Category Archives: Community / Volunteer Engagement

Volunteer online & make web sites accessible!

Volunteer centers need to re-assert themselves

In 1995, I started volunteering with a new nonprofit organization called Impact Online, which later became VolunteerMatch. Impact Online created one of the first web sites that allowed nonprofit organizations to recruit volunteers. Many organizations faxed their volunteering assignments in to us, because they didn’t have Internet access; I was one of the people who helped type those assignments into the online database (if an organization didn’t have email, potential volunteers called the organization with volunteering opportunities they were interested in). At that time, Impact Online was also trying to promote the very new idea of virtual volunteering; the organization was already involving online volunteers itself, and knew of at least a dozen organizations who were engaged in the practice; it wanted to try to get other organizations to do the same. Two years later, I was working for Impact Online, directing the Virtual Volunteering Project.

Back then, I talked to a lot of volunteer centers about ImpactOnline/VolunteerMatch, trying to encourage them to, in turn, encourage the organizations they worked with to use the web site to recruit volunteers. And most of the replies were along the lines of:

But if organizations use that web site to recruit volunteers, no one will call our volunteer center any more! There will be no need for our volunteer center!

Which, of course, wasn’t true, and I did my best to debunk that fear-based myth. I heard it again from volunteer centers in Germany 10 years later, and I heard it from volunteer centers in Australia just last year! In fact, I still sometimes hear it even here in the USA. Yet, I haven’t heard of any volunteer centers closing because of the many volunteer recruitment web sites out there.

One of the biggest reasons traditional volunteer centers are still needed: many organizations that need volunteers, and potential volunteers themselves, don’t know how to use volunteer recruitment web sites properly. Organizations post poorly-written assignments, or post one mega/general announcement instead of listing individual volunteering opportunities separately (which means potential volunteers cannot find the service opportunities they are looking for). Or the organizations don’t know how to identify volunteering assignments to post to such a site. Organizations don’t understand that they have to reply to people quickly, or the volunteer management protocals they must have in place before they post any assignments. Potential volunteers sign up for opportunities before thinking about what their availability is for volunteering, or need advice on which opportunities would be right for them (if you doubt me, just have a look at YahooAnswers Community Service). Volunteer centers are needed to address all of these issues.

In addition, traditional volunteer centers are needed to

provide expertise to corporations about employee volunteering,
help coordinate group volunteering efforts,
help communities prepare for disaster response with volunteer,
help people who want to serve on a board of directors at a nonprofit,
offer courses in the effective engagement of volunteers,
educate the public – and public officials and even the press – about the importance of volunteerism, to counter myths about volunteer engagement (It’s a great way to save money! Fire your staff and replace them with volunteers!),

and on and on.

So, volunteer centers: quit resisting third party volunteer recruitment web sites. Encourage their use among your clientele, and focus your energies on all of the many areas related to effective volunteer engagement where your expertise is needed!

UK Volunteering Tsar Doesn’t Have Time to Volunteer

voluntourism: use with caution

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An incendiary report by South African and British academics focuses on “orphan tourism” in southern Africa and reveals just how destructive these short-term volunteering programs can be to local people, especially children.

It works like this: Western tourists pay an organization to travel for a few weeks, even several weeks, to a poor but exotic place where foreign volunteers are supposedly needed to help countless abandoned children, giving love and support to desperate young children. Providing an emotional connection with needy young children for a few weeks is at the core of what these voluntourists want to experience.

This report brings up many of the things I do in my own caution about volunteering abroad, such as how these programs can take away local jobs. But in addition, as this report notes:

There are serious concerns about the impacts of short-term caregivers on the emotional and psychological health of very young children in residential care facilities. The formation and dissolution of attachment bonds with successive volunteers is likely to be especially damaging to young children. Unstable attachments and losses experienced by young children with changing caregivers leaves them very vulnerable, and puts them at greatly increased risk for psychosocial problems that could affect their long-term well-being.

VSO UK said a few years ago that young people are often better off backpacking in developing countries, traveling and getting to know local people simply as paying tourists, rather than paying for most “voluntourism” experiences. VSO’s criticisms of paying-to-volunteer companies are absolutely right on:

a lot of young people are exploited by gap-year volunteer charities, being told that they are going to help people when, in reality, the volunteers are just making money for the company by paying for their feel-good experience (and these volunteers could have had just as meaningful experience had they simply traveled in the country as tourists.

A lot of pay-to-volunteer companies cater to the needs of the voluntourist rather than the local communities they claim volunteers will support. The voluntourist gets a feel good experience, but the local people don’t really benefit in any tangible way. These companies can contribute to that old-time colonialist thinking: we’re from the West, and we’re here to help you poor, pathetic people. That’s not a way of thinking that should be cultivated. And I get anywhere from annoyed to enraged by the attitude by many in the west: I’m a good person with a big heart and therefore I should be sent to a poor country, housed and fed, and allowed to cuddle orphaned babies and hug disaster survivors.

In addition, some voluntourists — people who pay for a feel-good experience — are not properly trained, supervised or supported, and are put in dangerous situations and are permanently injured or even killed in accidents that were easily preventable. For instance, a British student was electrocuted while working as a conservation volunteer in Fiji and a panda cub bit off part of the thumb of an American volunteer who was feeding the animal at a reserve in southwest China.

But with all that said, I also believe that not all of the pay-to-volunteer companies out there are misguided or exploitative. There are companies that employ local people in most paid roles with the company, that put the volunteers in positions where the volunteers are learning from local people as much, if not more, than they are teaching/leading/working, that keep volunteers as safe as any tourist to the country can be, and that give volunteers a great (nothing short of great for that amount of money), immersive experience. There are companies that open the eyes of Westerners about the realities of developing countries and what it really takes to transform communities, with volunteers knowing up front that their few days or weeks aren’t going to make any difference in the lives of local people in the long-run, and learning that its their post-trip actions and new knowledge that could make a difference for those local people in the long-run.

Here are directories of short-term volunteering organizations, online and in print, that can help you identify credible programs:

Idealist.org International Volunteerism Resource Center (IVRC) has both advice and links to programs.
There is a listing of the more-than-30 member organizations of the International Volunteers Program Association (IVPA) that is a good place to find reputable volunteer-for-a-fee programs.
For people in the United Kingdom, there’s the Year Out Group, an association of gap-year-abroad organizations that meet certain standards in order to be a member. The Year Out Group does not however organize or arrange year out programs, but it’s a good place to find reputable programs.
There is this web page of a massive number of links to organizations that place volunteers internationally; this is a mixture of organizations that do and don’t charge volunteers for placements.
The Learning Abroad Center Work, Intern, Volunteer (WIV) Database, hosted by the University of Minnesota, allows you to search work, internship and volunteering opportunities all over the globe. There are more than 500 programs to choose from, and you can search by keyword, region, type of program, etc.
The Complete Guide to Finding a Job Overseas, from Transitions Abroad Publishing.
Lonely Planet published the book Volunteer: A Traveler’s Guide to Making a Difference Around the World. It lists and reviews more than 190 organizations that provide short-term volunteer-abroad experiences.

I strongly recommend the book How to Live Your Dream of Volunteering Overseas, by Joseph Collins, Stefano DeZerega, and Zehara Heckscher. It will give you details about what international volunteering really entails, why some organizations require that international volunteers pay, suggestions on how to raise funds for such, and an excellent overview of your options for fee-based overseas volunteering. But best of all, it provides tips and worksheets that can make your volunteering have real impact for the local people, and benefits for you long after the experience is over.

Also see “The possible negative impacts of volunteer tourism” by Daniel A. Guttentag, published 26 March 2009 (fee required – or try your local library).

Here’s THREE endorsements of pay-to-volunteer programs that I will make, but only because I know the people heading these organizations, I know they don’t take just anyone (candidates must have some basic skills), and I know what difference these organizations make for local people (not just how warm and fuzzy they make the participating volunteers feel):

World Computer Exchange

Unite For Sight and its partner eye clinics and communities work to create eye disease-free communities. “While helping the community, volunteers are in a position to witness and draw their own conclusions about the failures and inequities of global health systems. It broadens their view of what works, and what role they can have to insure a health system that works for everyone…” This program was featured on CNN International. Volunteers, both skilled and unskilled, are 18 years and older, and there is no upper age limit. It is obligatory for accepted volunteers to purchase insurance coverage through Unite for Sight’s recommended provider, and volunteers are responsible for all travel arrangements, visa vaccine requirements, lodging, airfare, food, and any additional expenses.

Global Xchange, a program of VSO UK, proclaims proudly, “Looking for a holiday? Look somewhere else.” It’s made up of two programs: Youth Xchange, which gives 18-25 year olds from the United Kingdom the chance to spend six months making a real difference to the lives of disadvantaged people; and Community Xchange, a six-week programme for community workers and practitioners to learn how to help young people become active global citizens, and how to get different cultures interacting with each other and exchanging ideas.

If you have volunteered overseas and paid a fee for the experience, I strongly urge you to offer comments about that company on Yelp or your own blog. Some of the most frequently asked questions on online groups, such as YahooAnswers or The Thorn Tree, are regarding experiences with fee-based volunteering abroad programs. People ask, “Has anyone heard of such-and-such organization, and is it a good idea to use them to go to Africa to volunteer?” You could help others make the right choices by reviewing the company that sent you abroad, on Yelp or any other customer review site.

If you want to volunteer abroad on a short-term gig, and are wondering how you are going to pay the two or three thousand dollars to make it happen (your payment covers transportation in the country, housing, training, staff supervision and support, work permits from the government, and security), see: Funding Your Volunteering Abroad Trip. And buyer beware: ask the tough questions of the company, and ask to speak with at least two people who have volunteered abroad with the company. How the company reacts to your questions will speak volumes about the quality of the company.

If you want to volunteer long-term (six months – two years) in a program that does NOT require you to pay (PeaceCorps, VSO, UNV, etc.), and you are highly-skilled (you speak another language in addition to English, you are a successful professional or business owner who can train others in some areas of your expertise, you have volunteered or worked extensively locally, in your own community, in capacity-building activities, etc.), see this resource. If you aren’t highly-skilled but want to engage in activities over the next few years that will make you a more viable candidate for long-term volunteering programs, this same resource will also help you.

July 17, 2017 update: Charities and voluntourism fuelling ‘orphanage crisis’ in Haiti, says NGO. At least 30,000 children live in privately-run orphanages in Haiti, but an estimated 80% of the children living in these facilities are not actually orphaned: they have one or more living parent, and almost all have other relatives, according to the Haitian government.

June 2025 update: the bulk of the above blog is from 2011. There are still a LOT of unethical voluntourism programs out there. But there ARE ethical programs out there: in fact, I just participated in a voluntourism program myself. And it’s a program that may even have something that’s been missing from some of my professional international development work. Read the blog for more.

Volunteer engagement understood intuitively

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At the series of workshops I was a part of this week, another presenter talked about how instrumental volunteers — young Russians who had studied in the USA at some point — were regarding the success of a recent university fair in Moscow, where representatives of USA universities and potential students were brought together. The volunteers helped the representatives get to and from the fair, helped them at the fair, and took them on customized, personalized guided tours of Moscow. The representatives said in their evaluations of the fair that the volunteers were one of the best parts of their experience, because of the incredible energy and support those volunteers provided.

To someone who was listening who didn’t know much about volunteer engagement, it sounded like these volunteers magically showed up for this event, knew exactly what to say and what was needed, and when the representatives left, then disappeared into the ether. Of course that wasn’t the case at all: talking to the organizer, I found out that the volunteers were recruited from among students with whom he had already been associating and who had already been studying, working and socializing together for at least a few months. He already knew they were great speakers, that they knew how to be helpful to foreigners, that they understood Americans in particular, and that their English was up-to-snuff. So, yes, the volunteers were screened. And, yes, the volunteers received a volunteer orientation that clarified expectations, though that isn’t what the process was called. The volunteers got a t-shirt with the name of the event on the front and the world “Volunteer” on the back, and many representatives insisted on taking photos with “their” volunteer — volunteer recognition. And the volunteers had FUN – they are all asking when they get to do this again

I’m sure the person coordinating this event has never read a volunteer management book or attended a workshop about volunteer engagement. He’s not a part of any online discussion groups for managers of volunteers. He doesn’t call himself a manager of volunteers. Yet, somehow, he intuitively knew all of the elements that are required to engage volunteers and support them so that they can, in turn, support others. I’m sure the volunteers didn’t know they had undergone volunteer screening activities nor attended a volunteer orientation — they had simply had a LOT of fun and got to do something they really wanted to do.

And one more thought: I frequently hear that Eastern European young people just don’t “get” volunteering, that they don’t see why they should provide work for free. Yet this guy had to turn people away who wanted to participate in volunteering to support this event! His organization is a volunteer magnet!

This guy is asking volunteers to do a LOT of work and exude quality in that work.

So…. what does he know that you don’t?

Also see my favorite volunteer engagement resources.

Greetings from Budapest, Hungary!

Peace Corps must better address assaults and murders of members

Volunteer manager Fight Club

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While I don’t believe managers of volunteers are the same as human resources managers, these two professions do have a LOT in common. That’s why I subscribe to the newsletter from workforce.com: they bring such fantastic articles and blogs to my attention that can relate to volunteer engagement.

One of the recent things they brought to my attention is an entry on Fistful of Talent, a blog for “recruiters, HR, consultants and corporate types on all things talent.” It’s by Dawn Hrdlica of DAXKO. She made a list of things HR managers should fight for – or, as she put it, 5 Things to Create a HR Fight Club Over. She says, “you gotta fight openly for these gems.”

I loved the list, and have adapted it for those in charge of volunteer engagement at their organizations. When I’m quoting directly from Ms. Hrdlica, I put the text in colored italics. And I’m encouraging those who manage or coordinate an organization’s volunteer engagement to fight for six things:

Fight for your volunteers: They aren’t yours in the sense that you own them, but they ARE yours in the sense that you are responsible for them, and they are counting on you to have their best interest at heart and to make sure the organization does too! Damn it… fight for them when they aren’t being recognized or listened to. Get their contributions in the annual report and on the web site, and NOT just as “wage replacement” or “money saved.” Bring up their contributions and challenges in staff meetings. Make sure the organization celebrates them just as much as it celebrates financial donors.

Fight for your team: Volunteers aren’t free, and it takes a huge amount of time and resources to ensure their work is meaningful for both your organization and for them. They are doing a whole lot of work behind the scenes that others may not see. It’s up to YOU to make sure that work gets seen by everyone at your organization, especially senior management!
Fight for your time: We are all busy. But if you don’t put the ki-bosh on all the unnecessary noise… you… will… drown. Many of us say, “But to be a good customer service agent I have to, always be available”. You also have to be PRESENT. If you are overwhelmed, interrupted or constantly jump when others say jump… you will not be present. Fight for you-time ’cause no one else will.
Fight for your budget. What gets cut first when things go bad? Volunteer management budgets. Because volunteers are free, right? Your budget must be detailed to show exactly how much time and effort it takes to engage all of the volunteers you have, and you must be able to say what the consequences of cutting your budget will be (less volunteers, and those that are left providing left sources, and numbers to back that up), in terms of real numbers. At least fight for the budget to stay in tact. You may not get it – but at least you can sleep at night knowing you’re not a coward.
Fight for your resources. You need volunteer management software, not just a few lines of data entry on the donor management software. You need interactive features on the volunteer-related pages of your organizations web site. You need to keep your training up-to-date and, therefore, need to go to a conference or workshop that will upgrade your skills. You may need a paid part-time or full-time assistant, or more than one, to be able to involve and support more volunteers at your organization. Don’t let some lame brain tell senior management that the donor software will meet all of your needs, that you can’t have the interactive features on the volunteer-related pages that other departments have with clients and donors because it’s too expensive or not possible (because it’s NOT), and that volunteers are free. And if you need more help, prove why and fight for it. Last but not least:
Fight for your salary. Fundraising managers, donor relations managers and even the HR manager are all making more than you. Why? Those people constantly show how all the things they do are critical to the organization. The organization believes that under-funding or cutting those positions who be disastrous to the organization. In addition, those other staff people are asking for more money and getting it. They are ASKING FOR IT. Pay peanuts… get monkeys. Don’t be a monkey.

Managers of volunteers have reputations of being nice. It’s time to start working towards a reputation of being absolutey necessary. It’s time to join the volunteer management Fight Club!

It’s not the first time I’ve tried to get you all to fight…

Government support re: volunteerism increasing worldwide

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A recent edition of Global Trends in NGO Law, “a quarterly review of NGO legal trends around the world”, published by The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, examines the major international trends in the development of supportive volunteerism policies and legislation over the past decade. In anticipation of the 10 year anniversary of the International Year of Volunteers (IYV+10), the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) program commissioned the report by the ICNL and the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL).

The report finds that since IYV 2001, more than 70 laws and policies on volunteers and volunteering have been adopted in countries around the world. These laws cannot be absolutely attributed to the events surrounding IYV 2001, but it can be said that a growing number of countries are becoming aware of volunteerism in their countries — not just informal activities of neighbors helping neighbors, but volunteers self-organizing or being organized through a non-governmental organization (NGO) to provide certain services, to engage in activities that promote change by government or corporate sectors, etc.

Organized volunteerism isn’t just people being nice and helpful, and efforts to introduce, expand or support volunteerism nationally should keep that in mind. There are some not-so-nice volunteers out there — and while I think they are wonderful, many governments are going to balk when they show up.

In addition, as governments expand their support of volunteerism in their countries, they are going to learn very quickly that volunteers are not all selfless! Volunteers are neither saints nor teddy bears, and fuzzy language about them and their contributions needs to be replaced by more modern and more appropriate language that recognizes their importance, like “powerful” and “intrepid” and “audacious” and “determined.”

And do they understand that volunteers are never free, that successful volunteer engagement requires volunteer management and support – and that such support and management costs money?

It’s also important to take extra care in talking to impoverished people about donating their time for free – there can be a very ugly backlash with the wrong approach. But asking impoverished people to donate their time to free can work!

In short – there are LOTS to consider about expanded promotions of volunteering in countries globally! Let’s hope governments are getting that message as well.

Also see Germany needs 90 thousand volunteers immediately.

Giving the wrong way

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I regularly read the questions posted to the Community Service section of YahooAnswers. It helps me to know what is trending regarding volunteerism, philanthropy, community service, especially among pre-teens and teens.

One of the many things I’ve learned from participating on YahooAnwers is the ongoing misconception people have, particularly in the USA, that collecting items to send abroad is a great idea and something NGOs and international agencies will help you coordinate. Most organizations do not want donated items. There are a number of reasons why:

Donated items can take away desperately needed local jobs. Even donated food can hurt, because how are local farmers supposed to get people to buy their food if a rich country dumps huge amounts of such into a country? There are local people in poor countries barely getting selling clothes, paper, pencils, building supplies and more – and donations of these materials flooding a country can drive them out of business.
Donated items shipped from the USA to another country can cost more to ship than simply buying the materials locally, or closer to the affected area.

That’s why many aid agencies try to buy needed materials and supplies locally, whenever possible, in cities near an area in need of such assistance: it helps the local economy, which is often in tatters because of the crisis, and stretches donor dollars much farther.

In addition, a lot of people want to donate their “gently-used clothes and toys” to people in need, not understanding that even the poorest people want their children to have new clothes and new toys, not people’s cast offs, however “gently-used.” Maybe the last thing they have to hold on to is their dignity.

That isn’t to say people shouldn’t donate used items appropriately: I’m a strong advocate for Goodwill, because it is a secular organization, accepting all people as volunteers and recipients of service, and it is focused on helping people to enter or re-enter the workforce. Goodwill stores aren’t just the places where the organization raises funds for its programs; they are also training grounds for those the organization is trying to help. Volunteers work alongside clients on the sales floor and behind the scenes in inventory.

My friend Ann in Ukraine wrote an awesome blog that talks about how international donations of stuff can be giving the wrong way. She wrote about a US NGO that wanted to send a humanitarian aid shipment to a hospital in a Chornobyl-affected area of Ukraine. It turned into a DISASTER. She isn’t trying to discourage people from giving:

There are extremely important reasons to give to humanitarian aid organizations. They do valuable and critical work, and they are essential in conflict zones, disaster areas and other at-risk places around the globe. I don’t want the “take-away” of this post to be that you should never give to a humanitarian aid organization. You should!

That said, her blogs about her situation with the US NGO will give you wonderful insight into why many NGOs in the developing world just-say-no to material donations.

Do online petitions work?

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Online petitions got off to a very rough start when the Internet went mainstream back in the early 1990s. You may remember one of those early efforts, if you have been on the Internet as long as I have: it was the 1990s, and you got an email written by someone at Brandeis University who wanted to help the women in Afghanistan suffering under the warlords and the Taliban. That email accurately told you about the situation for women in Afghanistan. But the email was inaccurate in suggesting that signing your name to the bottom and forwarding it to all your friends would have any impact on those in power in Afghanistan. The petition’s author was totally unprepared for the consequences of her email petition, and hadn’t thought through how her efforts would pressure any change on a country that had no means to receive her petition, let alone take it seriously. It was one of the earliest forms of Slacktivism or Slackervism – all sorts of people signed it, and I’m sure most of them did nothing else, like giving money to an NGO that was actually trying to help in Afghanistan, because, hey, they signed a petition!

I’ve always wondered what happened to that woman…

Online petitions have evolved since then. While some remain ineffective — just unverifiable names on an online document no one who matters will read — some do generate impact. Online petitions that generate impact have this in common:

They are web-based. People sign them via the web, not email. That puts the petition in ONE place, and makes it easier to find online.
Signers are required to use a verifiable email address (one that actually works), and to submit full names and full mailing addresses.
Each time a supporter signs the petition, an email is automatically sent directly to the person or organization at the government or company being targeted, with the supporter’s full name, full mailing address and his or her message.
Signers receive tools and information to help them talk about the issue via their other online activities, as well as their face-to-face, offline activities with family, friends and colleagues.
Signers are encouraged to take offline action, and are given all the information they need to do this: to make phone calls, to hand write and mail letters through the post, and to contact their elected officials regarding the issue.
The petition has momentum in the media; there are stories in newspapers, on TV, on the radio and in blogs about the issue, and at least some mention the petition drive.

Change.org credits its online petitions with a number of public relations victories on many different issues, including:

After a 5 year old child in North Carolina was sold, raped and murdered at a Comfort Inn, a Change.org petition helped push Choice Hotels ti commit to take steps to protect children from sex trafficking.
A Change.org petition helped pressure Michigan prosecutors to drop bioterrorism charges against an HIV-positive man.
Il Vinaio, a restaurant in Arizona, agreed to stop selling lion meat burgers and made a donation to a local animal shelter after complaints from Change.org members

Here is more about How Change.org petitions work.

I’m quite transparent about my petition activities.

More about Online Action Creating & Supporting Offline Action

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Jayne Cravens / CoyoteBroad Blog

Commentary, resources & discussion re: nonprofits/ngos, communications, community engagement, volunteerism, effective humanitarian aid & development, ethics, women's empowerment & management ethics. Posts at least twice a month, usually on Tuesdays.