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.

Me in D.C. & Philly area in April 2014

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logoAt long last, I will be in the Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area! I haven’t been there since 2005!

I will be there in early April 2014, to do a presentation on April 8.  I would like to schedule trainings and meetings before and after that day in the Washington, D.C. metro area and/or in the Philly area. It’s important to get bookings as soon as possible, before I book my flights!

My presentations are lively and audience-oriented, and are focused giving participants resources that they can use immediately and a base on which to further build and improve long after the workshop is over. Workshop topics include:

  • various practices and trends in volunteerism, volunteer management and community engagement, including
    • trends in volunteer engagement and volunteer management (and how to exploit these trends)
    • inspiring and supporting all staff regarding the involvement of volunteers
    • increasing the value of the coordinator / manager of volunteers role within an organization
    • online volunteering/virtual volunteering, including screening and orienting volunteers online and risk management
    • recruiting volunteers, from specific demographics and in general
    • creating online communities and networks for volunteers
    • using real-time communications (video conferencing, online phone calls, chats and instant messaging), audio and video with volunteers
  • traditional and online communications, including:
    • building press relations / pitching stories successfully
    • writing for the press
    • networking and outreach to build credibility and support for a program or organization
    • basic public relations functions
    • outreach to particular audiences
    • strategic communications (systematic planning and utilization of a variety of information flows to deliver a message and build credibility or a brand)
    • writing worthwhile, compelling, appropriate reports for partner organizations and donors
    • crisis communications, how to address misinformation/misunderstandings, addressing online criticism, etc.
    • taking photos in the developing world, for non-photographers
    • proposal writing
    • outreach via the Internet
    • online culture and communities
    • evaluating online activities
    • creating blogs and podcasts for nonprofit organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community groups, government agencies, etc.

To talk about possible dates and my training fees, please contact me via email.

I’m also available to meet, face-to-face, for informational meetings, collaboration ideas, etc. Please contact me via email to set up a meeting in April 2014!

Unions & Nonprofits: Commentary from the Nonprofit Quarterly

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Should nonprofit workers unionize? Will more and more nonprofit employees unionize?

Todd Cohen of the Nonprofit Quarterly notes in this editorial:

In 2010, the employees of the nonprofit Larkin Street Youth Services, a homeless-services nonprofit, tried to organize a union, but failed. This year, they tried again, looking for a union affiliation to help them deal with issues such as understaffing, increased workloads, and cuts in their benefits. The vote count in the union election was overwhelmingly in favor of joining SEIU 1021. In San Francisco, unionized nonprofits include La Clínica de La Raza, the Exploratorium, and others that one wouldn’t necessarily think of as in the unionized university/hospital nonprofit class. Writing for the East Bay Express, Corey Hill says that the San Francisco Bay Area has the third highest number of unionized nonprofits, behind only New York City and the District of Columbia.

What isn’t here in this editorial is the word volunteer – specifically, what are the consequences of unionization on volunteer engagement? Unions have stated opposition to volunteer firefighters and pushed back over school employees being replaced by volunteers. They are angry (and rightly so) that volunteer engagement is so often used to replace paid workers.

I’ve already whined that organizations need to create a mission (and a mission statement) for volunteer (unpaid staff) involvement and live it, stating explicitly why your organization reserves certain tasks / assignments / roles for volunteers (unpaid staff, including unpaid interns), to guide employees and volunteers in how they think about volunteers, to guide current volunteers in thinking about their role and value at the organization, to show potential volunteers the kind of culture they can expect at your organization regarding volunteers, and to prevent lawsuits from interns. Another reason to create such a mission statement: so that no union members (or any employees, for that matter) can say the organization involves volunteers to replace paid staff.

That said: nonprofit employees deserve competitive wages, health care coverage, disability insurance, a decent amount of vacation time (three weeks at least!), and other benefits. And they shouldn’t have to unionize to get that.

My previous blogs on this subject:

global survey on volunteer management software

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Last year, Rob Jackson (robjacksonconsulting.com) and Jayne Cravens (coyotecommunications.com) — ME — drafted and circulated a survey regarding software used to manage volunteer information. The purpose of the survey was to gather some basic data that might help organizations that involve volunteers to make better-informed decisions when choosing software, and to help software designers to understand the needs of those organizations. We also wanted to get a sense of what organizations were thinking about volunteer management software.

We promoted the survey every way we knew how – emailing our contacts directly, posting to various online discussion groups, posting repeatedly to our social networks, and asking others to share the survey with their readers and networks. Then we published the results of the survey here (in PDF); it includes an executive summary of our findings, as well as the complete responses to questions and our analysis of such.

Software companies and designers: you can learn a LOT from this report to improve your products and your communications with customers!

We learned how much managers of volunteers love spreadsheets, even those that have specialized software for managing volunteers.

We also learned a lot from this report that has nothing to do with software. In the survey, we asked a lot of questions that didn’t relate directly to software, like about how many volunteers these organizations managed, as well as what volunteers did. And the answers about what volunteers do at various organizations were surprising.

Rob and I did not have time to analyze all of the comments made in answer to some questions; for all questions, we listed the comments made, but we did not always offer any observations about such, or group the responses into categories. We welcome the efforts of other researchers to offer their own analysis of the data provided.

Virtual Student Foreign Service & eInternship program

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The USA State Department has launched the Virtual Student Foreign Service (VSFS) program. On the site, employees and contractors post “challenges” (online tasks that need to be done), and student volunteer are invited to complete any they want to. Most tasks are designed for students to complete in two minutes to two hours. No clearance is required to post “challenges,” according to the website. Anyone with a State.gov or USAID.gov email address can sign up and post any short “challenge” that does not require a security clearance or any special permissions to complete. Any student with a .edu email address can sign up to volunteer on the microtasks.

The microvolunteering initiative grew out of VSFS’s eInternship program — administered by the Bureau of Information Resource Management’s Office of eDiplomacy — which selects qualified undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students to partner with U.S. diplomatic posts overseas while the students work remotely on digital-based diplomacy projects.

While any U.S. student can volunteer to do short tasks through the micro volunteering platform, students must go through an application process to be selected for an eInternship. eInterns complete longer projects as part of their nine-month program. Applications for the 2013-2014 school year eInternships opened July 2 on USAJobs.gov, and VSFS will continue to accept submissions through July 20. Prospective applicants indicate projects they’re interested in and the selected eInterns complete projects assigned by Foreign Service Officers. Selected students intern online for 5 to 10 hours per week through the fall and spring semesters. These students complete all assignments from their college or university campuses; eInterns don’t travel abroad or to the State Department.

Nice to see the State Department providing this opportunity – as the United Nations has been providing this opportunity for more than a decade via its online volunteering service!

Conferencia Latinoamericana de Voluntariado, 14 al 16 de octubre

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Del 14 al 16 de octubre se realizará en Guayaquil, Ecuador, la VI Conferencia Latinoamericana de Voluntariado que organiza la International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE) con el lema “El voluntariado como expresión de la participación social”. A la Asociación Coordinadora del Voluntariado, ACORVOL, en tanto miembro del IAVE, le ha correspondido organizar la Conferencia Regional Latinoamericana de Voluntariado. De este modo por primera vez Guayaquil será sede de tan magno evento.

Contará con una jornada dedicada a la juventud y, durante su desarrollo, se abordarán dos grandes ejes: Voluntariado como agente de cambio y transformación social; y Voluntariado Corporativo: ¿Hacia dónde vamos?. Es de destacar que el Consejo Mundial de Voluntariado Corporativo  de IAVE (Global Corporate Volunteer Council) sesionará en este marco, por lo cual contaremos con líderes globales y regionales de voluntariado corporativo.

ACORVOL cuenta con 40 años de presencia en la comunidad, 77 instituciones afiliadas y es el referente del voluntariado en la provincia del Guayas. Particularmente en Guayaquil el voluntariado tiene una tradición que data desde la época colonial, pues tuvo que hacer frente a una saga de desgracias que generaron el comportamiento peculiar de su colectividad, dentro de la cual, el sentimiento de solidaridad ha sido una constante, llegando a ser parte consustancial de su identidad.

ACORVOL cuenta con 40 años de presencia en la comunidad, 77 instituciones afiliadas y es el referente del voluntariado en la provincia del Guayas. Particularmente en Guayaquil el voluntariado tiene una tradición que data desde la época colonial, pues tuvo que hacer frente a una saga de desgracias que generaron el comportamiento peculiar de su colectividad, dentro de la cual, el sentimiento de solidaridad ha sido una constante, llegando a ser parte consustancial de su identidad.

Desde estos valores estamos trabajando para invitar y abrir las puertas para la participación de organizaciones del voluntariado, líderes de organizaciones públicas, privadas y comunitarias, ONG’s y al sector empresarial de América y el Mundo.

OBJETIVOS

  • Ofrecer un espacio de encuentro, reflexión, contraste y trabajo a las organizaciones de voluntariado y a las personas voluntarias en el contexto de América Latina.
  • Contextualizar la acción voluntaria y su participación en el cambio de época y en los distintos escenarios que estamos viviendo.
  • Contribuir al fortalecimiento de la interacción del voluntariado con los diferentes estamentos de la sociedad.
  • Fomentar el encuentro y articulación entre voluntarios y organizaciones de voluntariado juvenil en la región que potencien un trabajo en red.
  • Visibilizar las acciones e impacto del voluntariado juvenil en la Región.
  • Presentar a la Conferencia Regional las recomendaciones y propuestas que la Juventud tenga sobre el voluntariado.
  • Aprovechar, incentivar y encauzar el potencial del personal de las empresa en beneficio de las necesidades sociales y de las asociaciones de voluntariado de la comunidad en la que trabajan a través del conocimiento de lo que es el Voluntariado Corporativo

Virtual volunteering & a rose by any other name…

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Virtual volunteering – it goes by oh-so-many names, and not just in English:

  • virtual volunteering (and variations such as virtual volunteers)
  • online volunteering (and variations such as online volunteers)
  • evolunteering (and variations such as e-volunteering, e-volunteers, etc.)
  • voluntarios virtuales
  • voluntarios en línea
  • voluntarios digitales
  • voluntarios en red
  • bénévolat virtuel
  • bénévolat enligne
  • bénévolat Internet
  • e-wolontariat
  • e-mentoring (and variations such as online mentors, online mentoring, telementoring, etc.)
  • microvolunteering (and variations such as micro-volunteering, microvolunteers, etc.)
  • microtasking
  • micro work
  • crowdsourcing
  • wisdom of the crowd
  • crowd computing
  • crowdcasting
  • distributed computing
  • distributed development
  • distributed thinking
  • hive mind
  • smart mob
  • virtual community of practice
  • virtual management
  • virtual teams
  • virtual workforce
  • Internet-mediated volunteering

More?

Wiki re: virtual volunteering in Europe

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In the course of researching and writing about Internet-mediated volunteering (virtual volunteering, online volunteering, microvolunteering, online mentoring, etc.) in European Union (EU) countries, I created a wiki to serve as a publicly-shared knowledge base for resources used to inform this project, resources that could inform future research projects related to the subject matter, and to invite further submissions of relevant information from any wiki visitor. The ICT4EMPLOY wiki includes:

  • More about the overall project & researchers
  • The information we are seeking / How to submit information
  • Online Volunteering-related recruitment or matching web sites
  • Organisations that involve online volunteers in the EU
  • Resources related to volunteering as a contributor to employability
  • Resources related to arguments against and concerns about volunteering by unions/professionals in Europe
  • Resources and research related to Internet-mediated volunteering (focused on, but not limited to, Europe)
  • Resources related to telecommuting, virtual teams and remote management
  • Legal status and regulations regarding volunteers
  • Resources related to volunteer engagement and volunteerism in EU countries statistics, studies, volunteer centres, volunteer matching sites, sites for volunteers, sites for those that want to involve volunteers, etc.
  • RSS feeds for keywords associated with Internet-mediated volunteering
  • Información en español
  • Informations en français
  • Informationen in Deutsch

I’ll update it as long as I’m working on the research.

Virtual volunteering in Europe

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After four months of research, I now have a table listing more than 50 NGO or charity initiatives in Europe that are known to be involving online volunteers, or organisations outside of Europe that are known to involve online volunteers from the EU – this is a part of a larger EU project I’ve been working on.

This table is not a comprehensive list of every charity, non-governmental organization (NGO) or other initiative in Europe involving online volunteers — many organisations work with online volunteers and don’t know it, because they call their volunteers just volunteers, not necessarily online volunteers, or don’t use phrases like virtual volunteering or microvolunteering – there are a lot of organizations engaged in these activities that don’t use these terms, at least in my observations.  Rather, this list is meant to highlight the prevalence of Internet-mediated volunteering in Europe.

U.K. and Spain are VERY well represented in the list. However, my research turned up little information about Internet-mediated volunteering in France or in other French-speaking regions in Europe. A search of keywords related to this subject on Google, including:

  • bénévolat virtuel
  • bénévolat enligne
  • bénévolat Internet

turned up just one short web page on the primary volunteering portal of France, France Bénévolat, which linked to Canadian materials regarding virtual volunteering (in French)

So – why do you think that is?

Spain, meanwhile, exceeds the U.K. and Ireland in terms of virtual volunteering (voluntarios en línea / voluntarios digitales / voluntarios en red). Why do you think THAT is?

I’m sure there’s so many, many more than what I’ve listed on the table – but, unfortunately, I don’t speak Estonian, Polish, Hungarian…

Update re: research on virtual volunteering in Europe

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An update on a project I started working on back in April:

I’m researching “the state of the art of knowledge on internet-mediated volunteering in Europe.” The report will include information on how internet-mediated volunteering – virtual volunteering, online volunteering, microvolunteering, crowdsourcing, etc. – may contribute, or could contribute, to the employability of young people (skills development, career exploration, job advancement, etc.) and better social inclusion.

I’ve been maintaining a wiki about resources I’ve been finding.

I haven’t updated the wiki in a while – I’ve been spending the past few weeks focused on getting the final report done (deadline is July 15 – wish me luck).

But I have just updated two resources on the wiki I wanted to share and welcome any updates for:

Organisations that involve online volunteers in the EU.

Online Volunteering-related recruitment or matching web sites with at least some European involvement.

The final paper may be published in a journal by the University of Hertfordshire (U.K.) later this year. I’ll post here on my blog, and via my various online networks, if/when it is.

Time Magazine asserts there are no organized Atheist volunteers

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Time Magazine published a gross misstatement by Joe Klein recently:

“funny how you don’t see organized groups of secular humanists giving out hot meals.”

Hemant Mehta did a brilliant job of detailing just SOME of the organized groups of secular humanists that have helped after disasters. But Time refuses to apologize and continues the misstatements about these not-so-faith-based volunteers.

We hear so much about faith-based volunteers, and that’s fine, but let’s remember that there are not only also lots of secular humanists and atheists that volunteer, there are ORGANIZED groups that cater especially to those people, despite what Time Magazine and Joe Klein say. Volunteering is not just a Christian thing, not just a faith-based thing, not even just an American thing  – it’s a very HUMAN thing.