Category Archives: Community / Volunteer Engagement

People with disabilities & virtual volunteering

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I said it back in the 1990s, and I’ll say it again: Online volunteering / virtual volunteering can allow for the greater participation of people who might find volunteering difficult or impossible because of a disability. This in turn allows organizations to benefit from the additional talent and resources of more volunteers, and allows agencies to further diversify their volunteer talent pool.

In addition, ensuring that your volunteering program – online or onsite – is accommodating for people with disabilities will end up making your program more accessible to everyone. For instance, if you make sure your online training videos have captioning, don’t be surprised when people who have no hearing problems at all thank you, since they can mute the video and watch it at work or in a public area without disturbing people around them.

People with disabilities volunteer for the same reasons as anyone else: they want to contribute their time and energy to improving the quality of life. They want challenging, rewarding, educational service projects that address needs of a community and provide them with outlets for their enthusiasm and talents.

I was reminded of this recently when a fantastic testimonial from Alena Roberts for the Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind was recently reposted to Inclusive Planet about online volunteering / virtual volunteering.

Here are 11 people’s testimonials about how virtual volunteering allowed them to volunteer, despite their disabilities, compiled by the Virtual Volunteering Project, that remain as powerful as when they were first-published back in the late 1990s.

I told this story back in April 2009, but it’s a good time to repeat it now:

Back in the late 1990s, when I was directing the Virtual Volunteering Project, I recruited and involved online volunteers myself to support the Project, feeling that it would be inappropriate to offer advice to other organizations to involve online volunteers unless I was engaged in the practice myself. The only recruiting I did was via the Project’s web site, on a page that was purposely not easy to find; online volunteers were oh-so-easy to recruit even back then, and by making the page harder to find, I regularly received applications from candidates who I knew were actually reading my web site.

One day, an application came in from a guy I’ll call Arnie. It was clear from Arnie’s application that he was… different. His answers to questions on the application were child-like (though everything was spelled correctly), and didn’t at all sound like they were coming from a man in his 40s (he shared his age despite my not asking for it). Among other things, he said that what he wanted to do most as an online volunteer was to share images and messages from the Virgin Mary, a skill set that I didn’t really have a need for at that time… But I kept reading Arnie’s application and thinking, well, while I know this person is very likely mentally disabled based on his answers, he spells just fine and he’s REALLY enthusiastic. There’s really no reason to say no outright. I’ll put him through all of the regular online screening steps and give him a trial assignment and see what happens, just like I do with all volunteers.

Unlike most other online volunteering applicants, Arnie followed all of the directions on the online orientation immediately, to the letter, and within just a couple of hours rather than a couple of days. I don’t remember what the first assignment was that I gave him, but just as the directions in the online orientation stated, he wrote back (within probably an hour) and said that he didn’t feel he could do what was asked for, so could he please have a different assignment? I think the revised assignment I sent him was regarding a list of names of people who had given me their business cards at conferences, but back in the 1990s, many people didn’t put their email addresses and web site addresses on their cards. I asked him to use Google to find that information for me, if possible. The next day, the finished assignment was waiting for me, with profuse apologies for each person he couldn’t find online, and a request for a new assignment.

I slowly became a bit obsessed with trying to create assignments for Arnie. He could do only basic things online, like looking up information, and he needed explicit directions on how to do every task, but he was SO enthusiastic about it all. I started saving things for Arnie to do that I could have done myself in far less time than it would take him to do. For each assignment he always wrote back promptly if he thought an assignment was too difficult, or wrote back to say how happy he was at the assignment, how excited he was to do it, etc.

I think Arnie’s favorite assignment was when I asked him to visit 20 or so web sites that were supposed to be targeted at children; I was putting together a list of things online mentors and young people could do together online, and I wanted to know if these web sites were worthwhile. A paid consultant could not have provided the thorough, brutally honest assessments that Arnie did. Things like

I did not like this site at all, Miss Jayne. It was confusing! I did not know how to use it! It is a bad web site for this reason.

    • or

I liked this site very much, Miss Jayne. It was fun! I showed it to my mother. She thought it was fun too.

I was starting an online mentoring program at a local elementary school in Austin, and I invited all the online volunteers I had worked with to apply to be online mentors. Arnie was probably the first applicant. At first, my reaction was: he can’t do this. I have to tell him no. But then I kept thinking about it — *why* couldn’t Arnie talk online with a 10 year old? His tone would actually be perfect for a 10 year old. They would never know each other’s real name or be able to contact each other outside the web platform we would use for online exchanges, every message he sent would be screened, just like the other mentors. Why not let him go through the whole application process and see if he makes it? So, I did.

Among the screening required was two references who could attest to the candidate’s character and communications abilities. One of Arnie’s references was his doctor. When I called for the reference check, the doctor said, “Are you the Miss Jayne?! I’ve heard about you for a year now! Arnie lives to volunteer with you! It’s changed his life!”

I’m glad I was on the phone, so he couldn’t see me crying.

Arnie survived the screening process and was a wonderful participant in the program. His emails to his student were always perfect, full of questions and enthusiastic comments, written in short, simple sentences. The only thing I ever had to do was ask him to revise an email that had a religious reference in it, not as in “I went to church this weekend and it was fun,” which would have been fine, but as in “I hope you are praying to God every day!” Arnie quickly understood why that was inappropriate once I explained it to him, and it never happened again.

After more than a year of working together, Arnie wrote to say that he would need to take a break from volunteering, because he was getting “too full of worry” when he did assignments. I wrote him after a month saying that I hoped he was doing well, and he wrote back a lengthy, somewhat rambling apology for “letting you down.” I wrote him again to say that was NOT the case at all, wrote lots of encouragement and thank yous, etc. When I didn’t hear from him after a few months, I called his doctor, just to make sure he was okay. He was, but his doctor said he probably wouldn’t be using email anymore, that it had become too overwhelming for him. Sadly, I never heard from Arnie again.

What did I learn from all this?

I became a better volunteer manager for all volunteers because of Arnie. My descriptions of all tasks for volunteers became much more detailed and explicit. I better emphasized to volunteers that the time to drop out of an assignment was right at the start, and that there will be no hard feelings for doing so before the commitment has begun. I started reserving a diversity of tasks specifically for volunteers, and for my own list of tasks, I would always ask, could volunteers help me do any of this? I tried to identify a range of very simple starter assignments, so that new volunteers would not feel overwhelmed — or, if they did, they would know that online volunteering was not for them very early on. I look very much into what a volunteer can do, not what limitations a volunteer may have. I also learned that everyone, people with disabilities and otherwise, screen themselves when it comes to assignments, and it’s rare that someone will ask to volunteer for a task they are unqualified to do.

Since Arnie, I’ve worked with other volunteers with disabilities, though often, I haven’t been aware of such, since online volunteering often masks any disabilities a person may have. I can judge people online only by their abilities, rather than their appearance, if I stick to text-only communications.

When I’m working at a nonprofit organization, I involve volunteers not to save money, not to do what I can’t pay staff to do, but rather, to involve the community in the work of my organization, to create an army of advocates for our work, and to make my work more interesting with input from many more people. I’ll continue to strive to create inclusive programs, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because, in the end, it helps me be a better contributor.

2014 update:

vvbooklittleThe influence of this experience, and many others, as well as extensive research, can be found in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. This book, which I wrote with Susan J. Ellis, is our attempt to document all of the best practices of working with online volunteers, from the more than three decades that virtual volunteering has been happening. It’s available both in traditional print form and in digital version. If you read the book, I would so appreciate it if you could write and post a review of it on the Amazon and Barnes and Noble web sites (you can write the same review on both sites).

There’s also The Virtual Volunteering Wiki: a free resource featuring a curated list of news articles about virtual volunteering since 1996, an extensive list of examples of virtual volunteering activities, a list of myths about virtual volunteering, the history of virtual volunteering, a list of research and evaluations of virtual volunteering, a list of online mentoring programs, and links to web sites and lists of offline publications related to virtual volunteering in languages in other than English.

And there’s also our LinkedIn Group for the discussion of virtual volunteering.

Also see: Safety in virtual volunteering

Short-term tasks for tech volunteers

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There are a variety of ways for nonprofits, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), schools, government agencies and other mission-based organizations to involve volunteers to help with short-term projects relating to computers and the Internet, and short-term assignments are what are sought after most by potential “tech” volunteers. But there is a disconnect: most organizations have trouble identifying short-term tech-related projects.

Back in 2005, myself and by members of TechSoup Global’s Volunteers and Technology online discussion group brainstormed a list of short-term projects for tech volunteers. I’ve added a lot to it over the years – and just updated the list yet again this week.

These one-time, short-term volunteering assignments might takes a few days, a couple of weeks or maybe a month to complete. But each has a definite start date and end date, shouldn’t go on longer than a month (maybe two) and does not require a volunteer to make an ongoing commitment to the organization – once an assignment is done, the volunteer can move on to another assignment, or stop volunteering with the organization altogether.

There are also many long-term, ongoing assignments for tech volunteers, of course, such as web design, web site management, being on-call for tech problems, backing up systems, producing live online events, etc. But before an organization involves volunteers in such high-commitment endeavors, the organization should consider creating a few short-term assignments, to get used to working with tech volunteers and to help staff identify the best candidates for longer-term assignments.

Tags: volunteering, volunteers, episodic, microvolunteer, microvolunteering, engagement, engage, community, outreach, staff, employees, civil society, technology, help, IT, ICT, ICTs

People not following-through on volunteering in disasters

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The state of Queensland, Australia suffered from horrific floods in December 2010 and January 2011. Thousands of Australians expressed interest in volunteering, inundating volunteer centers and online message boards.

Recently, Volunteering Queensland offered this Submission to Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry, which said, in part:

QUEENSLAND’S peak volunteer organisation says the vast majority of people who registered to help clean up following the floods and cyclone Yasi backed off at the last minute.

Some people backed out because they realized this was a real commitment of time, and they couldn’t make that real commitment. Some dropped out because they could not donate a significant amount of time – an hour or two when you might have some time eventually is usually not enough for such a situation. Some backed out because they really were not prepared to volunteer (they hadn’t set up child care, time off from work, transportation, etc.).

Seasoned volunteer managers, of course, aren’t surprised. Even in a non-disaster situation, we have come to expect at least 50 percent of people who express interest in volunteering to drop out. That’s why many volunteer managers, including myself, insist on at least a bit of screening before a volunteer is placed into an assignment, so that drop outs happen in the screening process, not after the assignment is given and we’re counting on those volunteers.

Martin Cowling has done a great blog about this Queensland report, and I encourage you to head over to it, read it, read the comments (yes, I’ve commented there) and respond yourself.

Here is a resource I created following the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, Volunteering To Help After Major Disasters, which I’ve regularly updated at least monthly every since, per the over-whelming number of posts to places like YahooAnswers by people who want to volunteer following a disaster (earthquake, hurricane, tornado, tropical storm, flood, tsunami, oil spill, zombies, etc.). It’s become one of the most popular pages on my web site, despite being posted as almost an after-thought and being focused on people that the majority of my web site is not focused on (it’s not even linked from my home page!).

Tags: volunteering, volunteers, relief, disaster, response, spontaneous, episodic, microvolunteer, microvolunteering. communications, public relations, engagement, engage, community, nonprofit, NGO, not-for-profit, government, outreach, staff, employees, civil society, floods, tornadoes

 

Corporation for National and Community Service needs a makeover?

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Paula Beugen was a part of the movement that lead to the National and Community Service Act of 1990 and the Corporation for National and Community Service. But she is now one of many that is not happy about where the Corporation is today:

In sharp contrast to the excitement that I felt when the Act of 1990 first got the ball rolling to create the Corporation and its programs, I now find myself greatly concerned with the Corporation’s lack of impact on volunteer infrastructure and volunteering. Today, the Corporation is struggling for survival – but does it need a serious makeover no matter what funding level Congress approves for it? 

Of particular concern to her – and to many others, including myself – is the recent emphasis the Corporation has placed on deploying AmeriCorps members as “mobilizers of community volunteers.” As Paula notes:

I have observed a dearth of positions for professional managers of volunteer programs in recent years at the same time the Corporation has been promoting and placing AmeriCorps members as volunteer coordinators. There is an important role for AmeriCorps volunteer coordinators to augment the work of volunteer resources managers within organizations but not to take their place.

Little has been done to educate policymakers that there is more to volunteer resources management than “coordinating” volunteers. This works great in the short run, but the long-term sustainability of results-driven volunteer programs requires substantive investment in volunteer resources management infrastructure… AmeriCorps members can be of enormous help to volunteer-involving organizations, but they cannot substitute for experienced volunteer resources leaders with ongoing commitment to best practices in the volunteer resources management profession.  

These quotes are from Paula’s guest turn for the Energize June Hot Topic. It is very much worth your time to read.

I’ve had my own complaints about the Corporation. I complained repeatedly when their “Reimaging Service” report equated volunteer management with human resources management, and became a drive to apply private sector human resources practices to nonprofit organizations: “there’s a lot of work to be done; let’s get people we don’t have to pay to do it!” They ultimately backed off saying this, though it’s obvious from their actions that they still think it. I hesitate to participate in their invitations to voluntarily consult, because not only will my concerns probably not be addressed, they might use my participation to say, “Look, see, this strategy is the result of a consultive process – and look at all these people who contributed to our final strategy!” with no mention of the criticisms I and others have brought up. (in international development, this is called being World Banked).

I hope you will blog about this issue as well. Online pressure is as vital as face-to-face, offline pressure to keep the Corporation on track!

What is impressive, what is not

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Things I’m not impressed by:

  • How many Facebook “likes” or “friends” your organization has
  • How many times your organization “tweets” or your tweet has been retweeted
  • That your organization received an “award” from one of your VENDORS
  • That you “gave up” a corporate career to work in the nonprofit sector
  • How many hours your volunteers contributed last year
  • How many hours of overtime your organization’s employees work most weeks
  • That you are hiring a Rock Star-anything (Rock Star Membership Coordinator, Rock Star Social Media Manager) unless you are PAYING a Rock Star salary and providing Rock Star benefits.
  • Your web site’s use of stock photos
  • That your new web site is coming soon and all your descriptions of how great it’s going to be.

Things I am impressed by:

  • Online activities leading to offline action
  • How your organization handles negative comments on your Facebook page
  • That your organization was recognized by your Governor’s volunteering awards
  • That your tweet last week resulted in a $5000 donation (or more) than you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise
  • What your volunteers accomplished last year, in terms of tangible results (literacy among your clients increased, trees planted, perceptions changed, legislation passed, etc.)
  • Volunteers in leadership positions at your organization (leading a project, serving on an advisory board regarding marketing and outreach, producing a publication or online video, etc.)
  • Happy employees that love going to work and supporting each other, that love collaborating internally and sharing information and resources with each other
  • A competitive salary and benefits package for employees
  • Photos of your own organization’s actual volunteers or clients, however out-of-focus such may be
  • That your new web site is launched, on time, that it’s easy to navigate, that I can quickly find what I’m looking for without having to sit through a video or shut down your blaring audio that starts up automatically, that it works with any browser, and that you obviously incorporated the suggestions of others into the new design.

 

Recruiting board members with LinkedIn?

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On LinkedIn, in the Answers section for nonprofits, someone asked:

How can a non-profit recruit board members through LinkedIn?

Recruiting board members successfully comes from a lot of ongoing cultivation. Using LinkedIn or any other online networking tool to recruit board members has to be a part of a comprehensive, ongoing strategy that involves a lot of different activities, IMO.

It not only doesn’t work to just post somewhere and say, “Hey, we need some board members!”, it also makes it sound like you don’t treat board membership seriously.

The following suggested activities to recruit board members will show that you are a competent, credible, transparent organization, and will give candidates an idea of how seriously you take your organization’s work and how well you support your board members. It also shows you aren’t looking for just anyone. Board membership is an honor, a leadership volunteering opportunity, and should be treated as such in your recruitment!

Start with your web site:

  • Have a full description of what board members do, what weekly or monthly time requirements a board member is committing to (onsite meetings once a month? online meetings once a week?) and for how long (a year? two years?), if attendance to a certain number of meetings is mandatory (IMO, you should always have such a requirement if you want board members to take attenance seriously), if board members are expected to give or raise a certain amount of money each year (you don’t need to say how much on your web site; you can leave that to an interview later), etc.
  • Note on your web site how many board members you are looking for. Two? Three to six?
  • Have photos of your board in action, and a list of all current board members with short bios about each – not just what companies and constiuencies they represent, but also, a personal statement from each about why they volunteer for your organization, why they think such is important, etc.
  • Have complete details on how someone could nominate themselves as a board member, or how they could suggest someone for possible nomination. Make this process super easy.

This information on your organization’s web site is not an afterthought. They are super-important steps that they show how much your organizaton values board members. This information will wow a potential candidate. It will also screen out people who don’t understand the very real commitment of board membership.

Then talk to your current board and map exactly what will happen when a nomination comes in:

  • What research will be done on a candidate, and who will do that research? How and when will a candidate be interviewed, and who will do that interview?
  • What questions will be asked in that interview?
  • What will be the reasons to turn a nominee away, and how will this rejection be communicated?
  • If you turn away a board member, will you encourage that person to volunteer in other ways? (advisory board? volunteer project leader? special events volunteer?)

And once you have done all of these steps, you are ready to:

  • post this leadership volunteering opportunity (that’s what board membership is!) to BoardNetUSA, VolunteerMatch, etc., pointing back to your web site with complete details about what board membership really looks like
  • post something about the opportunity on your own, individual LinkedIn status update for your network (you may want to do this more than once)
  • ask each of your existing board members to do the same on their status updates on LinkedIn, to reach their network
    if it’s appropriate 
  • ask all of your volunteers to post about the opportunity to their LinkedIn status updates as well, if they feel comfortable doing such
  • do the same on Facebook, if it’s appropriate – but note that Facebook is a social networking site, and many people don’t like mixing their business or volunteering with their social activities.

If you have a Come learn about our organization event/open house, list it on the events function of LinkedIn as well, and make sure all staff, board members and other volunteers that will attend RSVP on LinkedIn, so that all of their connections see the attendance, and ask all board members and staff to mention the event in their status updates as well.

Also, look for LinkedIn groups that are regionally-focused on your geographic area; these can be focused on business, on a particular issue, on on someone else’s group, etc. Some of these LinkedIn groups may be appropriate for posting about your board opportunities (most won’t be, but it’s worth it to look). You can also troll those groups and look for people that you think would be great board members based on the quality and content of their posts, and the ask your board member, your staff, your other volunteers and your own professional network if anyone knows a person you’ve identified as a potential candidate and if anyone in your network would be willing to make the initial invitation to an open house or event so that person can get to know your organization.

After three-six months, evaluate your efforts. How many inquiries did you receive? How many formal nominations did you receive? How many new board members have joined or are in process? If people dropped out of the process after expressing interest or being nominated, why did they? If people were rejected, why were they rejected? In answering these questions, you will know what adjustments you need to make in your board recruitment – on LinkedIn and otherwise!

And one final thought: what a great volunteering opportunity it would be for someone to be in charge of this board recruitment process! You could recruit a volunteer just to do all of the above for six months. Designate one staff member to be the primary contact and support person for such a volunteer, and start recruiting just for this position first! There are so many university students studying nonprofit management, business management, HR management, or any number of other subjects, as well as people who are job-hunting, who would love to be able to put on their résumé: instituted and managed a successfully recruitment campaign for such-and-such organization, resulting in three new board members.

Governor’s Volunteer Awards Coming Soon

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In many states in the USA, the governor of that state has an annual event to recognize outstanding volunteer efforts. There are lots of categories of recognition for these award programs: for an outstanding senior volunteer, a youth group of volunteers, an individual youth volunteer, a corporate volunteering program, a life-time volunteer, and more. And in many of these states, like Oregon, applications are being accepted NOW.

(I just wish these award programs all also recognized outstanding volunteer managers – those who recruit, support and supervise volunteers, and make volunteer engagement possible!)

Some of these governor’s award programs also award people and groups on the regional level. And many of these award programs have trouble getting enough nominees to give an award in every category.

To find out if your state has such an award’s program, go to Google and use these searches:

  • yourstatename governor volunteer award (such as Kentucky Governor Volunteer Award)
  • yourstatename volunteer award (such as Oregon Volunteer Award)
  • yourstatename community service volunteer award (such as Iowa Governor Volunteer Award)

If your state never comes up in the search of any of those phrases, your state probably doesn’t have a state award for volunteers (and maybe you should start a petition so they do!).

I served as a judging panelist for the Governor’s Volunteer Awards in Texas in 1999; my category was group volunteering. I was also a judge for the National Volunteer Awards by Women in Community Service (WICS) (part of JobCorps) in 1998 and a member of the 1995-96 San Jose (California) Festival, Parade and Celebration Grant Review Committee. Having read so many applications for these awards – as well as reviewing more grant applications over the years than I care to say – I know what things that you need to include in a nomination form to make sure your effort gets considered for a governor’s award:

  1. Follow the nomination form guidelines precisely. Read the directions carefully and provide every piece of information asked for.
  2. Don’t just focus on number of hours done. What difference did this volunteer effort make? What is different now because of this volunteer effort? Answer this question in detail: So what? If you can include any hard data that proves you made a difference – changed minds and perceptions, a reduction in crime or pollution or hunger, an increase in something good like people people able to read or dogs being adopted – that better ensures your nomination form will go somewhere.

And don’t think this is a wasted effort if your nomination doesn’t get recognized; for students, you now have great information to use on scholarship and university applications. Nonprofits, you now have great information to feature on your web site and in funding proposals. You also have some fantastic information to blog about!

All this comes to mind because the Oregon Governor’s Volunteer Awards are now accepting nominations. A cash award of up to $500 will be given by presenting sponsor Wells Fargo to a non-profit of choice for each state and regional volunteer award recipient.

And unlike other governor’s award ceremonies I’ve been to, the Oregon awards ceremony is focused ON THE VOLUNTEERS. There are no high-profile guests, no long speeches by politicans – it’s all about hearing about the difference the award winners have made (are you listening California? Or Texas?).

Helping Southern states in the USA

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Disaster is striking in the American Southeast. Recent tornadoes and current flooding have brought devastation and heartache to many parts of the South, and messages are everywhere on various online communities, asking how to help. There is an incredible amount of misinformation being posted about how to help as well.

If you want to help the states affected by recent tornadoes and current flooding in the USA, you can:

  • Watch the news, and when you hear a county name for a state that is being affected, or a city name, look up the American Red Cross chapter, or the local Humane Society/ASPCA/animal welfare organization serving that area on Google. Most of these will have a web site that allows you do donate directly to the organization. The Red Cross provides emergency housing and various other emergency services to local people, but usually doesn’t allow pets in their emergency shelters; local animal shelters are struggling with abandoned pets and pets that aren’t allowed into emergency shelters. Your donations provide desperately needed funds to help both food and animals! The Red Cross estimates that it will spend as much as $31 million responding to these recent disasters; you can donate to the national chapter, but many feel better donating directly to chapters serving an affected area.
  • If you want to volunteer in a disaster-affected area, you need to be entirely self-funded and self-sufficient, formally affiliated with a credible organization, and have full approval of that organization to go to the area and serve as a volunteer. People affected by these disasters need to be protected from unscrupulous people who may use this situation to take advantage of others (it’s already happening), and people affected by these disasters deserve trained people who won’t end up having to be cared for themselves because they are woefully unprepared (yes, it happens). Here’s much more about the realities of volunteering to help after major disasters.
  • Unless you have read on a web site by an organization in the affected area that they are accepting donations of food and clothing, do NOT start gathering food and clothing for the affected area. It’s often much cheaper – and much safer – for a relief organization to buy food and ship it to an area, knowing they are buying exactly what’s needed, knowing the food is not spoiled, knowing it’s appropriate, etc., than to ask for donations and have to spend endless hours figuring out what food is usable, what is not, and trying to put together meals based on what is donated. If you are determined to donate items for an affected area, then call the local Red Cross and local communities of faith in the affected area and ask if they will accept what you are gathering to donate. And be prepared to drive to the area yourself – no one is going to come pick them up from you, as they are much too busy dealing with disaster victims. Also, note that organizations are saying they CANNOT handle any more used toys or cast-off clothing (they would prefer cleaning supplies and diapers!). More on donating things instead of cash or time (in-kind contributions).
  • You can also look at the web sites of high schools serving these affected areas; if they are in need of something (prom dresses, school supplies, etc.), they will say so directly on their web site.

Obviously, donating financially is the way to go if you really want to help. Even just $10 will help – and, yes, you can afford $10 (don’t buy coffee shop coffee for a few days, make your lunch for a few days, don’t eat from any restaurants all week, reduce your cable package subscription to the most basic for a month or two, etc.).

Use this as an incentive to call your local American Red Cross, right now, and start getting training for disaster in your own area. Why not at least call and attend the next volunteer orientation? There’s no obligation to volunteer just for attending the orientation!

Tags: nonprofit, NGO, not-for-profit, outreach, disaster, volunteer, tornado, flood, earthquake, tsunami, volunteers, donations, donate, canned goods, clothing, clothes

With Volunteers, See No Evil?

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There are a lot of people out there who are offended at the idea of standards or policies for volunteers – like asking a candidate for volunteering to go through a screening interview or to make a work plan to show how many hours a new volunteer will commit each week or month. Or requiring volunteers to submit a progress report each week or month. Or having rules for volunteers and suspending volunteers who violate those rules.

But you should accept anyone who wants to help! they tell me in my workshops or on online message boards. I’m a volunteer & you should just be GRATEFUL I’m here!

Or they say something along the lines of this that I heard from someone I asked about how safety is maintained at their community computer center: Our patrons are all members-of-a-certain-religion-I-won’t-name-here, so we can trust them and there is no need to worry they will do something inappropriate. Yeah, because members of a religion are super-trustworthy, especially around children…

One volunteer manager told me that she would never have standards for the volunteers at her agency: our volunteers would be offended and leave if you gave them rules to follow – and really, they are working for free, shouldn’t that be enough?

Volunteers are not super-human. They are not automatically good, without any bad intentions or temptations. They may, indeed, have wonderful hearts and want to help people – and they may also be really tempted by that cash box you leave open on the bottom shelf. Volunteers are merely human, no matter what their age, no matter what their professed value system, and therefore, volunteers come with all the usual human short-comings.

If you involve volunteers, you owe it to your nonprofit organization, your NGO, your agency, your program — whatever — as well as your clients and your fellow staff members, to ensure that everyone is focused on the mission of your organization and that you have procedures in place to keep everyone safe and resources in place. Should your organization or program — and your clients — settle for anything less?!

I was reminded of this while listening to an episode of This American Life this weekend: it’s called See No Evil, and you can listen to it for free on the This American Life web site. The description for the episode says,

When things are awkward or uncomfortable or distressing, a lot of times it’s easier to not think about it. This week we have stories of people pretending that everything is okay and ignoring the awful stuff that’s staring them straight in the face. Including a story of deceit and intrigue involving commemorative spoons from the Kennedy Center.

The story that got my attention in particular was Act Three: “I Worked at the Kennedy Center and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.” The description says:

In the 1970s, Dave Kestenbaum’s cousin Dan Weiss got promoted from stocker to gift shop manager at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC. It was a good job… except for the fact that the place was bleeding cash because of apparent embezzlement. The gift shop staff? Almost all senior citizen volunteers.

Listen to the story, and then offer comments below here on my blog. And, no, I’m not singling out senior citizen volunteers, and I’ll delete any comment that implies or says that I am. Those volunteers could have been ANY age and the results would have been the same.

Improving Lives in Rural Communities with ICTs?

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May 17 will mark World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD). To celebrate, NetSquared is using this year’s theme, “Better Life in Rural Communities with ICTs,” to guide the Net2 Think Tank question for May!

NetSquared (Net2) is gathering examples of and ideas for communications technologies – phones, smart phones, computers, Internet, etc. – improving lives in rural communities. Entries will get pulled together for the next Net2 Think Tank Round-Up.

How is your initiative bridging the information divide and what are your tips for others? What are your tactics and best practices for helping rural communities using computer, Internet and mobile technology? And which projects are already doing this well? Share your projects and ideas with the NetSquared Community! Deadline: Saturday, May 21, 2001.

How to contribute:

The roundup of contributions will be posted on the NetSquared blog on Monday, May 23rd.

Net2 Think Tank is an initiative of TechSoup Global. It is a monthly blogging/social networking event open to anyone and is a great way to participate in an exchange of ideas. Net2 posts a question or topic to the NetSquared community and participants submit responses either on their own blogs, the NetSquared Community Blog, or using social media.  Tag your post with “net2thinktank” and email a link to Net2 to be included. At the end of the month, the entries get pulled together in the Net2 Think Tank Round-Up.

Some things I’ve written related to the subject of phones, smart phones, computers, Internet, etc. – improving lives in rural communities:

Tags: ICT4D, net2thinktank, NetSquared, access