Category Archives: Community Relations/Outreach

Finally – a FUN, worthwhile volunteering experience!

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My name tag from my day of volunteering.

One of the things that differentiates me from other consultants and trainers regarding volunteer engagement is that I don’t just read and research and present: I also manage volunteers and I regularly volunteer myself. So much of my training advice, web pages and blogs have come from these first-hand volunteering experiences.

Every volunteer has a different “want” out of a volunteering gig, to make it worthwhile for them. For me, as a volunteer, it’s that:

  • I’m on-boarded quickly.
  • My time when I’m in training or actually volunteering is respected / isn’t wasted.
  • I feel like I’m actually doing something worthwhile as a volunteer for those served by the organization or the “cause” (I don’t do the work and wonder why it matters).
  • I feel supported in the volunteer role, I’ve been giving the prep I need for the role (I don’t feel like I’m foundering/set up for failure).
  • I feel like everyone wants everyone else to succeed, people don’t try to play “gotcha” with each other, there are not any ugly hidden agendas going on, there’s no delight in someone making a mistake, etc.

If I get even more out of it – if I have fun, if I get skills I can use in my job, etc. – that’s great too, but those four points are what are essential for me. And rarely do I undertake a volunteering gig that hits all those four points.

Helping at a blood drive in August hit all four of those points.

I’ve been promoting Red Cross volunteering for people who want to get started volunteering for many years – but I decided it was overdue for me to give it a try myself. So I went to the web site, read up on opportunities, and signed up for a few roles I thought I had time for and that looked interesting to me. None of the online volunteering I was interested in is available right now (they have enough volunteers for those tasks), but they really need people to help at blood drive events, and my commitment would be just one shift a month, so I signed up.

Filling out the initial application took a while – the Red Cross requires a lot of information in the volunteer application. But I think that’s a good thing: it screens out people who can’t make a commitment to reading information, filling out a form correctly, etc. – something any volunteer with the Red Cross will need to do in any assignment.

Then I did a phone interview with a volunteer that’s in charge of screening, then watched a video on YouTube, and then went through a live online training with a veteran “blood donor ambassador” – the name for volunteers who help sign in people at blood drives, make sure they get snacks and a rest afterward, etc. And all of that time is logged on my account already as volunteering time – I didn’t have to do anything.

We are a one-car family, and that means, most of the time, I do not have access to a car. I was able to sign up to help at a blood drive a short, direct bus ride from my home, in a nearby town. I had signed up for my first gig within minutes of my interview, and it was just two weeks away from that date.

I showed up at the event, 30 minutes early (as the video explained), and it turned out that I was the only volunteer ambassador there – meaning I was checking everyone in. I was very nervous since I thought I would get to “shadow” someone. Instead, it was all me – the site manager showed me how to check donors in, and the first donors, all veteran blood donors, also helped me (I think they loved being the experts to guide the newbie). And for the rest of the day, that’s what I did: donors showed their ID, I scanned it with a scanner, I checked off their name, I gave them a nametag, they had a seat and then got called up for the donation.

It was easy, it was interesting (nice to chat with people, interesting to watch how they go through the different stations of donating), and there was about 30 minutes when no one was scheduled and I was able to eat the lunch I brought.

If you are squeamish, don’t worry – you don’t ever have to see any blood, since you are facing away from the donor tables. And if anyone were to throw up, it’s NOT your job to clean it up (no one threw up, BTW, but we did have one guy faint).

If another volunteer had shown up, one of us would have been at the registration table and one of us would have been at the snack table, chatting with people who had just given blood, to make sure they were okay and ready to leave after 10 minutes or so. Had it been a larger event, there would have been two people registering and two people at the snack table.

If you are looking for an easy, interesting volunteering gig, I highly recommend you sign up to be a blood donor ambassador. You get to pick which event(s) you help at. It gives you insight into how the Red Cross works (the Red Cross does a lot more than blood drives). And you can sign up for as many blood drives as you want – if there is one every day in your area (which there is in the Portland, Oregon area), you could easily get 25 hours, maybe even more, of volunteering in a week, if you can volunteer on weekdays (more if you can do weekends too). I highly recommend this for people that are required to do community service – you may have three weeks from the time of sign up until you start, but you can get hours in quickly if you have time during the day.

In addition to Blood Donor Ambassadors, the American Red Cross needs:

  • Blood Transportation Specialists
  • Disaster Action Team members
  • Shelter Services staff members (being a blood donor ambassador is a good way to see what the intake process is like for emergency shelters)
  • Disaster Health Services Team (if you are a licensed healthcare provider)
  • Administrative help

If you dream of being deployed to disaster zones elsewhere, you first have to have deep experience as a part of your own local Red Cross in your own area (disaster action teams, shelter staff teams especially).

And if you are with an initiative that’s struggling to attract volunteers – what is the Red Cross doing that YOU should be doing regarding volunteer management? Note that I didn’t deal with any paid staff as I went through the onboarding process – my screeners and trainers were volunteers themselves!

Also see:

UPDATE:

A few months ago, I decided to test my own advice that I have posted on the subreddit regarding volunteering many times, that if you volunteer locally with the American Red Cross, you might get asked to deploy to a disaster somewhere else in the USA.

Welp – that’s exactly what’s just happened: I just got an email sent to all volunteers:

As Hurricane Ian hit Florida with dangerous winds, rain and storm surges, Cascades Region is in alert and standby modes in preparation of volunteer deployments. As we monitor the situation we look to current Red Crossers to train in both deployable and local volunteer roles to continue supporting the mission and our impacted communities.

And there’s a link to something called the Deployment Interest Form, and more info about information events (2 virtual, 3 in-person) to share deployment processes and training.

Folks, it really, really does work: volunteer LOCALLY with your American Red Cross chapter, in any capacity, and you will get info on trainings for disaster response, and if you complete that training, you may get invited to deploy to a disaster zone to help.

And in the USA, you start by filling out this form.

https://www.redcross.org/volunteer/become-a-volunteer.html

The crisis in Florida and the East Coast caused by this latest hurricane will go on for MONTHS. You could be a part of the response! Fill out the form, get the training you need – ASAP.

Something missing on your web site?

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I go onto Quora regularly to answer questions about volunteer engagement, nonprofit management and anything else I think I might be able to help with. It’s part of my own personal campaign to address misinformation and create better understanding about mission-based orgnaizations.

I saw this question and I think it speaks volumes:

In other words, why do most nonprofit web sites want your money but now your time as a volunteer?

Think about the message that sends to the community and to your current volunteers!

On that note, two resources worth visiting if you never have – and revisiting if you haven’t in a while:

The Information About & For Volunteers You Should Have on Your Web Site. 

Don’t Just Ask for Money!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also see:

Decolonizing International Aid (including international volunteering).

humanitarian stories & photos – use with caution.

Extreme poverty is not beautiful.

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

Nope, volunteering is not always inherently “good”.

Volunteer turnover isn’t always a bad thing

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also see:

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

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

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Someone wrote on an online community I’m on:

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

Here’s what I think:

image of a panel discussion

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also see:

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

What Are Your Volunteers Saying?

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image of a panel discussion

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

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

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

Harrumph.

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

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

Do you know? Do you care?

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

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

Informal “Quickie” Surveys

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

Here are some suggestions:

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

There are ways to get even more feedback:

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

Finding the Right Question

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What made the greatest impression on you today?

Do you have any suggestions or great idea to share?

Utilizing the Results

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

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

Reader Response Questions:

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

Also see:

Measuring the Impact of Volunteers: book announcement

Make volunteering transformative, not about # of hours

CNCS continues its old-fashioned measurement of volunteer value

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

History & Evaluation of UNV’s Early Years

where are the evaluations of hacksforgood/appsforgood?

Also see: My consulting services

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

Don’t over-invest in one social media channel: Redux (Twitter)

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In November 2021, I wrote a blog that warned nonprofits, NGOs, community groups, etc. not to over-invest in one social media tool – specifically Facebook. I wrote that blog because, when Facebook went offline in October of that year for about six hours, many organizations panicked: Facebook was their primary, even only, way of sharing up-to-date information with clients, volunteers and the general public – the organizations had either abandoned their own web sites and weren’t updating such much anymore and they used no other social media tools. That blog was a companion to another I’d written in 2019 exploring whether or not nonprofits should delete their Facebook accounts per Facebook’s reprehensible data mining, selling of data and unfettered spreading of misinformation and hate speech.

With the news that an extremely rich man who spreads medical misinformation, eschews philanthropy and efforts to address poverty and inequity, doesn’t treat his factory workers well, etc., has bought Twitter and will make it a “free speech” zone, removing its current community standards and probably restoring suspended accounts, many are thinking of deleting their personal or company Twitter accounts. And many folks are reeling from losing Twitter as we know it now, because they rely hugely on Twitter to get the word out about their work, to engage with others doing similar work, to network for jobs, etc. I am one of those people: while Facebook has been relatively useless for me professionally, Twitter has helped me sell my book, gotten me consulting gigs, gotten me invitations to speak at conferences and introduced me to so many amazing people I now call professional colleagues. It’s been more helpful to me professionally than any onsite, traditional conference I have ever attended in terms of networking, job leads and professional development. It’s been way more fun than Facebook personally as well: I have loved the social media challenges among museums on Twitter, the spontaneous poetry-writing events, and more very fun trending topics than I can count.

What to do regarding the Twitter dilemma? To stay could be seen as supporting the new owner, something that makes me very uncomfortable – and I’m not alone in that sentiment. And the reality is that, if he follows through on his plans, Twitter just isn’t going to be of value to me anymore.

Here’s what I’m doing in response to the potential changes at Twitter:

  • I acknowledge that, right now, stopping my participation on Twitter would be disastrous for me professionally. While Facebook has been largely useless for me professionally, Twitter has been a hugely important tool, for the reasons I’ve already stated, so I’m going to continue to try to squeeze some benefit from it until the changes come.
  • If Twitter goes in the direction that everyone is predicting – longer messages, adding suspended accounts back onto the platform (accounts that have spread misinformation, harassed people, etc.), not having rules about content, being a complete “free speech” zone, etc. – I’ll have to stop participating. I’m not sure if I will delete my Twitter account or just freeze it (just a last post to say where to find me).
  • Over the last three years, I’ve been investing more time in my YouTube channel and Reddit, as well as following my own advice and making sure my web site is always up-to-date, so that no one social media is my only outlet. I’m active on several LinkedIn groups as well, like the virtual volunteering group (which I own, actually) and ALIVE (a national group for managers of volunteers). You can follow me on LinkedIn (but note that I link only to those that I know professionally, that I could say something about you and your work) and join me on any of those groups. So, I’m already diversified, and will continue to do so, and hope that one of those platforms, at last, proves even half as valuable to me as Twitter has.
  • I’m always exploring other social media platforms. However, so far, the audience I want to reach professionally isn’t on TikTok, SnapChat, Instagram, etc. I’m on Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram, but I use those mostly for one-to-one communications, especially with folks overseas – the one group I’m on, for a nonprofit I volunteer for, is overwhelming and I’m not at all liking it. MeWe has never caught on with my colleagues (but you are welcomed to friend/follow me there).
  • I have a blog, which you are reading now. That blog is on my own web site, not on someone else’s web site. Twitter has been the primary of driver of readers to this blog (I post to Facebook and LinkedIn too, but those bring very little traffic to my blog). I’ll need to look for new ways to drive subscribers. Before you recommend RSS feeds – I would say 90% of the people that are my professional audience have no idea what that is.
  • I’m redoubling efforts to make sure anyone who visits me on any online platform knows where else to find me. This blog is one part of that effort. I’ve put in links to all of my other sites on social media – please subscribe / follow / and like if you are there too.

I’ll be watching what the people that I follow on Twitter do, as well as the people and organizations on each of my many wonderful, informative Twitter lists do, as far as posting about their work other than Twitter. I rely on my Twitter lists more than anything else to know who is doing what in my professional worlds – I have yet to find anything that even comes close to a substitution for that (I’m NOT gonig to subscribe to hundreds of email newsletters!).

What about going back to traditional avenues for networking and outreach: writing one-to-one emails, attending onsite conferences, buying advertising, etc. I don’t have the financial resources to attend onsite conferences, and as I’ve mentioned earlier, attendance has rarely lead to a book sale or a new gig. I don’t have the financial resources to buy advertising – and quite honestly, I can’t figure out Google Ads. As for email, I barely read email I receive – I know that what I send also often doesn’t get read (if it makes it past a spam filter).

Am I disappointed about Twitter? Hugely. If the changes that the new owner has threatened do come to fruition, I am going to lose one of the most effective and easy-to-use outreach tools in my toolbox, and I’m going to lose touch with so many, many people and organizations whose viewpoints and resources I value in my work.

This tweet is very representative of how many of us feel about the potential of losing Twitter as we know it, from Lainey Feingold / @LFLegal:

News about the Twitter sale is hitting me hard. What’s going to happen to #a11y and #DisabilityTwitter communities? Or the committed team at @TwitterA11y? I always say accessibility is global and some of that is because of this platform. Plus @twitter pals and chats Cheer me up!

But I’ve been here before:

  • Back in the early part of the new millennium, when USENET newsgroups started becoming overwhelmed with off-topic advertising messages. Soc.org.nonprofit was an incredibly important outreach tool for me for almost a decade, and ALL of my professional successes since 1994 can be traced back to my participation in that online community. I hated losing it. In some ways, I feel like Twitter was a return to those wonderful, well-connected days.

I’ve been on America Online, MySpace, GooglePlus and GoogleWave – those are all gone, at least in the form I used them. I left each of those because something better came along. I should be used to this situation by now… but I also have to say that, other than YahooGroups, no platform has ever been the powerhouse for my professional work that Twitter has been. And nothing better seems to be coming along.

So, this is yet another cautionary tale about over-relying on a social media platform. While you cannot use everything out there, you absolutely need to use a diversity of outreach tools. And remember: there are people who are going to interact online with your initiative only via Facebook, or only via Twitter, or even only via email. None of those audiences are more important than another for your nonprofit, NGO, etc. Make sure all of your clients, volunteers, donors and others are reminded regularly of all of your various online communications channels, including your online communities – and your web address!

What are you or what is your organization doing about impending changes at Twitter? Please share in the comments below.

May 3 update: A tweet worth sharing:

screen capture of a tweet
Tweet from Eoghan Beecher: Elon Musk’s taking over twitter has serious ramifications for nonprofits who’s role is to challenge power. Not because he’s cozy with the establishment – they all are, but because he’s proven to be incredibly petty, and that is a huge threat to activist community.

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Ending Orphanage Volunteering (Webinar presentation – about 7 minutes)

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Sinet Chan of Cambodia shared her lived experience in a Cambodian orphanage, where she was placed when she was 10 years old after her parents died of AIDS in a presentation, about 7 minutes, that was given as a part of the “Beyond Institutional Care: Rethinking How We Care for Vulnerable Children” conference addressing the issue of care reform.

While at the orphanage, she was “badly neglected.” The orphanage was set up to attract foreign volunteers and donations, but the children rarely benefitted from this – children were denied food, medical care and education. She and other children were forced to do manual labor, and she and other children were regularly raped.

Sinet Chan’s own words are so powerful:

During this time, we had many volunteers and donors coming and going. We would always entertain them, singing them a song, and playing games with them, to encourage them to donate money… the volunteers were nice people trying to help us, but now I realize it was a form of exploitation: using children to generate funding.”

All the other children in the orphanage – they all had parents who were alive and they missed their families… all the coming and going of the volunteers and visitors then compounded our feelings of loss and abandonment. The love and affection we feel from the visitor initially feels nice. Some visitors and volunteers would come for one day, some for a few weeks, and some for six months or more. It was always very traumatic when it was coming time for them to leave. We would be very (unintelligible) and cry a lot. I think it is a trigger memory of the loss and separation we have all suffered already. Having adults coming in and out of our lives feels like we were constantly being abandoned. They would always say they were coming back but, they never come back.

I think the uncomfortable truth behind the reason why white people feel like they need to participate in voluntourism is they have a white savior complex. The white savior complex is caused by the unconscious belief in the incompetence of the people they are trying to help. That belief justifies why they feel they must come and do it for us, like building our house, digging our wells, saving our children…

So, in order to combat voluntourism white people must examine their unconscious bias and learn how to be a white ally instead of a white savior.

You can hear her entire presentation on YouTube:

Also see:

How to connect & engage with volunteers remotely – even when those volunteers work onsite

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Well before the COVID-19 pandemic, nonprofits, NGOs and other organizations that involve volunteers were leveraging a variety of tools to communicate with those volunteers, and understood that ALL volunteers are, at some point, remote: even if all of their volunteering service is provided onsite, much of the communications with them happens when they are in their homes or work places. For organizations that were relying solely on onsite meetings, physical bulletin boards in the break room and paper letters and paper newsletters, the pandemic meant they had to quickly catch up and implement new ways of keeping volunteers informed (not to mention engaged) and to hear back from those volunteers regularly.

How do you effectively communicate with volunteers remotely? It takes much more than email – though email remains oh-so-important:

Have a web site that has all the info current volunteers need.
Absolutely, you need information on your web site to entice new volunteers and a way for candidates to express interest in volunteering via that web site, whether via an application they can submit online or an email address of your manager of volunteers. But current volunteers also need information from your web site: the list of current staff members, the profile of your executive director, the history of your organization, evaluations of your programs, the latest news about your organization, etc. Volunteers need to have that central place they can go to for reliable, complete information about the program they support.

Keep your social media up-to-date & encourage volunteers to follow your accounts
Your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and other accounts shouldn’t be focused on just encouraging people to donate money; your social media channels should have regularly-updated information about upcoming events, the results of events that just happened, breaking news about your organization, etc. Your social media audience includes your CURRENT volunteers, and they need to be kept up-to-date about what’s going on so they can properly represent your organization while they are volunteering. Your social media should also talk about the cause: a nonprofit theater should be posting about how students involved in performing do better in school, a nonprofit animal shelter should be posting about studies that show how a family’s health can improve if they have a dog, etc. Again, this helps volunteers become better advocates for your organization, including in casual conversations with friends and colleagues.

Online Discussion Groups & Channels for Volunteers
Group emails are one-way communications and can result in replies from volunteers filling up your email in-box, with the same questions asked over and over. “Reply all” conversations become tedious and unwieldy. By contrast, using a private online group can allow you to communicate with all vounteers quickly and allow everyone to see the answer to a question they may have as well. This can include using Whats App, Signal or Similar Direct Messaging Apps in Volunteer Support & Engagement.

Building a team culture among remote workers
Coming together face-to-face, in the same room, does not automatically create team cohesion and a strong sense of team. Yet, many people think having online meetings automatically means it’s difficult for staff to have a strong sense of team. People feel a part of a team if they feel heard and included, whether online or off. And they will attend meetings and pay attention to those meetings if they feel the meeting is relevant to their work – on or offline. This resource offers ideas for live events, asynchronous events & activities that can build a sense of team among remote workers.

Recognizing Online Volunteers & Using the Internet to Honor ALL Volunteers
Recognition helps volunteers stay committed to your organization, and gets the attention of potential volunteers — and donors — as well. With the Internet, the Cloud, cyberspace, whatever you want to call it, it’s never been easier to show volunteers — and the world — that volunteers are a key part of your organization’s successes. This resource provides a long list of suggestions for both honoring online volunteers and using the Internet to recognize ALL volunteers that contribute to your organization.

Also see:  How to Immediately Introduce Virtual Volunteering at Your Program and Helping online volunteers stay engaged & energized.

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

If you want to learn even more about how to leverage online tools to communicate with and support volunteers, whether those volunteers are mostly online (virtual volunteering) or they provide service mostly onsite at your organization, and to dig far deeper into the factors for success in supporting online volunteers and keeping virtual volunteering a worthwhile endeavor for everyone involved, you will not find a more detailed guide anywhere than The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. It’s based on many years of experience, from a variety of organizations. It’s available both as a traditional print publication and as a digital book.

If you have benefited from 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.

Facebook, Meta, Virtual Worlds – Benefits? Risks? Does Second Life offer lessons?

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a screen capture of a webinar that took place in Second Life, an avatar-based virtual world.

An online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and “live” in an online virtual world. Avatars interact with places, objects and other avatars, exploring the virtual world, meeting other residents, socializing, having business meetings, hosting events, participating in group activities, building, creating, shopping, collaborating, even trading virtual property and services with one another.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse? No! I’m talking about Second Life, which launched back in 2003. The image at the top of this blog, and the image below, are of me, as an avatar, leading an event in Second Life for TechSoup back in 2014:

An image of Jayne Cravens as an avatar in front of a giant silde from her event within Second Life.

TechSoup was an early and passionate adopter of Second Life, hosting numerous online events there. If you do a search for Second Life on the TechSoup forum, you would find numerous references to the platform and TechSoup activities there over the years.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook (now Meta), said to much fanfare that he wanted to launch his own metaverse. The new virtual-reality app Horizon Worlds is Facebook’s first foray into the much-hyped “metaverse” for Facebook parent company Meta. Horizon Worlds, a beta version of which featured prominently in Zuckerberg’s announcement, launched Dec. 9 in the United States and Canada on the company’s Oculus virtual-reality platform and represents its first major attempt to deliver on his vision.

Were you on Second Life? Are you still on Second Life? Did you participate in TechSoup’s events on Second Life, or any other nonprofit-related activities? What do you think emerging virtual worlds, including Meta’s projects, can learn from Second Life? Comment below!

This article from The Duke Law Journal, The Development and Failure of Social Norms in Second Life, seems like something that the Meta folks should read. Its conclusion about Second Life:

Second Life is so thoroughly steeped in conditions that have impeded the development of successful social norms in other communities that any system of social norms in Second Life will ultimately fail. Because social norms will likely fail to successfully maximize resident welfare, regulatory schemes imposed both by the operators of the virtual world and by real-world governing institutions are needed to enhance the functioning of this particular alternative reality inhabited by millions.

Do you think Meta’s virtual world is addressing this issue? Do you think they need to plan for how to address such? And are you worried about safety at all with any online platforms? Comment below!

Nina Jane Patel was targeted with sexual harassment in Facebook/Meta’s platforms. “Within 60 seconds of joining — I was verbally & sexually harassed — 3–4 male avatars, with male voices, essentially, but virtually gang-raped my avatar & took photos…” The 43-year-old mother said it was such a “horrible experience that happened so fast” before she even had a chance to think about using “the safety barrier,” adding that she “froze.” She continued by confessing how both her “physiological and psychological” reaction was similar to it happening in real life. “Virtual reality has essentially been designed so the mind and body can’t differentiate virtual/digital experiences from real,” Patel wrote.

This is similar to assaults that happened in Second LIfe. Examples:

Horizon Worlds is supposed to be limited to adults 18 and older. In practice, however, very young kids appear to be among its earliest adopters. Some say the presence of children in Meta’s fledgling metaverse raises a grave concern: that by mixing children with adult strangers in a largely self-moderated virtual world, the company is inadvertently creating a hunting ground for sexual predators.

When new online forums arise that attract kids, sexual predators “are often among the first to arrive,” said Sarah Gardner, vice president of external affairs at Thorn, a tech nonprofit that focuses on protecting children from online sexual abuse. “They see an environment that is not well protected and does not have clear systems of reporting. They’ll go there first to take advantage of the fact that it is a safe ground for them to abuse or groom kids.”

More on safety for children in virtual worlds from the Washington Post.

Could nonprofits that engage in an online metaverse be putting their clients or others at risk by asking them to be there too? Comment below!

There’s one more consideration: accessibility. If you engage with people in a graphics-based environment, you are leaving out people who have sight-impairments. How will auditory displays work for graphics-based environments to address accessibility issues (I’m asking because I really don’t know)? Or is it a matter of ensuring you never limit your service delivery and volunteer engagement to only a graphics-based environment?

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

There is section devoted to virtual volunteering and avatar-based environments in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. The section offers some examples of nonprofits using Second Life to engage with clients and volunteers, and offers specific advice on how a nonprofit should get started using such environments, considerations to explore and pitfalls to avoid – all of which is relevant for any graphics-based virtual world. The rest of the book is easily adaptable to engaging with volunteers in graphics-based/avatar-based virtual worlds as well.

Looking forward to hearing your comments!

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.