Category Archives: Community Relations/Outreach

Nonprofits addressing homelessness or addiction urgently need to improve their public education

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Myths abound about people who are homeless and people who have addiction issues in the USA – and probably other countries too. I see the myths stated as fact on online communities, in posts to social media and in online comments on news articles. What I’m NOT seeing are rebuttals of these myths by local nonprofits and professionals that are trying to provide services for people who are homeless or people who have addiction issues. I can’t find rebuttals for these myths on the web sites of the MOST local organizations addressing these issues – I can find them on a Google search, for a national audience (rather than a city or county audience), but only with a lot of digging. And representatives from organizations addressing issues around homelessness or people with addiction issues don’t make any attempt to enter online conversations and counter the myths.

Because so many nonprofits addressing homelessness and addiction issues are not making it a priority to educate the public – and that includes the press and politicians – about why people are homeless, about what services are available to people who are homeless or have addiction issues, about gaps in availability of service, etc., people are not voting for taxes necessary to fund government services to address either of these issues and many people that could donate are not donating to nonprofits trying to address either of these issues. In addition, the growing hostility by many towards people who are homeless or people experiencing addiction issues is deeply disturbing: I’m seeing and hearing more and more comments about how law enforcement shouldn’t carry NARCAN or EVZIO and shouldn’t offer any assistance to someone overdosing, how people should engage in vigilantism to remove people who are homeless from their towns and neighborhoods, how people who are homeless or have addiction issues should be imprisoned, and worse.

National statistics and facts that should be on any web site by an organization addressing homelessness (these come from Move for Hunger, the National Alliance to End Homelessness and the National Low Income Housing Coalition – and probably others that Move for Hunger didn’t credit) include:

  • The chronically homeless make up only 15% of the entire homeless population on a given day.
  • On any given night, nearly 20% of the homeless population had serious mental illness or conditions related to chronic substance abuse.
  • According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a family with a full-time worker making minimum wage could not afford Fair Market rent for a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the U.S.
  • A renter earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour would need to work 90 hours per week to afford a one-bedroom rental home at the Fair Market Rent and 112 hours per week to afford a two-bedroom.
  • A lack of employment opportunities, combined with a decline in public assistance leaves low-income families just an illness or accident away from being put out on the streets.
  • Many survivors of domestic violence become homeless when leaving an abusive relationship.
  • While families, children, and youth are all affected, most of the people who experience homelessness are single adults.
  • Chronic homelessness is the term given to individuals that experience long-term or repeated bouts of homelessness. The chronically homeless are often the public face of the issue, however, they make up only 15% of the entire homeless population on a given day.
  • Nearly 48,000 or 8.5% of all homeless persons are veterans
  • On a given night, nearly 20% of the homeless population had serious mental illness or conditions related to chronic substance abuse.

This article, Why Are People Homeless?, is published by the National Coalition for the Homeless (July 2009) and offers citations for each fact stated.

Are these stats true for your community? Maybe – but you should have information that adapts this data for your own community and reflects the reality where you are. Perhaps a higher rate of your homeless population are veterans. Perhaps a greater number of your community’s homeless population are teens.

Here are the myths that nonprofits, academic researchers and professionals MUST rebut – on their own web sites, on online communities, on social media, in talks with the community, in meetings with politicians and police and on and on – about people who are homeless and people who have addiction issues.

Myth: People who are homeless have addiction issues, and people who have addiction issues are homeless. If you are an organization that helps the homeless, you need to have information on your web site that clearly shows not everyone who is homeless has addiction issues, and for those that do have such, WHY they have such issues. You need to reiterate this information your social media channels regularly and make sure all of your staff and volunteers understand this as well. Organizations that address issues regarding addiction need to have information on their web site noting that people with addiction issues come from all economic levels, all zip codes, all types of families.

Myth: There are plenty of services for people who are homeless or people who have addiction issues – those peple just won’t seek help. I have heard, anecdotally, that every nonprofit in my community where I live that has programs to help people attain affordable housing has a waiting list of years, and that residential facilities to treat addiction have waiting lists of months, and that if a person doesn’t have health insurance, they have no options for addiction treatment other than maybe some AA meetings – but there’s no web site I can point you to that says any of these things for my community.

Myth: People are homeless because they are lazy or don’t manage their money properly. If they would work and not spend money on things like iPhones, they would have enough money to have housing. Every organization that works to assist the homeless should have a web page that lists the myriad of reasons individuals and families become homeless and the myriad of reasons that affordable housing is out-of-reach for so many, including people with full-time jobs or working more than one job, more than 40 hours a week. You need to reiterate this information your social media channels regularly and make sure all of your staff and volunteers understand this as well.

Myth: People who have addiction issues are weak. They’ve made poor choices and they refuse to make the right ones. They lack will power. All they have to do is make the decision to stop using. Addiction is recognized by the medical communities – doctors, nurses and medical researchers – as a medical condition and a crisis health situation. An addict craves his or her drug because her body is craving it, and many will go through extreme flu-like symptoms for days without taking that drug because they are addicted – given the choice between feeling good or shaking uncontrollably and throwing up for hours, most of us are going to choose to feel good, and for an addict, that choice involves abusing the substance to which they are addicted. Drugs change the brain in ways that make quitting hard, even for those who want to. What Is drug addiction? What happens to the brain when a person takes drugs that can turn them into an addict? Why do some people become addicted to drugs while others don’t? The National Institute on Drug Abuse has an excellent web site with fact-based information answering these questions clearly and succinctly. The information in no way absolves someone with abuse or addiction issues from personal responsibilities or the choices they make or the crimes they may commit, but it does offer realistic information on how to effectively prevent and address addiction (and prevention and treatment is complex and long term). The brain changes related to addiction can be treated and reversed through therapy, medication, exercise and other treatments. And also note: many people enter drug treatment involuntarily (court-ordered, or given a dire choice by their families: go to treatment or leave our home).

Myth: The people who are homeless in our community aren’t from our community – they are from INSERT THE NAME OF A BIG CITY OR ANOTHER STATE. I have heard, anecdotally, that the homeless people here in the community where I live in Oregon are from this city or county, that most of them graduated from the local high school and/or have or had parents that lived here. But this statement cannot be found on the web site of any organization that serves the homeless in my community. The information needs to be there as well as regularly shared on social media.

Myth: People choose to be homeless. They want to be homeless. Debunking other myths proves this myth untrue, for the most part. In addition, some homeless people may choose to sleep outside rather than in a shelter because they fear being assaulted in the shelter, they fear having to leave their pets or possessions outside, or they are addicted and may not take their drugs or alcohol into a shelter. You may hear someone say, “I chose to live on the streets. I prefer to be FREE.” Saying this gives the person a feeling of empowerment, a feeling of self-worth. They also may have mental health issues and are not completely rational. A whole range of different issues come into play when talking about teens who are homeless.

Myth: The way nonprofits want society to treat homeless people and people with addiction issues require us to not be upset about things like people using my front yard as a bathroom, needles in the park, people breaking into my car and taking anything left unlocked on my property, etc. No one has the legal or ethical right to threaten you, your family or your property. No one has a right to steal from you. No one has the legal right to leave trash or human waste on your property or in any public space. Efforts to educate about people who are homeless or people who are addicted are not about telling anyone they must accept destructive, unsanitary or illegal behavior. Efforts to educate are about encouraging actions that will effectively address homelessness and addiction and about discouraging actions and attitudes that may make problems worse, may endanger someone or may be violations of the law.

Myth: Services to help people that are homeless will encourage people to want to be homeless. Services to help people that have addiction issues will encourage people to keep using drugs and alcohol. Again, you may hear someone say, “I chose to live on the streets” but it’s rarely true, and given the opportunity to have a safe, private, simple residence, the vast majority of homeless people will take that opportunity. For someone who is homeless, every day is a struggle for survival. Many people who are homeless are chronically sleep-deprived because there is no safe place for them to get a full sleep cycle: they sleep an hour on a bus or train line, then another hour in a library, then another hour somewhere else, and so on. Homeless people are targets for theft and rape, so they have to stay awake to ward off an assault. They don’t have access to a bathroom with they need it most or to a shower or bath regularly. They have nowhere to store essential documents – birth certificate, social security card, certification of military service, contact information for family, etc. – and therefore often lose these documents, and don’t have the resources to get them replaced, which further deprives them of resources needed for survival. They cannot sit in one place for very long – either the weather, a security guard or police will move them along. Most services for homeless people aren’t just providing charity, giving people toiletries or a meal or one night to sleep somewhere; they connect homeless people with resources and assistance to get them into more permanent housing. And while there are some approaches to treating people addicted to drugs that include providing a clean, safe space to use their drug of choice so that they do not overdose and are not using in public spaces (libraries, parks, bathrooms, public transport, etc.), there is no evidence that this creates more drug users or in any way discourages someone from seeking help with addiction.

Here are some good examples of web sites and online material debunk myths about homelessness or addiction in their respective communities:

Debunking the Myths of Homelessness, a resource about Santa Clara County, California (San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Cupertino – Silicon Valley)

FAQs and Myths, by the Coalition for the Homeless, with New York City-specific information

Myths and Questions About Homelessness, from the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, with Canada-specific information

Exploring Myths about Drug Abuse, By Alan I. Leshner, Ph.D., Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health – rebuts myths like “Drug addiction is voluntary behavior” and “You have to want drug treatment for it to be effective.”

Myths About Drug Abuse and Addiction, from the Indian Health Service, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – rebuts myths like “People can’t force someone into treatment; if treatment is forced, it will fail.”

If the local nonprofits that serve the city and county where I live had fact-based rebuttals for these myths on their web site, and localized the information, people could share them, over and over and over, on their social media accounts, and refer people to them when they hear these myths at civic meetings, meetings of communities of faith, family dinners, etc. That information would, in turn, help change peoples minds about who is homeless, who is addicted to drugs and alcohol, what the most urgent needs of people who are homeless are, what works to address homelessness, what works to address addiction, etc.

But we can’t share such information, because the information isn’t there. And so, hostilities against homeless people and people with addiction issues grows and grows, and donations stay flat or even shrink.

It took me two hours to compile the aforementioned information. I reject any excuses an organization would offer for not doing this themselves.

By all means, if you want to share this blog to encourage nonprofits in your area to do a better job of communication, please do so. If you want to share this blog in a grant proposal to get more funding for your outreach efforts, please do so. But if you are a nonprofit organization that addresses homelessness or people who have an addiction and you also don’t want to start from scratch and develop your own information for your own web site, please do NOT link to this blog from your web site as a way to fulfill your education efforts – instead, I would prefer you cut and paste content from this blog and put it on your own web site – you don’t even have to credit me – but then make it a priority in the coming weeks to localize the information, with local statistics from your own organization and government agencies like your county health and human services, profiles of clients, links to local news articles that relate to these subjects, and more. There are volunteers that would LOVE to help you find the information you need – all you have to do is recruit them – local colleges and universities are a great place to start (faculty teaching health, social work or public administration topics would be an excellent source for recruiting students to do this).

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

Easy way to get a video made & posted re: your org

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You don’t have a video on YouTube, with a link on your own web site, that talks about how great your nonprofit is? Or a video that shows what volunteering is like at your organization or celebrating volunteers at your program? SHAME ON YOU! In this era of smart phones, there’s no excuses for not having such a video – or more than one!

Here’s how you can get such a video produced and online QUICKLY, with the help of volunteers.

First: make sure every volunteer, employee and consultant at your organization has signed a photo and video release form – examples of these are easy to find online. You want to have signed permission from all of your staff, always, to take video of photos of them and use them in promotional materials. It’s a good idea to require that any person sign these on their very first day of working at your organization. If you haven’t been doing this, then print several copies out and have volunteers sign them when they sign in for their next shift, when they attend an event, etc., and keep track of everyone who has and hasn’t signed. You will also need to have releases on hand for members of the public or clients to sign if you film them at your facilities. If anyone refuses to sign – and that is their right – you may not film them.

From among your current and previous volunteers, or through whatever volunteer recruitment tools you use (like VolunteerMatch, AllforGood, posts to your web site, posts to Facebook or other social media, etc.), recruit volunteers who will pair up during volunteering activities: one volunteer will do the actual task, as usual (this should be one of your veteran volunteers) and one will record the volunteer for a few moments doing the task with his or her smartphone (always landscape – hold the phone sideways!). Sound isn’t important. Each volunteer should try to get at least a full 60 seconds of footage.

So, for instance, at a nonprofit animal shelter, if you paired up volunteers, you would have raw video footage from various smart phones (they can all be different kinds) of:

  • a volunteer staffing the front desk and interacting with clients
  • volunteers interacting with animals
  • volunteers dealing with inventory
  • volunteers pouring dog food or cat food
  • a volunteer taking photos of new animals for your web site
  • etc.

Recruit a video editing volunteer who will gather all of the videos together in one place online, a place where staff at your organization can always access the raw footage in case this volunteer is unable to complete the task. For instance, all volunteers could be asked to upload their footage to a YouTube account set up specifically for this project, and for footage to be uploaded so that it is not public. If they don’t know how to upload footage, they could get guidance from someone at your organization the next time they are onsite at your organization.

Where to recruit a video editing volunteer? From your current volunteers (and have them ask their family members), previous volunteers, via a post on your web site which you link to from an announcement on your social media channels, via a video production class at the nearest high school, college or university, via employees at a large company where they have an in-house marketing staff, etc. What about asking the faculty of such a class to turn your video needs into a class assignment, with different teams of students each producing a video based on raw footage and then your voting on which you think is the best? Be sure to write a full description of what the volunteer video editor’s duties are, that you will include in all recruitment materials so expectations are clear.

This video editing volunteer will be charged with:

  • editing bits and pieces of the raw video into a 2 or 3 minute video
  • adding in copyright-free music (easy to find such via archive.org)
  • adding in titles and captions that say whatever it is you want to say about your organization and how great it is, perhaps also about why your volunteers are so wonderful and essential

The video editor presents the first draft of his or her work to appropriate staff and, once staff approves, up it goes onto your organization’s YouTube channel.

You could do something similar regarding interviewing clients to talk about how they have benefitted from your services, or talking to volunteers about why they enjoy volunteering, or talking to donors about why they donate money. For videos where people will be interviewed and sound during recordings IS important, recruit your video recording volunteers from a video production class at the nearest high school, college or university, via employees at a large company where they have an in-house marketing staff, etc. Be sure to write a full description of what the volunteer video recorder’s duties are, that you will include in all recruitment materials so expectations are clear. What about asking the faculty of such a class to turn your video needs into a class assignment? And, again, this person or team should put all of the raw video footage in one place online, a place where staff at your organization can always access the raw footage in case this volunteer is unable to complete the task.

For any video where words will be spoken, you will need to recruit a volunteer who will caption the video on YouTube. I have recruited online volunteers to do this for my short video projects for nonprofits via VolunteerMatch – recruitment of such a volunteer has always taken less than three days! Here’s more about recruiting volunteers to caption videos.

There is no excuse whatsoever for NOT having such videos about your organization’s work! And video editing is shockingly easy: I do it myself, self-taught, on my ancient Macintosh computer. Here’s a video I put together for Knowbility, a nonprofit in Austin, Texas, showcasing nonprofits it was working with in its OpenAIR program. I had video footage from various organizations, all remote to me (hundreds, even thousands, of miles from me) – none of the video was what I had shot myself. I also had some slides of information as visuals. I spliced it all together using the free video-editing tool that was on my ancient Mac, then laid in some music – something I’d never, ever done before – using copyright-free music I found on archive.org, and finally transcribing using the free captioning tool on YouTube. My video is not going to win any awards: my transitions between videos and “moments” arent’ very good – but I had just one day to do it, and the video was VERY effective at the event at which it was shown. Imagine what a volunteer who DOES have some video editing experience, with several days, could do for YOUR organization!

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

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Funding for Technology

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I just updated a web page I have on my own web site that’s meant to help nonprofits, charities, NGOs, schools and other mission-based organizations and programs to fundraise for technology needs – for hardware (like tablets, smart phones, laptops, etc.), software, a system to subscribe to, etc. The advice is focused on what information you need to have read to share with donors, how to frame your story about the need for this technology in human terms, and how to identify potential supporters.

I originally developed the page, and continue to update it, because I get emails from people who want to know where to find “the” list of foundations or corporate giving programs that fund software or hardware at nonprofits. And there really isn’t such a list – foundations and corporate giving programs are looking to fund program activities/causes, not equipment, specifically. Grants go to particular kinds of programs – those to help children, the environment, the arts, women experiencing domestic violence, a community in need of better cohesion, etc. But if you can show how technology is a program cost, how it helps you better serve people or your cause, it has a much better potential to attract funding. In other words: show how this is #tech4good. 

I say on the page:

Technology can help an animal shelter better track their animal in-take process and get animals ready for adoption more quickly. Technology can help make a professional theater better track ticket buyers who might be good prospects for donations. Technology can help a program supporting homeless teens to better identify trends and needs. Make your pitch for funding based on what technology will allow you to do regarding your organization’s clients – not so much about what the technology is. Again, a corporation doesn’t want to fund the purchase of 10 tablets for your organization – but a corporation would love to fund a resource that helps, say, homeless families, and if you can show exactly how the purchase of those 10 tablets will allow that, then funders will be much more attracted to such.

Have a look and share your thoughts in the comments below.

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.

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Factors for Success for a Neighborhood or Town-Based Online Community

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Back in the early 1990s, before the World Wide Web began dominating the Internet landscape, there were different platforms that various individuals, groups and communities were using to share resources, have discussions, etc., and some city governments, like Cupertino and San Jose in California, were quick to try to harness such to create more transparency regarding information and decision-making with their constituencies.

Now, 25 years later, city and county governments in particular avoid online engagement. They will post information to agency Web sites but rarely offer a way to comment or discuss such online. A municipality may have a Facebook page for city government, they may have individual Facebook pages for different departments (parks and recreation, health department, etc.), and they may have a Twitter account or two – but citizens are actively discouraged from using the comments on Facebook or replies on Twitter to ask questions, report an issue, express an opinion, etc., and government employees, even volunteer members of government advisory boards, committees & decision-making commissions, are discouraged from interacting with anyone on a public online forum (some go so far as to encourage interactions via email as well).

In April of 2014, Ashley Roth, a resident of Forest Grove, Oregon, population 24,000+, started a moderated Facebook group for the community. She is neither an employee with a government agency nor an office-holder in the city, and she has no affiliation with any newspaper, nonprofit or civic group. Her vision for this online community was similar to those early regionally-based online community efforts back in the 1990s: to create an online discussion space, “a watering hole of sorts for the community, a bulletin board, a place to share events and get involved with volunteering and with the city in an uplifting manner. To positively impact your immediate surroundings and to encourage others to do so, leading by example with what you would like to see from everyone else.”

I’m profiling her Forest Grove Facebook Community here in my blog because I think it’s a great example of the kind of online community those Silicon Valley government leaders envisioned back in the 1990s, and I think the way Ashley administers the group provides a terrific model for any municipality that might dare to buck the current fear-based approach to social media and decide to use it, instead, to engage with their constituency.

What’s also remarkable about Ashley and this group is that Ashley has no formal training regarding meeting facilitation or online community management – yet, her group and moderation style are, in my opinion, a model for others. I’m on or have been on more online communities than I can count, starting back in the 1990s with USENET – my perspective is from more than two decades of experience.

I interviewed Ashley in April 2019 via email for this blog. In the interest of transparency, please note that I am one of the volunteer moderators of this community.

Ashley noted in our interview, “When I first started FGC, I only anticipated reaching roughly 500 members. Little did I know that 500 would more than quadruple in the first two years.” In fact, as of the date of this blog post, there are almost 8000 members of the community. The group averages anywhere from 15 to 40 posts a day – and comments in one day can be just a few dozen to hundreds.

The Forest Grove Facebook community’s region is defined as all of Washington County west of Hillsboro, including the rural communities of Cornelius, Gaston, Gales Creek, Banks and Timber. The group is moderated, but neither posts nor comments are reviewed before they are published – posts and comments are removed only if a moderator notices a violation or such are reported by a community member. The rules for the community are posted on the “about” section of the community, and set the tone for what the community should feel like as well as detail appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Reminders about the rules are posted to the community regularly:

Welcome to the Forest Grove Community page. This page was created by citizens of FG and is not affiliated with the City of FG or its employees. The admins and mods are all volunteers and help to run this page out of the kindness of their hearts :-). Our goal is to keep the community informed on events, history, local meetings and happenings in our town, along with healthy and constructive conversations between all of us. It is always best to lead with respect, as these are your friends, neighbors, teachers, gas attendants, waitresses and business owners. Let’s be exceptionally helpful, we can make this world what we would like to be if we lead by the example we would like to see.

There are rules implemented to make everyone’s life here easier, they are as follows:

  1. No spamming FGC with multi-level marketing posts or click bait. We DO have a weekly Friday post where you can add your MLM business.
  2. Slandering a specific person or small local business is highly frowned upon and can/will result in a muting or a ban. We understand rough days but follow protocol with the person/business first, then go ahead and vent.
  3. Small businesses in our area, feel free to post once per day if it applies to you. Local farms included. While big box stores are fine to share, let’s keep them to a minimum of one per week.
  4. Please refrain from publicly shaming people unless you have filed a police report and are actively searching for the vehicle/person.
  5. Politics are fine if they are local to our area. If you have a political discussion you would like to have with the group that is not local to our area, find an admin and run your idea by them first.
  6. Make it a goal to positively impact your community online, and in person.
  7. PLEASE feel free to share history, stories, photos, events in town, and any other information that may be beneficial to the community.
  8. Look at the list of admins, find one you are comfortable with, when it comes time to tag an admin, use your tagging power if you think a post should be examined.
  9. PM your admin of choice if you are iffy on what it is your posting, they can reassure you if it is appropriate for the page or not.
  10. Garage sales are totally fine to post, but personal sales (like classified ads) are not. If you have something for free you are giving away to a family in need, those are typically okay to post as well.
  11. Freedom of speech does not apply to facebook groups, If you want to freak out about free speech and censorship this can and will result in an immediate ban. Private FB groups do not have to cater to your opinions on how the group should be run. This does not make anyone a communist, you were invited into our living room and if you start breaking stuff you don’t get to stay.
  12. Try to keep the content FG related or related to our general area (Gaston, Cornelius, Banks, Timber, Gales Creek, Vernonia, Cherry Grove, Manning, Buxton, West Hillsboro, Dilley, Laurel) Thanks all! ~FGC Admins

People are added to the community by requesting to join through the Facebook function for such and then answering three questions:

  • Do you currently live in FG/Banks/Gaston/Gales Creek/Cornelius/Timber/Vernonia? What is your zip code?
  • Are you capable of maintaining civil discourse even in heated discussions?
  • Do you agree to check out the “about” section upon joining and agree to the rules posted?

Before approving a member, Ashley can see their answers to these questions as well as the name they use on Facebook, how many friends they have, how many groups they are a part of, when they joined Facebook, and any information they have chosen to share in their profile, such as where they live, where they work, where they went to school, etc. If they haven’t made their posts private, Ashley – and anyone else, for that matter – can see those too. Requests for membership are rejected if the person doesn’t answer the questions, joined Facebook only recently, has no obvious ties to the community, or has a page filled with especially volatile messages, such as tirades against various religions or ethnic groups, insults against ex spouses or ex employers, promotion of violence, etc.

“Profiles with no pictures, no friends, brand new profiles, and covered with troll pictures (yes this is a thing) are not accepted. I have to find at least 1-2 things on your personal profile or by your answers that ties you to our area. If you aren’t very clear, you don’t get to join.”

One of the keys to the community’s success is that Ashley adds new members slowly – just a few each day. “I try my best not to overload the community with new members, because let’s face it, not everyone interacts the same way, and if you add 100 people at a time, all at once, you’re going to have problems immediately.”

Ashley doesn’t manage the community alone: she has anywhere from 4 to 12 volunteer administrators and moderators at any given time. Deleting and banning members is still left entirely to Ashley, but the other resident volunteers help introduce topics, review posts and comments that have been reported by community members for review, delete inappropriate content and remind users of the group’s rules.

Moderators have also begun tagging posts so that certain posts can be more easily found in using the Facebook search function. Tags include:

#event

#government

#police

#volunteer

#fundraise

Ashley identifies and reaches out to potential moderators based on behavior she sees on the community.

“I look for people who are passionate about specific things. Whether it be animals or small businesses, local politics or are really good with laws. I find one trait that stands out above the rest and have them kind of make their presence in that area. I appreciate someone that can use their presence on a post to turn the post from a seemingly negative, into a positive as well. That is very hard to do, but once you get it down, it’s an amazing tool to have in your back pocket.”

The community has helped with recruiting volunteers for various agencies, such as a local homeless shelter, gathering items for a school or art project, rehoming dogs and cats, finding lost pets, educating each other about scams, coordinating ride shares, finding various resources and turning out a large audience for various events. Recently, a woman looking to borrow a sewing machine for a project ended up getting an old but useable machine donated to her. The kindness of someone in line at a grocery store, in a parking lot, or at any customer service situation is a frequent subject. There is a monthly photo contest to choose a new cover photo for the community and a regular Thursday thread for complaints on any subject. Ashley sometimes issues challenges to the community, such as describing their day in meme-form. One of the most memorable threads on the community was a debate about whether or not heavy cream and heavy whipping cream were the same thing, a debate still joked about among long-time community members.

A particularly satisfying moment for Ashley was at a forum for candidates running for the local city council. The organizer asked attendees to raise their hands regarding how they had heard about the event. Just a few hands went up regarding NextDoor. A few more went up regarding the local newspaper. More than half the room raised their hand when Facebook was mentioned – and most were referring to posts on the Forest Grove Community. At least two of the candidates mentioned the group specifically in their remarks.

“What a confidence booster it has been to know roughly 7,000+ of our community members have such a massive amount of trust in me, in what I’m capable of doing, what I bring to the table, and how well I maintain a healthy platform for civilized discussion. Of course, those rewards are typically met with just as much opposition, but I tend to side with light heartedness, it has taken me much farther than misery ever has :-)”

Even with the community continuing to grow and being relied on by so many residents for their information about events in the city, no public officials or only a few city employees will post to the group – and most such posts are in response to a specific incident that is leading to a lot of online speculation.  

“The presence of a city official on the community is rare, but it is huge. It helps us as admins to have someone with clear answers to come forward – their official answer shuts up the pitchfork wavers. This is especially true if the community needs an answer that no one else else can seem to find.”

Since city officials and most nonprofits and civic groups are reluctant to use the community, some volunteer moderators make a particular effort to share official news they see on the city and county government’s official Facebook pages, on the pages of local libraries, civic groups, community centers, churches, youth groups, etc. – far more resident volunteers share this information on the community than actual government or nonprofit employees. But since no one has a mandate to share this essential, public information on the community, many events and resources are overlooked.

Moderators delete posts that are only meant to insult (She’s stupid!) or that encourage violence or other criminal behavior (I think you should shoot that rooster that’s waking you up!). Criticisms of businesses are allowed but only if the person first talked to the business in question and tried to get a resolution, and only if the complaint is fact-based, with dates and a description of what happened, rather than out-and-out-opinions about what happened. Posts that show police work in progress in real time – like police with lights flashing outside of a residence – are also not allowed. Political news is allowed – announcements of legislators having a town hall, dates of a public hearing on a local issue, encouragement to vote, links to position papers about upcoming legislation, summaries of what happened at a city council meeting, etc. – but political discussions and debates remain difficult to manage and comments for such often get turned off, or even entirely deleted, when insults, accusations without sources cited and misinformation starts flying.

The busiest days on the community are probably when it snows and the group is flooded with questions and reports about road conditions and school closures.

“I was pleasantly surprised to see that I spend only an average of 1.7 hours on Facebook every day. An average no drama day I search for events to share, or a location/local business to highlight while I’m out running errands for the day.”

But what about a day when an argument breaks out about a new housing development or the closure of a beloved, or controversial, restaurant? “A high drama day, causes massive anxiety and underarm sweat, and I can stare at the page every ten or so minutes for the majority of the day.”

“I check the community page as I would a newspaper every morning, except now, everyone is their very own columnist, and some of them flunked out of basic English long ago and didn’t seem to learn about basic etiquette. You have to constantly add the content you want to see or you end up fighting battles against keyboard warriors all day and night. I think it’s important for moderators to be consistent, to be honest, to be fair, to be transparent about decisions and rules, and to show up. “

But it’s not always easy.

“There are new people added every day. These new people don’t understand the history of the page or why it is the way it is, so they come in and often will beat a dead horse, write angry messages, and belittle other people. Half the time they come around after a little one on one convo with me. The other half of the time I’m given a middle finger emoji and a threat of violence. That’s a reflection of them, not me. We go our separate ways or find a way to work together. Most members understand why it is all unicorns and rainbows, but there is a specific demographic of people that will never be okay with this way of thinking.”

“Every once in a while we have ‘rage quit the page’ posts, where a person feels so personally offended by having their commenting turned off on their post, or by being put in their place by someone sharing facts against their opinion. They make a list to bash the entire page, the admins, and the people of the town before leaving, after the bashing bandwagon shows up to play. The funny thing is, they tend to want to come back a month or two later. The irony of rage quitting is equivalent to just having a bad day and freaking out on anyone within earshot willing to listen. We move on pretty quickly and hope the domino effect doesn’t take place. Once one person starts, it tends to go haywire for a little while. “

“If you come in guns blazing and are VERY set in your ways and ideas, and won’t hear what anyone else has to say? Those are the most inappropriate for the community page. If your personal biases and what you stand for can be presented in a way where there is wiggle room for conversation, then, and only then is it appropriate for the community page. See also: politics, parenting, schools, restaurant blunders.“

And how does she try to calm someone down online?

“95% of it is just throwing a compliment at the most angry person on the post. They tend to either hush up or calm down. 🙂 “

Moderators will end commenting on threads if the thread turns into speculation or overly-negative commentary, or when the person who started the thread with a question has had that question answered.

There are many online communities set up for people working in a particular profession or people who have a particular hobby, but online communities set up for neighbors in a community can have a much more personal quality – for better or for worse. I asked Ashley why she thought people can get so emotional on or regarding this particularly online community:

“Every post hits home cause it is our home! Community pages are emotional because it is personal. Every change, every tree cut down, every new establishment and closing establishment. We feel it cause we ARE it. As much as I would love to have everyone on the same page emotionally, I certainly wouldn’t try to fill the ocean with a paper cup.”

It’s that personal nature of the community that can make moderation most difficult: people know each other, their spouses, their children and their extended families offline, face-to-face. They will encounter each other at school functions and city events. They may work together. They may be neighbors. That means a heated online argument isn’t something abstract: it’s with a real person in your actual, physical community. This can be particularly taxing for the moderators – especially the founder:

“I have had death threats, I have been hacked and had to change my phone number, email address and even my Facebook profile for a bit to ‘hide’ from people who hated that I took their ‘rights away’ from them because I have removed them from the group for violating our rules. And they stay off until they calm down and apologize and want to join the group again, of course, I am a sucker for second chances. A blessing and a curse. The ONLY thing that prompts threats are people assuming I am taking their basic rights away, freedom of speech, in particular. The threats can be unnerving. To say I am fearful is not true, but to say I am very careful is. To be a great admin, you must take shape, stance, and emotions similar to a robot :-)“

Ashley makes a screen capture of every post, comment or direct message to her, on Facebook or via another platform, that is especially insulting or is threatening, in case a situation with someone escalates to the point of needing a legal intervention which, so far, has not been necessary. Ashley has also taken breaks from moderating for weeks, even months at a time.

“Being a leader on a small town community page comes with much more heartache I can’t even begin to explain to you, but alas, the good is worth it in the end. I also had no idea that you CAN help people change their way of thinking, and to encourage mature conversation, and then watch it executed out of someone you never in a million years thought would be able to calm down and make sense. That was all just wishful thinking that has become reality, for the most part.“

Other, rival Facebook communities for the city have been attempted by those that do not like that the Forest Grove Community is strictly moderated. Two have survived – one with about 1700 members and about eight posts a day, another with less than 200 members. A group that is supposed to be just about “what’s happening” will go weeks with no posts at all. For whatever reason, the Forest Grove Community has not only lasted, but continued to grow.  

Ashley won’t be the moderator forever – but also hasn’t been able to find an agency or organization willing to assume responsibility for the group when she wants to step away. No matter who is in charge of the group, whether someone entirely on their own or someone representing a program or agency, that person will change the group with his or her own interpretation of the community’s mission and rules. It’s natural for online communities to change, evolve, splinter or even die off. But without a strong, community focused newspaper and/or local radio station, it’s hard to say what would keep so many residents informed and engaged to discuss local issues.

What is Ashley’s advice for other moderators of such regionally-based online communities, regardless of the platform used?

“Have a clear reason what the community is for and state it, repeatedly. Have a clear purpose for every message. Have facts to back up comments. Have patience to deal with folks from all walks of life and with a variety of communication levels. It’s all about what you say and how you say it that generates responses. I could piss everyone off in the same sentence as picking everyone up in the group, but they WILL remember the negative thing I said 10 times more than the positives. To put yourself out there, you have to be ready to do so. Remember that no one has the same heart as you. No one has the same interests, ideas, or opinions as you do. No one is superior or inferior to you. We all live here together. Sometimes shifting our own thinking is key to being an all inclusive community.

And don’t push yourself farther than your mental health can handle. ♥️”

Are you interested in starting an online community for a neighborhood, town, city, county, school, or other small, defined region, one that’s meant to promote civility, promote civil society and build understanding? Please see this resource to help you.

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What managing & growing a Twitter account looks like for small nonprofits

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There is a lot of advice out there for nonprofits regarding how to use social media, but it is often written using corporate perspectives: success is only in terms of huge numbers of followers and messages that go “viral.” That type of pure quantitative measurement is meaningless and unrealistic for most small nonprofits, community groups, schools, small government programs, etc. There are far better, more realistic measurements of social media success for these small organizations – and this blog entry that you are reading now is an attempt to provide an example of that.

In addition to writing about volunteerism and community engagement, I am also a volunteer in my local community. I volunteer for all the usual altruistic reasons, but also to keep my skills sharp as a paid consultant regarding marketing, public relations and community engagement for mission-based organizations. One of my current volunteering activities is being a part of the League of Women Voters – specifically, the Washington County, Oregon unit. The League of Women Voters started as an organization engaged in activities to educate women as voters – it was formed just before women got the vote in the USA and to encourage them to vote. Now, it is open to all people and has a similar mission, now universal: to educate people regarding issues their legislators are voting on, to educate them on issues they will vote on in upcoming elections, and to encourage them to vote. The League takes stands on issues, but not candidates. Here in the USA, it’s often a local chapter of the league that hosts forums and debates for candidates running for office, and these chapters are all-volunteer staffed and managed.

One of the activities I’m doing with my local League of Women voters is overseeing the Twitter account, @LWVWashcoOR. I’m not looking to have massive numbers of followers. Rather, I’m thinking about engagement. So my goals regarding followers for the league account are that:

Every elected official representing Washington County, Oregon that has a Twitter account follows the local League. There’s no master list for this: there are more than 10 Census-related cities in this county, each with some form of local city council members. Plus there’s a county government, a Portland Metro government with a representative for our county on it, state legislators and federal legislators (the easiest to find). That’s almost 100 people try to find on Twitter – and I’m still trying to figure out who is and isn’t on Twitter. I follow all that I find, retweet their relevant information, and often ask them, point blank, to please follow our League’s Twitter account.

Key Washington County government offices on Twitter follow us. This is not easy, because many don’t understand what the League is – they think it’s a political organization in the sense of promoting agendas, rather than a non-partisan organization that’s promoting civic engagement – civic engagement that their programs need more of!

Every local political group (or state version of such) follows us. This is a double challenge because, per the non-partisan political nature of the League, I can’t follow them back: instead, I put them on one of our Twitter lists, so I can read their tweets. For that same reason, I refrain from retweeting many of their messages because of their partisan nature. It’s hard to get someone to follow you when you don’t follow them back.

Most nonprofits working in Washington County follow the League. Many of these nonprofits work with the most marginalized in our county, as well as young people, all of whom need the most assistance in understanding the political process and how to engage civically. As with elected officials here, I follow all that I find, retweet their information I think relates to the mission of the League, and often ask them, point blank, to please follow us.

Any individual that cares about voter education, voter registration, civic engagement and civic education follows us on Twitter. There are individuals in this county that, independently, tweet regularly about these issues. I put them on a list of politically-engaged local folks so I can check in with them regularly and I retweet their messages if they relate to the mission of the League. How do I find them? I look for people tweeting about town halls by our US Senators and US Congressional representative, for instance.

I find more followers to target and subjects to tweet by using various keyword searches, like the names of city and county officials, or the words Oregon and voting. I tweet original content every time I log in – could be a reminder regarding Oregon state legislation that’s coming up for a vote, could be a reminder about our own unit activities, could be a poem for #WorldPoetryDay.

How do I get followers for the League’s account. Various ways:

  • From tweeting information that relates to our mission and that our desired followers will find relevant
  • From looking for and using keywords so that people looking for those keywords can find us. That includes #Oregon, #voting, #voters, #legislation, #elections, #electionday, etc. I also look for what’s trending and seeing if there is a way to use such in a tweet of our own in that moment. And I create content specifically to tag with certain phrases, like #blackhistorymonth, #internationalwomensday, #humanrights, #fairmaps, #gerrymandering, #veterans, etc.
  • From following someone that I want to follow the League
  • From retweeting someone that I want to follow the League, even just once (but it usually takes more than that)
  • By thanking someone for a retweet of our information
  • By responding to someone’s tweet with a question or comment
  • By asking someone to follow

I tweet a thank for every account that follows @LWVWashcoOR or that retweets one of our messages, so that their account can be shared with all of our followers, which I hope, in turn, gets them more followers.

I log in at least three times a week to do all of the above – it takes about 30 minutes each time. I try to mix up the times – sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon and sometimes in the evening, to reach different followers. I also schedule tweets via Hootsuite, so that something goes out most every day, but the reality is that I must spend actual time on Twitter, engaging with others, in order to get more followers and keep the ones we have.

My desired results of all this? I hope these officials, agencies and nonprofits will become more open to coming to League events and promoting our resources. I hope they will see the League as a resource. I hope more people in general will attend our events and see us an election and legislative resource. I hope more people will pay and join the League of Women Voters Oregon Washington County Unit. I hope we will see more diversity among people who attend our local events and who join the League.

How many Twitter followers will achieve those results? I’ve no idea. But I do know that these results won’t come from massive numbers of followers outside of Washington County, or a post going viral. I believe these results will come from having local followers and local engagement. When I started, there were less than 10 followers for the @LWVWashcoOR account. Now, less than six months later, there are 100 – not a huge number, but when I look at who those followers are, I know that we’re on the road to achieving some of those goals.

My only complaint: local league members rarely retweet our unit’s tweets. Without their participation in helping to further amplify messages, it’s going to be difficult to reach all that we want to.

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.

 

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What is your social media manager doing?

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July 2026 update: Note that this was written in 2019, when Twitter still existed. I no longer recommend that nonprofits, NGOs and other mission-based organizations use the site formerly known as Twitter. I hope you will, instead, leverage BlueSky, Mastodon, LinkedIn and Reddit. 

This happens a lot. Too much, in fact:

I find a Twitter account for a subject in which I am very interested. I look at who the account follows, so I can see other, related accounts on the subject. Instead, I see a long list of celebrities that whomever the social media manager follows: movie stars, athletes, bands, reality show celebrities, etc. Sometimes, I even see the account follows adult entertainment stars and highly-controversial political figures. And I wonder: how much time does this social media manager spend on Twitter doing what personally interests them rather than activities that benefit the organization?

It’s not just what you post on social media that sends a message about your organization: it’s also who you follow, what you “like”, what you retweet, etc.

The accounts that your Twitter account follows should be related to your organization’s mission or subjects your organization needs updates about, such as nonprofit financial management, corporate social responsibility, volunteer management, etc.

This isn’t to say your organization can’t follow a celebrity via its social media accounts. If a celebrity is vocal in supporting the issue that is central to your nonprofit’s mission and posts about such frequently, by all means, like that celebrity’s posts that relate to that – in fact, leverage them: reply to and retweet their messages with your own organization’s congratulations or point of view.

This isn’t to say your organization shouldn’t follow a politician: you absolutely should follow your area’s elected officials, even if you don’t agree with them, because what they do can affect your organization and clients. And again, reply to their posts, even if you disagree with them, if your message relates to what your organization tries to do as a part of its mission.

If a social media manager reports to you, you need to be supervising them! You do that by:

  • Following your organization’s account on Twitter via your own, personal Twitter account – an account you never, ever have to use to post anything at all – and reading that account regularly, certainly every week
  • Following your organization’s account on Facebook and reading the posts regularly
  • Asking how many people are coming to events or activities as a result of social media posts (and if they say they don’t know, tell them they need to start finding out)
  • Asking how many people engage with the organization’s social media (comment, ask questions, etc.), not just how many people “like” a social media post
  • Asking what the manager is doing to attract new followers on social media
  • Asking for an overview of who is following the organization on social media. People interested in attending events or obtaining services? Elected officials? Other area organizations?
  • Asking the social media manager to break down by percentage the categories posts might fall into: posts that are about marketing activities, posts that are about attracting donors, posts that are about promoting the organization’s accomplishments, posts meant to educate regarding the organization’s cause, etc. If 50% of posts are asking for money, should this be reduced, and the number of posts about accomplishments be increased?
  • Asking the manager how he or she engages with other accounts on their feeds: what posts are they “liking” or commenting on, and have those interactions lead to anything – new followers, questions, criticisms, etc.

On a related note: please put the FULL name of your organization in your Twitter description, not your mission statement! I don’t want the only way to find you on Twitter to be to look on your web site – most people just give up rather than trying to hunt you down.

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.

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Expand national service programs in the USA?

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersAccording to this story from National Public Radio, the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, a federal panel (USA), says it is working on answers to those questions — and is considering how the USA could implement a universal service program and whether it should be mandatory or optional. The commission is due to submit its final report in March 2020. Between now and then, the panel will hold public hearings on ideas of how to meet America’s service needs. The first such hearing is slated for Feb. 21 in Washington, D.C.

The possibilities under consideration range from boosting the stipend volunteers receive during service to awarding college credit for national service work. Another potential plan would create a Public Service Corps program, similar to the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, which could offer scholarships and special training to “students at colleges throughout the nation in exchange for a commitment to work in civil service.”

And the commission noted an option to “retain programs to forgive student loans for Americans who work in public service careers for at least a decade.”

My thoughts: initially, President Trump proposed eliminating all of the current USA national service programs – AmeriCorps, SeniorCorps, etc. – so any recommendation to actually expand national service would be DOA during this administration. Also, mandatory service is VERY expensive to implement: this new, additional workforce, even if they are entirely unpaid, must be properly screened, trained and supported in whatever volunteer role they take on, and organizations will need funding to create roles for this new volunteer workforce – where will those additional funds come from? Young people who engage in community service for several weeks will need to receive something substantial, such as a living stipend (in lieu of paid work – money they very much need), or significant breaks on tuition. Finally, Germany got rid of its mandatory service requirements a few years back – it was just way, way too expensive to maintain anymore.

Your thoughts?

Paying thousands to volunteer abroad & ignoring same opportunities at home

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Late last year, I did an all-day training for a state fish and wildlife department – a government agency – about how to better engage volunteers: how to better design tasks for a variety of volunteers, to better support volunteers, to better track what they are doing and to recruit – not just recruiting volunteers to get tasks done, but also to recruit in order to reach a variety of communities and people. The people I taught were a mix of biologists and long-time volunteer leaders who had never had training in volunteer management.

(read more about my consulting services and training work)

Before doing this type of intensive, specialized training, I do a lot of research to look at what similar organizations might be doing, trends that the client might want to consider, etc. One of the things that struck me as I was researching state fish and wildlife departments all over the USA was how many activities these agencies have for volunteers that people will pay thousands to go do in another country: building and repairing fish and wildlife habitats, counting wildlife, reporting on habitat conditions and more.

I thought about how this is true of so many other agencies as well: there are nonprofits and government programs all over the USA that will help people learn English, that help refugees navigate their new homes, that help people better understand the risks associated with HIV/AIDS, that help people who have lost their home, that help impoverished women with maternal health and infant care, and on and on – yet, people are willing to pay thousands of dollars for voluntourism experiences that make them feel like they are helping refugees, helping children, helping people at risk, etc., rather than participating in these programs just around the corner – or, at least, in their own country.

I don’t like voluntourism, where people pay money to go to another country and feel like they are helping people or the environment in just a few weeks, and I blog about my distaste frequently. So many – not all, but so many – are scams: a supposed wildlife sanctuary captures wild animals and puts them into enclosures and then sells voluntourism experiences, bringing in foreigners to “help.” A supposed orphanage is full of children who have parents, but the parents are paid to keep their children in the “orphanage” so that foreigners will pay large sums of money to come from overseas and “help.” The organizations take anyone who can pay – they don’t need anyone with actual skills or expertise because, supposedly, no one locally can do this “work”, so they must bring in anyone from abroad with “a good heart.” Sure, there are some worthwhile organizations for short-term volunteering abroad – and I list them on this free resource on my web site. But most are, to me, loathsome.

But I also am puzzled as to why so many nonprofits and government agencies in the USA – and other countries – do such a lousy job of talking about their volunteering opportunities. When I told the state agency I was training that people pay thousands of dollars to go do in, say, Kenya, many of the same volunteering tasks that this state agency struggles to find volunteering activities for, they were stunned. But it’s true!

Have a look at some of those shiny, heart-warming voluntourism sites. I’m not going to link to them here, but trust me, they are easy to find on Google or Bing. Look at photos on their sites, the language they use – look how much fun they make volunteering sound, or how they make volunteering sound like a challenge worthy of traveling thousands of miles for – and paying top dollar to experience. Now look at your organization’s web site: how does your agency talk about volunteers and the activities they do? Don’t oversell your program, but do recognize that any activity that allows volunteers to be outside, to be very physical, or to interact with clients are highly desired by many people. What you may see as just more work to do they may see as an opportunity to make a real difference in a cause they care about deeply.

Here’s more of my advice on volunteer recruitment:

And here’s more of my blogs regarding voluntourism and Westerners going to help abroad:

My voluntourism-related & ethics-related blogs (and how I define scam)

Read more about my consulting services and training work.

Why your public meetings are so sparsely attended

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You represent a nonprofit. Or a local government citizens committee or board. Or an activist group.

You have a monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly or yearly meeting, open to the public. You want your members or the public to attend.

But meeting attendance is poor. Why?

I’ll tell you why! It’s one, or more, or ALL of these reasons:

  • You don’t make it crystal clear why the meetings happen. Why are you having this meeting? What happens at this meeting? Will I sit and hear a lecture? Will I watch a video? Will I have to offer an opinion or participate in some group exercise or vote? Can I just listen and observe? Why do you want me there? What will the meeting be like? All of these questions should be explicitly answered on your web site, in your email newsletter, on your Facebook event page, and in any other ways that you communicate about the meeting. This is the number one reason few people are coming to your meeting.
  • You put the information for the meeting in just ONE place. That one place could be your newsletter. That one place could be your web site. That one place could be a Facebook event page. Worst of all, that one place could be a PDF file somebody has to download as an attachment from email or from a web site (a lot of people don’t even bother opening a PDF). The information needs to be in multiple places. Does your city have a web site of community events and, if so, have you sent them this meeting information? What about the nearest public library? What about to civic organizations, business associations, neighborhood groups and cultural groups?
  • The meeting information isn’t updated on your web site. It’s 2019, but your web site is still talking about 2018. The upcoming meeting is in February, but your web site is still talking about December. The outdated information makes someone wonder if the meetings are still happening, even if your web site said that your group meets on the second Thursday of every month.
  • Your web site just says your group meets on the second Thursday of every month – or whatever. And that might be true, but it’s not enough to prove that this meeting really happens. Photos from the last meeting, or the minutes from the last meeting, or the focus or agenda for the next two meetings, with the actual meeting dates included, would affirm that, yes, these meetings really happen.
  • There’s no information about parking. Is free parking nearby?
  • People can’t get to your meeting by public transport easily. There’s a bus, but it only goes by every half hour, and there’s only one other bus it connects to – in a city of more than 50 buses. That means, to get to you and your hour-long meeting, most people would have to take mass transit around four hours round trip.
  • You don’t provide child care. And you probably don’t want a bored child – or more than one bored child – at your very important meeting.
  • Your meeting is at a time when I can’t attend. You didn’t survey membership or potential members and find out when the best time is for them to meet. Or you don’t offer meetings at different times – maybe every other month’s meeting could be in the evening instead of the afternoon.

There is no excuse for not addressing those first five bullets. None. Start with those. You may find that you need to ask people to RSVP for meetings and then text them a reminder, to better ensure they will attend. You may find you need to post reminders to social media as well. You may even need to look into broadcasting the meetings online, so that those who can’t attend in person can view the meeting online, perhaps even participate online as well (ask questions, vote, etc.).

If, after doing at least these first five bullets, your meetings are still poorly attended, then it’s time to sit down and call 10, 20, even 30 people you really want to attend these meetings and ask them why they can’t, or won’t, attend and if these reasons can be addressed.

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Online volunteers help with database of fugitive slave ads

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The Freedom on the Move (FOTM) public database project at Cornell University is a major digital database effort to bring together North American fugitive slave advertisements in newspapers from regional, state, and other collections – and online volunteers will be invited to add data tags to the screened entries and to transcribe the ads. This online public engagement by FOTM will allow database users to examine spatial patterns and compare trends over time.

“Ironically, in trying to retrieve their property — the people they claimed as things — enslavers left us mounds of evidence about the humanity of the people they bought and sold,” said Dr. Mary Niall Mitchell, professor of early American history at the University of New Orleans and one of the three lead historians on FOTM.

Mitchell explained. “At what time of year were enslaved people most likely to run? What places did they frequent? What skills did they have? How many could read and write? Or were likely to ‘pass’ for white, or claim to be free? What did they wear? Where were they suspected to be hiding and with whom? Under what circumstances did women run away?”

FOTM received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) digital humanities grants.

Here is an excellent article on about the database, from which I took Dr. Mitchell’s quotes.

Anyway, I gave it a try. I transcribed one ad. I would have liked to have done more, but I kept getting an error message on final submission, so I wasn’t sure if my attempt was even received. I’m wondering if I’m going to receive any sort of update or email from the project, if there is going to be any effort to keep me in the loop about the project and encourage me to transcribe more ads, if there will be any effort to survey me about my experience, or if there will be any solicitations for funding.

I’m also still thinking about that young woman I read about, who had fled someone in South Carolina and was suspected of being harbored by her enslaved mother somewhere… she’s a real person to me now. I hope she was never captured. I hope she got away. I hope she got to reach some dreams. I hope she was happy. Are other volunteers similarly connecting with the information the are transcribing on a human level?

vvbooklittleA shame organizers aren’t calling this a virtual volunteering initiative – because it is! Instead, they use the term “crowdsourcing.” It’s also a micro-volunteering initiative. I hope at least the organizers of this initiative will consider reading The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. The book, which I co-wrote with Susan Ellis, has lots of detailed suggestions and specifics about virtual volunteering, including task and role development, suggestions on support and supervision of online volunteers, guidelines for evaluating virtual volunteering activities, suggestions for risk management, online safety, ensuring client and volunteer confidentiality and setting boundaries for relationships in virtual volunteering, and much more. The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is available both as a traditional printed book and as a digital book.