor call me at 3 AM local time, when I was helping with first response after a disaster, to say that they had decided that they wanted their aid to go to providing shelter to orphans and could my organization do that? At 3 AM, I had to explain that nobody knew which children were orphans as yet because they were still determining who had died, and that the first option would be to reunite children with extended family members rather than create a separate facility. They were noticeably displeased during this call. I clearly did not understand their humanitarian impulse to help ORPHANS. They didn’t give us the money.

Funder: “These photos don’t show a reality that would reflect the need for the kind of assistance you’re asking for. Do you have photos that more obviously show the effects of food insecurity and mass migration?”
Many words for: put in images of starving children 🙄. For the record; the photos we provided were of adult women who had consented to having their photos taken.

As for myself, I had to help a colleague explain to the representative of a very large, well-known tech agency that Africa is not a country and that not everyone spoke English there.

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.

an online group for potential donors for your nonprofit – possible? appropriate?

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Someone wrote on an online community I’m on:

I am interested in using Facebook to build a community of potential donors. Anyone have expertise in this area?

Here’s what I think:

image of a panel discussion

No one likes to be identified as a potential donor. They really don’t. You can think of me as a potential donor because I’m a volunteer, or because I’ve donated in the past, or because I came to your event, or because I’ve otherwise expressed some kind of interest in your nonprofit, NGO, charity, etc. But I won’t join a group called “potential donors,” because I don’t want to be thought of only as a financial donor, as someone that gives money, or should be targeted to give money.

People will join online groups that are focused on a cause they care about, or an online group that is going to educate them about that cause. They want to hear about the great work the program is doing. They want to know how to “live the cause” in their own lives: how they can recycle or how they can register voters or how they can explain the importance of vaccinations to their family or whatever. They will join online groups that discuss and debate topics related to the cause – how to advocate for accessible web design, how to rescue wildlife, how to run a youth soccer league, etc. And if those groups also, sometimes, solicit donations, that’s appropriate and will probably generate some donations – as long as no member feels that’s why the group exists (to ask for money). They are going to leave a group that just asks for money.

If you are going to call me a partner, by the way, that means I’m going to get to offer my advice, ask questions and disagree. If you don’t allow that on your online group, then I’m NOT a “partner.”

That said, in the 1990s I joined an online group for organizations that had received funding from one funder – the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation. It was wonderful: we learned so much from each other, and MEAF got to see the nonprofits it funded collaborate in real-time. It was one of the best online community experiences I’ve ever been a part of.

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

For advice specifically on how to create and leverage an online community for your volunteers specificallly, have a look at The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. It’s available both as a traditional print publication and as a digital book. And if you buy it directly from me, the last two boxes in my closet will soon go away! And your copy will be signed with best wishes from me! I also get a bit more money than if you buy it from Amazon (and it’s slightly cheaper to buy from me as well).

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. 

What Are Your Volunteers Saying?

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image of a panel discussion

This is adapted from a blog originally published in January 2003 at the e-volunteerism Journal. I was living in Germany at the time, hence the comment at the start of the blog:

On a recent visit back to the USA, I heard very different opinions about volunteerism from two good friends.

The first said that she will never volunteer again. “I have tried to volunteer for more organizations than I can count. I have tried to volunteer with groups that help animals, with political groups, with women’s groups, and it’s always the same thing: they don’t return my calls, and if they do and they tell me to come in, they don’t care that I’m there once I show up. They don’t want to answer my questions, they look at me as a burden or, worse, as someone that has no feelings at all. I’m just free labor to them, and I’m sick of it.”

Harrumph.

The second friend said she couldn’t get enough of volunteering. Her favorite role has been head of the Parent-Teachers Association at her daughter’s elementary school. “I just love it! I get all this responsibility and respect I’ve never gotten in my job. I feel like I’m really doing something. I feel like I’m making a difference. I love just about everybody I get to work with and, when I don’t, I can still work something out. I just feed off this stuff.”

These two testimonies regarding volunteerism make me wonder if the organizations these two assisted are aware of their feelings. And so I ask volunteer managers reading this to consider: What would people who have volunteered with your organization say about their experience?

Do you know? Do you care?

If anything, these two episodes have made me realize yet again the value of surveying volunteers about their experience, and how easily this can be done using e-mail.

Granted, two people can have very different opinions about the same situation: one person will find my bi-weekly e-mail updates to current volunteers too detailed and too frequent; another will complain that there needs to be more information, sent more often. Still, for the most part, there will be enough similar responses to your questions about volunteering to see trends emerge for your organization.

Informal “Quickie” Surveys

Too many organizations survey only those who have completed at least one assignment with the agency, or survey those volunteers only once as part of some detailed, intensive evaluation program. Those kind of long, involved surveys are indeed important, but just as important are providing plenty of opportunities for current and potential volunteers to offer feedback, however brief, about their experiences at any point in the process.

Here are some suggestions:

  • Require all volunteers attending a group event to sign out and complete a brief three-question/five-minute survey right then and there before they leave. Examples of questions for group events include:
    • Why did you come here today?
    • What benefits do you think the organization got as a result of your service today?
    • If you could change one thing about your experience today, what would it be?
  • If you really can’t do a survey on the spot, then at least email everyone and ask them to fill out a quick survey. Follow up with reminders to ensure most volunteers respond.
  • Conduct “walking around” informal surveys during events and activities. Simply ask volunteers you encounter questions such as “What else would be helpful to you?” or “How would you change what you are doing?” Sometimes these “heat of the moment” questions can elicit more frank opinions than post-event questionnaires, especially from those reluctant to commit to a written response.
  • Once a year, send out an email to everyone who has ever expressed interest in volunteering and ask them if they did, indeed, volunteer at your organization and, if so, how would they describe the experience? If they didn’t volunteer, ask them what prevented them from doing so.

There are ways to get even more feedback:

  • Put a notice on the Web page that describes volunteering at your organization, saying: “Have you volunteered with our organization? Tell us about your experience!” This invites feedback from anyone at anytime.
  • Hand out a brief survey at a board meeting and ask the members three or four quick questions about their volunteering, to be completed in the first five minutes of the meeting. Let members stay anonymous in their responses. At the next board meeting, hand out their answers for discussion.
  • Conduct exit interviews of any departing volunteers, where possible. Ask the volunteers to evaluate their experience and make suggestions for improvement.

Finding the Right Question

There are questions I like to ask beyond the “what did you like and dislike” traditional queries:

  • What were your expectations before volunteering and how did your actual experience differ?
  • What did you learn because of your volunteering?
  • If you were to tell someone about your experience today, what would you say?
  • How do you think our organization has benefited from your volunteering?
  • How have you been recognized for your volunteer efforts at our organization?
  • How does staff support you in your volunteering with our organization?
  • Do you feel prepared for your volunteer work here? What else can we do to increase your skills?

These deeper questions may allow you to understand “why” volunteers are reacting the way they are and can surface helpful suggestions for improving your volunteer management system.

Here are sample questions a survey for volunteers at First Night Doylestown:

Did you enjoy volunteering?
Would you be likely to volunteer again?
How many hours were you on duty?
Was that amount of volunteer time
What could we have done better to help you in your volunteer position?
What was the best thing about volunteering for First Night Doylestown?
May we quote you? (we might want to use these comments in our recruiting efforts in the future)

Here are some survey questions that were asked by the Dartmouth University’s Oxbow student volunteer program:

What were your expectations at the beginning of the program?
Were your expectations fulfilled? Why or why not?
What were the strengths of the program? What was your favorite day and why?
What were the weaknesses of the program? What aspects need work?
Did you feel well informed and adequately trained? What information or training could we offer new volunteers in the future?
Do you plan to continue participating in this program?
What information can you provide that will be helpful to future volunteers?

Here is an example of a feedback form from the IVY project of Portland, OR

What would you tell your family and friends about what you did today?

Would you be interested in coming back to Forest Park to help with the Ivy Removal Project again?

What would you tell someone who came to remove Ivy for the first time in Forest Park?

What made the greatest impression on you today?

Do you have any suggestions or great idea to share?

Utilizing the Results

You will need to compile the feedback you receive from volunteer surveys and then share at least a summary with staff and the volunteers themselves. It’s especially important to note how any of the feedback is going to be acted upon in the coming weeks and months.

Just by asking such questions, you are demonstrating to supporters and potential supporters the importance of volunteers to your organization; the follow-up will reinforce that idea even more.

Reader Response Questions:

  1. What are your favorite quick-survey methods to get information from volunteers?
  2. What are your favorite non-traditional questions to ask of volunteers?

Also see:

Measuring the Impact of Volunteers: book announcement

Make volunteering transformative, not about # of hours

CNCS continues its old-fashioned measurement of volunteer value

Free: Planning, Monitoring & Evaluating for Development Results (handbook)

History & Evaluation of UNV’s Early Years

where are the evaluations of hacksforgood/appsforgood?

Also see: My consulting services

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. 

It’s time for a new assessment of virtual volunteering in Europe (& elsewhere) – who will do it?

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Back in 2012 and 2013, I was one of many researchers in the ICT4EMPL Future Work project, focused on the countries of the European Union and funded by the European Commission. The overall project aimed to inform policy regarding “new forms of work” and pathways to employability that involved online technologies. For this project, I researched and mapped the prevalence of virtual volunteering in Europe and explored how virtual volunteering could support people’s employability. Here my complete final paper. And here is the Wiki I created for the project.

It is time for a new effort to research and map the prevalence of virtual volunteering in Europe. Because now, more than 10 years later, I’m sure the conclusions I found about virtual volunteering in Europe have changed, and it would be great to see what’s the same, what’s evolved, what’s reversed and what new insights have emerged – and see how this compares with past research.

Some of those conclusions from 10 years ago about virtual volunteering in Europe:

  • Organizations using the Internet to support volunteers, or that had roles and tasks for online volunteers, usually never used the term virtual volunteering. For instance, Germany hosted the FIFA World Cup in 2006 and recruited, trained and supported hundreds of volunteers all across Germany to help with the event; no doubt the Internet played an important role in the screening, training and support for volunteers, however, I could find no reference to activities related to Internet-mediated volunteering for the World Cup (and they also never responded to my emails).
  • Services where charities could recruit traditional volunteers might have talked about virtual volunteering 10 years ago, yet often did not allow for searches of just online roles and tasks opportunities on their platforms.
  • Online volunteering schemes come and go; for instance, while Samaritans was profiled for its involvement of online volunteers in the 1990s, as of the time of this paper’s writing, the web site did not note this past involvement, and a page on the site said that such an online program was “coming in the future.” Virtual volunteering activities were cited at a dozen European organizations in the paper – are they still happening?
  • 10 years ago, there was no organization tracking the practice in Europe – or in any country outside of Europe, for that matter. Has that changed?
  • The research 10 years ago found at least 60 specific examples of organizations in the EU involving online volunteers, or involving online volunteers in the EU. The number of online volunteering opportunities, using a search of the services, was more than 1000, in total. And the research noted that Wikipedia already had contributors from every European country at that time. Excluding Wikipedia, a conclusion can be drawn from the research cited in this paper that there are at least a few thousand online volunteering opportunities available from organisations in Europe.
  • Spain was, by far, the country with the most virtual volunteering roles and tasks for volunteers, across a few hundred NGOs, and had a deeper history regarding digital volunteering than any other European country, by far. The UK, which was in the EU at the time, came in a distant second.
  • Far in the distance in terms of virtual volunteering, and well behind rates in Eastern European countries, was France – in fact, the lack of virtual volunteering materials in French was particularly shocking to me. I could find NO such materials in Europe – the few I found were in Canada. I so hope that’s changed in 10 years!

If you are looking for a research project idea, I highly recommend you take a stab at researching and mapping the prevalence of virtual volunteering in Europe – or even just one country in Europe. Or break entirely new ground: India? Certain countries in Africa? I will be happy to turn over all of my materials to you to help you in your research. I’m also happy to write a letter of endorsement if you want to shop this project around for funding. Contact me and let me know your full name, share your LinkedIn profile or another online profile where I can see your professional connections and research to date, let me know the kind of research you have in mind, etc.

Why am I not interested in doing this research myself? Both because I lack any funding to do this and also, I would really like to read someone else’s research!

If you are doing any research regarding virtual volunteering, or if your agency or organization is considering virtual volunteering as a path to helping people become more employable, check out the Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service Into Volunteer Involvement. This is the most comprehensive resource anywhere on working with online volunteers, and on using the Internet to support ALL volunteers, including those you might not think of as “online” volunteers.

Also see:

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

Making volunteering more accessible for people with disabilities makes it better for EVERYONE.

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It’s happened again.

graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

I’m reading materials about making volunteering more accessible for people with disabilities and my repeated thought as I read is These are great suggestions for ALL volunteers! There’s no reason to do this JUST with people you think might have disabilities!

Below are excerpts from various publications I’ve been reading that show what I mean: Some have been slightly edited for clarity (substituting one word, for instance). Don’t just do these with people who have disabilities – do them for ALL OF YOUR VOLUNTEERS:

Make sure that anyone who works with volunteers with disabilities always asks if there is anything that can be done to accommodate their needs. (Me: do this with ALL volunteers, not just those with disabilities).

Regularly ask volunteers is they are having any challenges carrying out a task and ask if some accommodation or different task would make the volunteer’s involvement easier.

Encourage a culture of watching out for volunteers while they carry out their assignments and making sure that their needs are met.

Regularly ask volunteers if they are having any challenges carrying out a task and ask if some accommodation or different task would make the volunteer’s involvement easier.

Formally adopt a policy that states that it is the right of your volunteers to ask for and receive alternative tasks or accommodations. Make all volunteers aware of this policy.

Adopt a formal policy that states that your organization will do a regular review of its volunteer recruitment and management procedures and practices to ensure that the organization’s needs are being met and that no group of people is being excluded.

Review the time commitments and schedules attached to your volunteer positions to see if there is a solid rationale for them.

Make it part of your volunteer management approach to adapt roles to volunteers and not volunteers to roles.

Regularly talk with volunteers to get an idea of what it is actually like to volunteer for your organization. If some volunteers have fixed time commitments, ask them if there is a better way to organize their work than the way you do it now. That is, ask if they would prefer a more flexible schedule.

Formally state in a written volunteer policy that volunteers will be assigned tasks based on their capacities and abilities and will be accommodated reasonably to carry them out.

When assigning tasks that are done every year (e.g. duties in an annual fundraising campaign), look at the health status and other
factors of each volunteer before automatically assigning them the same tasks that they have “always” done. Consider alternative assignments where necessary.

Ensure that volunteer managers speak with volunteers before organizing an annual work plan and verify the volunteers’ ability and availability to do the same jobs as in previous years.

Ask volunteers what barriers they have encountered with your organization and how they have overcome such (if they have).

If you do interviews with candidates for volunteering, send the candidates the questions you are going to ask BEFORE that interview.

During an interview with a candidate for volunteering, plenty of time should be given for the volunteer to answer the questions, as
some people might need more time to think about what has been
asked.

During the interview, you may want to ask the candidate what support, if any, they feel they might need when volunteering. This is beneficial to both the organization and the volunteer so that any support needed can be planned and arranged before the
volunteer begins the assignment.

It is very important that those that will support the volunteer meet with the volunteer before any volunteering begins. This will allow both people to decide if they are happy to work together and it is also a chance to get to know each other.

People have said they would prefer a trial period of 2 months. After the first month, at their supervision meeting, you should ask the volunteer if they are happy to go on to the next month.

You should feel comfortable in being able to say honestly what is working well and what, if anything, could be better.

Again – these tips were written to help staff work better with volunteers with disabilities, but the reality is that these are great tips for supporting and managing ALL volunteers.

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.