Category Archives: Community / Volunteer Engagement

What online community service is – and is not

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There is a for-profit company based in Florida, Community Service Help, Inc., that claims it can match people have been assigned court-ordered community service “with a charity that is currently accepting online volunteers” – for a fee, payable by the person in need of community service. There is no list on the company’s web site about what people do as online volunteers through the company, and no list of “charity partners” that use this service – at least not as of the day I’m posting this blog. There is a list of testimonials from people who have supposedly used the service — testimonials which all sound amazingly the same, as though they were all written by the same person. There is also no listing of the names of the staff people and their credentials to show their experience regarding online volunteering or community service.

I found out about this company because someone was posting about it on YahooAnswers > Community Service in response to anyone who was seeking community service per court order.

I was alarmed for a number of reasons, most of which I’ve noted in the opening paragraph, in bold, and also because online volunteering opportunities are plentiful – so plentiful that it’s nothing short of exploitative to charge people to find them. Here’s just a FEW of the many, many places to find online volunteering (Aug. 14, 2015 clarification: note that this is a list of examples of legitimate virtual volunteering with legitimate nonprofits, and it’s offered to show what online volunteering really looks like; not all of these nonprofits meet the standards required by courts or probation officers for community service):

Distributed Proofreaders. These online volunteers turn public domain books into online books, mostly for Project Gutenberg.

Electronic Emissary, one of the best known and most respected online tutoring programs, where adult volunteers help students in a variety of complex academic-based projects.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Volunteer Monitoring Program
This is a mix of online and remote volunteering. Volunteers collect data from the environments around them and submit the information online to the EPA.

Idealist/Action Without Borders has many of the volunteer tasks listed on its site that are online. To find them, do keyword search using online and virtual. You will have to read each assignment carefully to ensure they are actually virtual.

Extraordinaries, hosts a database of micro-volunteering assignments (tasks that can be completed in around an hour or two) in support of different nonprofit organizations.

Infinite Family, an online mentoring program matching adults and families in the USA with at-risk, impoverished children in South Africa.

LibriVox, a nonprofit that coordinates online volunteers to record audio versions of public domain books.

Nabuur, which recruits online volunteers to support organizations working in or for the developing world.

TestPrepPractice Math Tutors

United Nations Online Volunteering Service lists at least a few hundred online volunteering opportunities at any given time, at organizations working in or for the developing world (not just UN agencies). This is the largest database anywhere of online volunteering opportunities.

VolunteerMatch has many of the volunteer tasks listed on its site tagged as virtual volunteering.

That’s not only a short, not-at-all comprehensive list of organizations that are focused specifically on online volunteers: there are thousands of traditional organizations that involve online volunteers as translators, web page developers, researchers, writers, subject-matter experts (SMEs), pro bono consultants, and on and on (I volunteer with the Girl Scouts, and my service is 90% online; I help with communications issues). And there’s also dozens of organizations that allow volunteers to engage in home-based volunteering, knitting blankets for babies who are HIV positive, or organizing food drives for local free food pantries or local animal shelters, and on and on. (Aug. 14, 2015 clarification: note that the aforementioned is a list of examples of legitimate virtual volunteering with legitimate nonprofits, and it’s offered to show what online volunteering really looks like; not all of these nonprofits meet the standards required by courts or probation officers for community service. You can find a comprehensive listing of where to find legitimate online volunteering here, but note that not all nonprofits, online or onsite with traditional volunteer engagement, can accommodate court-ordered community service folks)

So, of course, I was alarmed to find a for-profit company charging people for access to online volunteering opportunities when such opportunities are so freely and easily accessible. In addition, there is no guarantee that an agent of the court will accept online service as fulfillment of community service; I have been approached by dozens of people who want to volunteer online for community service fulfillment, and when I’ve told them to get permission from the court first, they call or email back to say the judge or probation officer refused, because the judge or probation officer felt there was not enough monitoring/supervision. Even so, many courts have been open to the idea, so long as the nonprofit or government agency that will involve the online volunteer can provide proof that the person really did the hours needed.

(I’ve been lucky enough to have involved some court-ordered folks as online volunteers – and I have to say that all of them have ended up volunteering for more hours than they were required to do.)

I started investigating this company immediately. I contacted several associations of nonprofits, including the Florida Association of Nonprofit Organizations (FANO), a couple of DOVIAs (directors of volunteers in agencies) in Florida and various colleagues that research volunteering, including online volunteering. Not one had ever heard of this organization. So I filed a notice with the Florida State Attorney General’s cyberfraud division. The Consumer Services Department of Miami-Dade County began its investigation in December.

Today, the owner of Community Service Help, Inc. called me because of the investigation. He wanted to explain what his company does. And what does his company do? A person pays him $30, and he gives you access to online videos that are supposed to help you be a better person. You do not perform any community service at all; you watch videos. The company’s representative was adamant that watching videos is community service — and that watching them online makes it online community service. The people who use his service do no activities other than watching videos as their “community service.” Through a nonprofit organization in Michigan, he arranges for paperwork to be sent to the court or probation officer that says the paying customer has completed the “community service” and how many hours they spent doing such.

Of course, watching videos is not community service. Court-ordered community service offline looks like this. Or this. Community service involves activity, it involves engagement, it involves an action to do something that needs to be done and that actually helps the community or a cause. Note that there’s no mention at all on these real community service pages regarding watching videos to fulfill court-ordered community service.

Online community service activities look just like online volunteering activities – and also don’t involve watching videos, outside of a person training to be, say, an online volunteer mentor or, perhaps, judging videos that have been submitted to a nonprofit or government agency for some kind of contest. Or maybe watching videos to find information an organization is looking for as part of the person’s online research assignment.

One can only imagine what the paperwork that Community Service Help, Inc. submits to the court or a probation office, or that is submitted by its mysterious “charity partners,” says that the person actually did to complete his or her community service hours (good luck finding an example of such online). I’m sure the judges or probation officers have no idea that all the person did to complete his or her hours was to pay a fee and watch videos on his lap top or smart phone (or, at least, someone watched those videos — who knows who!), that there was no completion of an actual activity that helps a nonprofit, a government agency or those such agencies serve.

The further shock is that, as I’ve researched, there seems to be many of these organizations charging people who have been assigned court-ordered service for freely-available information and resources! Another one is Community Service 101, which charges a monthly fee for users to track and report their hours – something they could do for free on a shared GoogleDoc spreadsheet. There’s also this nonprofit, Facing the Future With Hope, which also offers to find online community service, for a fee. Note that neither web site offers any examples of what online volunteers actually do, what nonprofits actually involve these online volunteers, etc.

While I have no issue with a nonprofit organization, or even a government agency, charging a volunteer — a person who is helping on his or her own, or because a court or school is requiring such — to cover expenses (materials, training, staff time to supervise and support the volunteer, criminal background check, etc.), I have a real problem with companies charging people for freely-available information, and for judges and probation officers accepting online community service that consists of a person watching videos.

If it’s a for-profit company, you should be able to find on their web site:

  • A list of courts, by name, city and state, that have accepted community service arranged through this company (not just “courts in Florida”, but “the circuit court of Harpo County, Florida”
  • A list about specific activities that people do as volunteers through the company
  • A list of “charity partners” or nonprofit partners or government agency partners that use this service
  • The names of staff and their credentials to show their experience regarding online volunteering or community service.
  • A list of all fees – specific dollar amounts
  • A scan of a letter they have provided to a court, a probation officer, a school, a university, etc. (with the contact name for the person blocked out, ofcourse), so you know exactly what the organization says to confirm community service.
  • A list of every court, school and university that has accepted the community service hours this company has ever arranged for anyone.

If it’s a non-profit company, you should be able to find on their web site:

  • Their most recent annual report that notes their income and expenditures for their last fiscal year
  • The names of the board of directors
  • The names of staff and their credentials to show their experience regarding online volunteering or community service.
  • A list of courts, by name, city and state, that have accepted community service arranged through this company (not just “courts in Florida”, but “the circuit court of Harpo County, Florida”
  • A list about specific activities that people do as volunteers through the nonprofit organization
  • A list of “charity partners” or nonprofit partners or government agency partners that use this service
  • A list of all fees – specific dollar amounts
  • A scan of a letter they have provided to a court, a probation officer, a school, a university, etc. (with the contact name for the person blocked out, ofcourse), so you know exactly what the organization says to confirm community service.
  • A list of every court, school and university that has accepted the community service hours this company has ever arranged for anyone.

Good look trying to find this information on the pay-a-fee-for-community-service sites named on this blog.

Will organizations that claim to represent the community service sector such as the Corporation for National Service or AL!VE, investigate? And take a stand? Stay tuned…

November 6, 2012 update: I just got got email from a TV reporter in Atlanta, Georgia who used my blogs about this scam to create this excellent video about this scam and the people behind it. Thanks Atlanta Fox 5!

February 2013 update: Here’s the latest on what’s going on with this company.

2014 update: The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook offers detailed advice that would help any court understand how to evaluate the legitimacy of an online volunteering program. It’s geared towards nonprofits who want to involve volunteers, but any court or probation officer would find it helpful, as more and more people assigned community service need legitimate, credible online volunteering options.

August 14, 2015 update: this company continues to try to lure people with false promises about online community service. I have info on how they attempt to harass me online, and the blog links to all of the blogs I’ve written about this and other countries to date, including accounts of people whose community service through this company was rejected by the court.

July 6, 2016 update: the web site of the company Community Service Help went away sometime in January 2016, and all posts to its Facebook page are now GONE. More info at this July 2016 blog: Selling community service leads to arrest, conviction

Also see:

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

This blog is one of the most popular I have ever written. However, all of the time and effort that has gone into researching this topic and sharing what I’ve learned here has been entirely unfunded – I’ve done it entirely as a volunteer. f 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.

Being emotionally ready to volunteer – or to continue volunteering

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graphic representing volunteers

Culture Matters is an online curriculum specifically developed by the Peace Corps to help newly-accepted members acquire some of the knowledge and skills they will need to work successfully and respectfully in other cultures. It’s not just about cultural sensitive or cultural awareness, however; it’s also about knowing what to do when one is personally stressed out, feeling overwhelmed, etc. It’s a combination of self-evaluation and self-strategizing. It not only helps to build volunteers’ awareness of how to handle a variety of challenges, it also might help to screen out people who are not emotionally nor mentally prepared, or not emotionally resilient enough, to serve overseas.

Even if your volunteers are not going overseas, they can face feelings of isolation, stress, even fear, especially if they are in high responsibility or high-stress roles, such as

  • counseling women who have been abused (including rape victims)
  • fighting fires
  • providing emergency health care
  • participating in search and rescue missions
  • counseling low-income people regarding financial management
  • repeatedly communicating about a controversial issue that often incites hostility among some audiences
  • working in a facility that houses abandoned animals
  • mentoring high school students
  • serving food to people who could not eat otherwise
  • working with clients in a hospice program
  • helping at a free clinic
  • leading entire teams for a high-profile project
  • providing services to people who have lost everything to a fire or natural disaster
  • providing services to crime victims
  • training people in activities related to any of the above

Volunteers in these and other situations may need mental and emotional health support — activities that will relieve stress, address emotional conflicts, and help them explore how to balance work, volunteering, family and social activities. Otherwise, you risk volunteer burnout, or volunteers providing sub-par service.

Creating such an online curriculum for your own volunteers can be as easy as finding or recruiting a volunteer to interview current and previous volunteers, compiling their feedback into a draft curriculum, and then asking the volunteers to offer edits and suggestions. What a great assignment for someone looking for an internship as a part of their university studies, a retired human resources professional looking to volunteer for a limited task at your organization, someone who wants a project that will look great on their résumé, and on and on.
As part of creating your online curriculum for volunteers to help them handle stress, map resources in your community that can support your volunteers’ health and mental well-being. These can include:

  • communities of faith and secular/ethical societies
  • debt counseling services
  • for-profit and non-profit exercise clubs (private health clubs, the YMCA and YWCA, community pools, T’ai Chi clubs in the park, yoga classes, sports clubs. etc.)
  • centers for aging/senior support
  • free and low-cost health clinics

Also, develop a list of “escape hatches” — lists of of free or very low-cost places nearby where your local volunteers can get away, relax and recharge. This can be a list of nearby city, state and national parks, a list of cinemas in the area, places to get a massage, a manicure, a pedicure or a facial, dance studios, golf courses (even miniature golf courses), art museums, and on and on. If you visit each of these places, you may be able to establish discounts with these organizations for your volunteers.

Provide information about these resources (web site address, physical address, hours of operation, etc.) to all volunteers. Provide the information via a regular group meeting, and/or via your online community. Put brochures for these resources in a place where volunteers take breaks. You can also use the information in one-on-one situations, but the information should be provided to all volunteers, not just those you think might need it.

Provide information on how to reach these places by mass transit and by bike — or provide web site URLs where your volunteers can find this information.

Compiling all of the above information and putting it together on an internal web site or on paper, or gathering brochures from all these various different sites and making a display of them in a staff break room, is a great task for a volunteer.

Even if most of your volunteers don’t take advantage of these free and low-cost services, think of the message you are sending to your volunteers by providing this information: that you value them and their health, that you understand that their volunteering activities can be stressful, and that your organization CARES. What a powerful form of volunteer recognition.

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.

Germany needs 90 thousand volunteers immediately

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(Gehen Sie für diese Abhandlung auf Deutsch hinab)

Germany is getting rid of its compulsory military and community service for young men, and German hospitals, retirement homes, hostels, Red Cross chapters, agencies serving people with disabilities, and other social service and community agencies across the country are deeply worried about how they will now staff their organizations.

For more than 40 years, young German men, age 18 to 20, were drafted into military service — it was originally a two year commitment, but over the years, it was reduced to 15 months, then reduced to 12 months, and most recently, reduced to six. The reductions have been a result of cost-cutting. Men could substitute community service at German social service agencies for military service; the community service commitment was usually a bit longer, by a few months, than the military service. Men who opted for community service instead of military service are known in Germany colloquially as “Zivis.”

But the days of compulsory service — and the Zivis — are over as of 2011. Hundreds of charities across Germany that have relied on almost 100,000 conscripts to run their organizations are bracing for a severe labor shortage. Many charities don’t believe they will be able to find enough volunteers willing to do the grunt work that Zivis have done – washing dishes, cleaning rooms, preparing meals, etc.

Can Germany recruit 90,000 volunteers to replace Zivis? Yes – but it will take a sweeping, fundamental rethinking of how Germany charities perceive the role of volunteers, and a LOT of training and support to implement this new thinking.

Germany already understands the value of volunteers in fire fighting. Germany has the most volunteer fire fighters, per capita, of any country in the world. In Germany, for a community served by volunteer firefighters, the first truck must arrive within eight minutes. Volunteer firefighters train alongside professional firefighters — there is no two-tiered training system, one for professionals and one for volunteers. Volunteers stay for years, not just weeks or months. And volunteer fire fighters fight fires, protecting humans, businesses and property. Yes, they also do grunt work, but they also fight fires. Whether they know it or not, Germany already trusts volunteers with critical services; Germany needs to build on that for other community services.

The place to start: German charities need to involve volunteers in more than grunt work:

    • They need to think about volunteers in the ways organizations here in the USA that are staffed primarily by volunteers do. Volunteers deliver the majority of services provided by the American Red Cross and the Girl Scouts of the USA, for instance, staffing not just the grunt work but leadership positions as well. Many of their volunteers stay for years, not just weeks or months, because they do much more than grunt work. Volunteering varies across cultures in many aspects, but one thing that is always the same, culture-to-culture, country-to-country: volunteers want to feel like the work they are doing is critical, not just nice, but necessary.
  • In addition, volunteering needs to be tied to high school and university work, where appropriate, giving students practical experience applying what they are learning in classrooms — service learning. Certain community service should earn the volunteer high school or university class credit.

To make this transformation possible, however, will take intensive, advanced volunteer management training for charities, for universities and for government agency staff. It also may mean paying people to do the grunt work, while reserving positions with high levels of responsibility for volunteers – that’s a radical way of thinking for many people.

I trained a few times in Germany, and I was taken aback at how far behind the country is with regard to volunteer management:

    • Representatives from volunteer centers told me they would not use online databases of volunteering opportunities because “then no one will use our volunteer center.”
  • Residents who are not ethnically-German are vastly under-represented among the staff of most charities and community service organizations in Germany; you can go to a village in Germany with a significant ethnic-Turkish population, for instance, but you won’t see volunteers from this population at the local fire house. In my eight years in Germany, I never found any charity or community service organization that involved volunteers that was undertaking recruitment activities targeted on minority communities specifically — yes, I looked.

This is a challenging time for Germany, but it’s also an amazing opportunity for Germany to ramp up its involvement of volunteers, and transform its society in a number of positive, sustainable ways. It could become a model for the rest of the EU! Attention Germany: I’m ready to help!

Read more at this story at NPR.

— Übersetzung in Deutsch —

Die Tage der Wehrpflicht – und der Zivis – sind vorbei ab 2011. Hunderte Wohlfahrtsorganisationen in ganz Deutschland, die auf die Arbeit der fast 100.000 einberufenen vertraut haben, sehen sich jetzt einer radikalen Verringerung ihrer Arbeitskräfte gegenüber. Viele Organisationen glauben nicht, daß sie ausreichend Freiwillige finden können um die Routinearbeit zu erledigen, die bis jetzt von Zivis erledigt wurde – spülen, Räume reinigen, Mahlzeiten zubereiten, usw.

Kann Deutschland 90.000 Freiwillige rekrutieren um die Zivis zu ersetzen? Ja – aber es verlangt ein fundamentales Umdenken wie deutsche Wohlfahrtsorganisationen die Rolle von Freiwilligen verstehen, und VIEL Übung und Unterstützung um dieses neue Denken auch umzusetzen.

Deutschland versteht bereits den Wert von Freiwilligen in Feuerwehren. Deutschland hat die meisten Freiwilligen Feuerwehrleute pro Einwohner aller Länder weltweit. In einer deutschen Gemeinde mit einer freiwilligen Feuerwehr muß nach 8 Minuten erste wirksame Hilfe durch die Feuerwehr geleistet werden. Freiwillige Feuerwehrleute erhalten die gleiche Ausbildung wie Berufsfeuerwehrleute, es gibt keine zwei Klassen-Ausbildung. Freiwillige bleiben für Jahre, nicht nur für Wochen oder Monate. Und freiwillige Feuerwehrleute bekämpfen Feuer, retten Menschenleben und schützen Sachwerte. Ja, sie machen auch Routinearbeit, aber sie bekämpfen auch Feuer. Ob sie es wissen oder nicht, Deutsche vertrauen bereits jetzt Freiwilligen mit Aufgaben von entscheidender Bedeutung; Deutsche müssen dies auf andere soziale Aufgaben ausdehnen.

Der Anfang: Deutsche Wohlfahrtsorganisationen müssen Freiwillige für mehr als nur Routinearbeiten einsetzen:

    • Sie müssen sie genauso ansehen wie Organisationen in den USA, deren Mitarbeiter hauptsächlich Freiwillige sind. Freiwillige übernehmen den Grossteil der Leistungen, die das Amerikanische Rote Kreuz und die `Girl Scouts of the USA` (Girl Guides) anbieten, so übernehmen sie nicht nur die Routinearbeit, sondern auch Führungspositionen. Viele ihrer Freiwilligen bleiben für Jahre und nicht nur für Wochen oder Monate, weil sie viel mehr tun als nur die Routinearbeit. Das Ehrenamt variiert in verschiedenen Kulturen in vielen Aspekten, aber eines bleibt immer gleich, Kultur zu Kultur, Land zu Land: Freiwillige wollen merken, dass ihre Arbeit wichtig ist, nicht nur nett, sondern notwendig.
  • Zusätzlich muss ein Ehrenamt mit Hochschulen und Universitäten verbunden werden, wo dies angemessen ist. So, dass Schüler und Studenten praktische Erfahrungen sammeln und anwenden können was sie in Unterricht lernen — “service learning.” Bestimme Ehrenämter sollten den Freiwilligen bei der Hochschule oder Universität angerechnet werden.

Um diese Transformation möglich zu machen, benötigt es intensive und fortgeschrittene Freiwilligen-Management-Schulungen für Wohlfahrtsorganisationen, für Universitäten und für Regierungsbehörden. Es kann auch bedeuten, Angestellte zu bezahlen um die Routinearbeiten zu erledigen, während Positionen mit mehr Verantwortung für Freiwillige reserviert werden – für viele Leute ist dies eine radikal Denkensweise.

Ich habe ein paar Schulungen in Deutschland geleitet und war erstaunt wie weit zurück dieses Land ist im Bezug auf Management von Freiwilligen“? :

    •  Vertreter von Freiwilligen-Zentren erzählten mir, sie würden keine Online-Datenbank für verfügbare Ehrenämter benutzen, weil “dann wird niemand unsere Freiwilligen Zentrum besuchen.”
  • Einwohner mit Migrationshintergrund sind weit unterrepräsentiert in der Belegschaft der meisten Wohlfahrtsorganisationen und gemeinnützigen Organisationen in Deutschland. Man kann z.B. in eine Gemeinde mit deutlichem türkischem Bevölkerungsanteil gehen, aber man wird keinen Freiwilligen dieser Bevölkerungsgruppe im örtlichen Freiwilligen Feuerwehrhaus antreffen. In meinen acht Jahren in Deutschland habe ich nie eine Wohlfahrtsorganisation oder gemeinnützige Organisation, die Freiwillige einbezieht, gefunden, die Anwerbung speziell auf Minderheiten zugeschnitten hatte – ja, ich habe danach gesucht.

Es ist eine herausfordernde Zeit für Deutschland, aber es ist auch eine einzigartige Gelegenheit für Deutschland, um die Einbeziehung von Freiwilligen zu steigern; und um seine Gesellschaft in einer positiven und nachhaltigen Weise zu transformieren. Deutschland könnte zu einem Vorbild in der restlichen EU werden! Aufgepasst Deutschland: Ich bin bereit zu helfen!

Lesen Sie mehr in diesem Bericht auf NPR (nur in Englisch).

(Thanks to Stefan Dietz and Lis Mullin Bernhardt for the translation)

Your flow chart for volunteers

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Too often, volunteer involvement is described this way:

Volunteers contact us, we give them an assignment, they do it. Ta da!

This simplified description comes often from people who are from the for-profit/corporate sector or who are in senior management – they have no idea how much work it takes behind the scenes for successful volunteer engagement.

Volunteers should certainly feel like getting into an assignment is seamless and quick, but to give volunteers that experience actually takes a LOT of planning behind-the-scenes by the organization. For instance, there are rarely a plethora of well-defined tasks or roles laying around a nonprofit office waiting to be done by just anyone with some time on their hands and a good heart. It takes a lot of time and support to develop volunteering assignments, including “micro-volunteering” tasks that will take just a few hours, and not just any person is appropriate every assignment – some require particular skills, a certain amount of time within a specific time frame, or work at a particular type of day.

In addition, a person’s desire to volunteer is often not enough for a volunteer to be successful: a candidate needs to be screened at least a bit in order to make sure the volunteer understands the very real commitment he or she is making, even if that commitment is just a couple of hours. The candidate may need to be further screened to make sure he or she really does know how to do the assignment. To not do any screening means much more time down the road for the organization, tracking down volunteers, correcting sub-par assignments, finding more volunteers or staff to re-do assignments that were poorly done or not done at all, etc.

And, ofcourse, supporting volunteers takes a lot of time, no matter how automated you make the process. Someone has to be contacting volunteers to ensure they are getting assignments done, have the support they need, etc. Someone has to keep volunteers in-the-loop about what’s happening at the organization, and to recognize the value of their work – otherwise, those volunteers go away.

A terrific, easy exercise that can be really helpful in showing just what it takes for your organization or an individual department to involve and support volunteers successfully is to create a flow chart mapping your volunteer engagement, or a series of maps for different parts of the volunteer management process — the volunteer in-take process, the volunteer assignment development and matching process, the volunteer support assignment, etc. You could do charts for each of these processes, and then show how they all intersect.

You can do this mapping exercise alone, by yourself (if you are the coordinator of volunteer program or involve large numbers of volunteers yourself), or you can do this with a group of employees and volunteers. A dry erase white board with markers is best, but any computer program that allows you to do a flow chart or graphics will work as well.

Here’s one example of what a volunteer in-take flow chart could look like as a result of your mapping exercise (every organization is different):

Don’t be surprised if, in doing this process, you find gaps in your volunteer management process. I’ve done this mapping process with several departments and organizations, and the results have been revealing. Many times, I’ve found that an organization thinks it isn’t recruiting enough volunteers when, actually, it is — a lot of people are, in fact, responding to recruitment messages, but their information isn’t being forwarded to the coordinator of volunteers, or the volunteers are getting responses weeks or months after they express interest, instead of within hours or a few days. If I’m evaluating a volunteer program and an organization cannot produce such a chart — they don’t know what happens when someone calls, they don’t know how information gets to the coordinator of volunteers, the coordinator can’t say how many calls or emails he or she gets every month from potential volunteers, etc. — I know just how deep problems may be regarding the organization’s recruitment, involvement and support of volunteers.

Doing a chart correctly may require interviewing more than one person. For instance, just to map the volunteer in-take process correctly takes interviewing every person who answers the organization’s phone or main email address.

When I’m in charge of coordinating volunteers, I find this exercise quite helpful because it helps me educate fellow staff quickly on what it takes to involve volunteers successfully and helps explain why I’m doing whatever it is I’m doing.

Again, the example above is just for a volunteer in-take process (it doesn’t show how a volunteer is matched to an assignment, or how an assignment gets developed in the first place), and your map could be different for your organization. Maybe you don’t have an onsite orientation; your volunteer orientation may just be an email message, or may be an online video candidates for volunteering can view on their own. In either case, your map needs to show how you know they have read that email message or viewed that video.

Update: this chart and the methodology behind it are detailed in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service Into Volunteer Involvement. The book can help you fully explore the reality of remote volunteer engagement, in terms of policy and procedures, to ensure success, as well as using the Internet to support and engage ALL volunteers, including those that provide some or all of their service onsite. This book was helpful long before the global pandemic spurred so many organizations to, at last, embrace virtual volunteering. This is the most comprehensive resource anywhere on working with online volunteers, and on using the Internet to support ALL volunteers, including those you might not think of as “online” volunteers.

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Volunteers trying to help on their own

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The Nonprofit Quarterly picked up a story about a 240-acre nature preserve in Northeastern New Jersey asking volunteers to please stop “doing good” on their own, because unsanctioned “trail improvements” are causing serious damage to the preserve. Conservancy members have found places where certain fruit-bearing native vines “are being cut wholesale,” threatening a source of food for small animals that live in the woods. In another instance, someone had removed logs and branches from steep trail beds, which could lead to serious erosion.

To prevent further damage, the nonprofit group has sent notices and put up signs along trails telling people who want to initiate their own projects to leave things alone. “We appreciate volunteerism, and we realize a lot of people have good intentions,” said Theresa Trapp, the conservancy’s treasurer. “But we really need people to contact us before doing any work.”

Some of the people doing these “trail improvements” could be mountain bikers. One official who has seen similar problems in county’s parks said mountain bikers will create their own trails, “and if something’s in their way, they’ll move it.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of people thinking they are being proactive as volunteers, without seeking approval first from an organization and, instead, actually doing some harm. For instance, there are people who, once they become an official volunteer of an organization, think they are now official representatives of the organization, and will represent themselves as such to others:

  • they may organize a volunteering event without clearing it with the organization first,
  • book themselves as speakers to community groups,
  • start replying in online discussion groups as though they represent the organization,

Even worse: some people put themselves and others at risk with their independent volunteering following a disaster; this happened following Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast of the USA with a few people who charged in on their own (I wish I’d kept track of all the stories I read about this happening, particularly with people handling chainsaws – one man hurt himself while he was alone in a largely abandoned area).

It’s not enough to have a few lines in your written policies and procedures about when a volunteer should, and should not, represent themselves as volunteers, how they should propose activities, your confidentiality policies, etc.; you need to remind your volunteers and the general public of these policies: on your online discussion group for volunteers, in your online or paper newsletter, on your web site, on your social networking profiles such as Facebook, and maybe even through an interview on the local TV news or a local newspaper.

If you discover a volunteer is doing activities in the name of your organization, but outside of the approval of your organization, contact that person immediately – not via email, but with a phone call or in-person meeting. Tell the person what you have heard and ask the volunteer if what you have heard is true. Welcome that person’s own explanation/description of the circumstances. And then review together the policies of the organization and how this might, or might not, be a violation. If you need more time to investigate, by all means, do so.

If it’s someone outside your organization, again, call that person immediately. Tell the person what you have heard and ask the person if what you have heard is true. Welcome that person’s own explanation/description of the circumstances. Explain carefully why the activity is inappropriate (if it is). And consider: is there a way to make this person an official volunteer and channel his or her energies for your organization in a more appropriate way?

In either case, followup with both email and, as appropriate, a message sent via postal mail, confirming the details of your meeting and the next steps.

And on a related note: How do you know what is being said about your organization or yourself in the public spaces online — on blogs, in captions on Flickr photos, in newspaper articles, and in public online discussion groups?

My favorite tool for tracking what’s being said about an organization I’m working with, or even just me, is GoogleAlerts. This free service automatically notifies you if there is any new content online in a public space — including traditional print media that publishes their stories online — that mentions whatever phrase or phrases you want to track. It won’t tell you about email conversations, as those are private, or about postings on private online spaces (a private online discussion group, for instance, or someone’s Facebook profile that has all of its privacy settings on — so long as Facebook keeps allowing such privacy settings, which it may not always do).

You can use GoogleAlerts or similar tools to track:

  • Your name
  • Your organization’s name
  • Your executive director’s name
  • Another organization (your competition, a partner, an organization you aspire to be like, etc.)
  • A particular subject matter
  • Etc.

Start with two GoogleAlerts at first — one of just your name, and one of your organization’s name. Putting a name in quotes is best, so that you will get only exact matches (I don’t want every newspaper story that mentions Jayne and also Cravens, but specifically, Jayne Cravens, and that won’t happen unless I put my entire name in quotes, like this: “Jayne Cravens”). You will then receive an email when something is published online with your alert name, with a link to the mention. You can set the alerts to come as the mentions happen (for instance, when the blog is posted that mentions your name), in a daily summary, or in a weekly summary.

 

Be careful when you choose subjects to track; you don’t want to track something generic like dogs, because you will be overwhelmed with alerts. You would want to track something specific instead in one alert, like
dogs abandoned Nowhere County “Humane Society”

GoogleAlerts or similar tools help you respond quickly to newspaper articles, blog posts — even criticism. And you most certainly should respond online quickly, with praise, with thanks or with more or clarifying information, as the situation demands.

With all that said, do NOT try to shut down a volunteer’s blog about his or her experience with your organization. Blogging by volunteers should be encouraged, not discouraged, within the policies of the organization (not talking about confidential information, for instance, or not disparaging co-workers in public).

Needed: Online Volunteering Research

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On the Volunteers & Technology forum at TechSoup, someone asked me what I thought the top five potential research areas are regarding online volunteering.

My answer is there, but I’ll put it here as well, with some additional info.

First, I should note that no institution is doing online research regarding online volunteering, and no one person is consistently doing it, including me — I do it when I can, as I have no funding to do such (and, actually, I haven’t been seeking any). I’ve done more in the last two years, for the revision of the Virtual Volunteering Guidebook (to be released early next year), than I’ve done in the 10 years before — but I was stunned at the lack of research by other people I could reference.

Studies regarding volunteering don’t include anything about online volunteering, despite the practice being more than 30 years old. I get an email about twice a year from some graduate student wanting to do a study about online volunteering, and I’m happy to help them, but their topic is always the same, and not at all what’s needed by the field: the motivation of online volunteers. Snooze.

For practitioners — as in nonprofit and government staff that want to be successful in engaging online volunteers — I think the priority research needs regarding online volunteering are the following, but not in any order of priority — any of them would be hugely welcomed by practitioners:

    • What are the factors for success in an online volunteering completing a volunteering assignment.
  • What are the factors that keep an online volunteer supporting an organization for at least a year.

For those first two, practitioners have been talking about this, and I’ve been talking to them about it, but I haven’t been researching it in a consistent way that would meet rigorous academic standards. For those who have been involving online volunteers themselves: we know the answers, for the most part, but the only actual academic research is from back in the 1990s. There really needs to be current research, and not by me. Such research would be an affirmation that’s really needed by practitioners in mobilizing resources to involve volunteers and, as there are a few people running around claiming loudly that no screening, no orientation, no prepping of online volunteers is needed at all, that online volunteers will magically complete their assignments without organizations being so “bureaucratic”, it means a lot of volunteer managers can get push back from senior management when asking for critically-needed resources to properly screen and support online volunteers.

Other research priorities, IMO:

    • Are there management needs that are different for online volunteers representing different groups (by age, by geographic region, by profession, by education level, etc.) to complete assignments and to be inspired to continue supporting an organization over months rather than just days or weeks.
    • How much does involving online volunteers cost – a comparison of at least 20 organizations in the USA (or any one country, for that matter).
    • What differences are there in the success of involving online volunteers in non-English-speaking countries in Europe in comparison with North America?
  • What differences are there in the success of involving online volunteers in developing or transitional countries where Internet access is available to large portions of the population (India, Nigeria, South Africa, Pakistan, Poland, etc.) in comparison with North America?

Okay, that was six instead of five. Those last two are needed hugely. Online volunteering is happening in other countries, whether the NGOs there admit it or not. I’ll never forget doing a training in Germany for about a dozen folks, and once I explained what online volunteering was, it turned out four organizations there were involving online volunteers — they hadn’t realized it, however.  Spain is doing a LOT regarding online volunteering — but no one is tracking it/researching it (I’d say they are ahead of even the UK in terms of online volunteer engagement — they were as of 2001, anyway).

Now, what I didn’t say on the TechSoup forum: why aren’t academics, organizations and institutions including online volunteering in their studies regarding volunteering? Why do they continue to ignore a practice that’s more than 30 years old, and has been talked about widely — in newspapers, at conferences, in online discussion groups — since the late 1990s? Here is why I think that’s the case:

    • Intellectual laziness on the part of of the organizations — and, in some cases, on the part of individual researchers.
    • These organizations and institutions, and many academics, are simply not in touch with what is happening on the front lines of volunteer engagement. They don’t participate in online discussion groups about nonprofits, with practitioners, for instance. Their silence is deafening.
    • They do not listen to others outside their immediate circle — and they let funders, even from the corporate world, define their research topics. Try writing, say, the Corporation for National Service or the Pew Research Center about online volunteering and the need for research or the need for it to be consistently included in volunteerism research, and see if they respond. Yes, I’ve tried, more than once. No, they never wrote back. I gave up.

Your thoughts?

Special Issue on the Voluntary Work of Students in Higher Education

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The Journal of Academic Ethics invites papers for a special issue on the general topic of the voluntary work and volunteerism of students at university. Papers are welcome which consider the values, ethics, motivations, challenges, effectiveness, etc, of voluntary work or related topics. Articles that consider voluntary work as a method to ameliorate social and educational exclusion are particularly encouraged as is original empirical research, both quantitative and qualitative. Papers that explore the ‘volunteering journeys’ of students and contributions that consider the international nature of voluntary work are also most welcome.

Deadline: January 31st 2011

See Call for Papers (Voluntary Work and Volunteerism at University)

Also see:

V for Volunteer(ing)—The Journeys of Undergraduate Volunteers

The Rise of Voluntary Work in Higher Education and Corporate Social Responsibility in Business: Perspectives of Students and Graduate Employees

Another anti-volunteer union

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Unionized school employees in Petaluma, California, some of whom have been laid off due to budget cuts, do not like it that parent volunteers are now doing the work they were once paid to do. But even more: the union does not believe volunteers should be involved in the schools at all. Loretta Kruusmagi, president of the 350-member employees’ union bargaining unit at Petaluma Junior High School in California, said of the parents. “Our stand is you can’t have volunteers, they can’t do our work.”

On the one hand, I completely agree that the primary reason to involve volunteers should never be to save money:

But, ofcourse, on the other hand, volunteer involvement is essential for all sorts of other reasons, and I question the credibility of nonprofit organizations and government agencies focused on services to the public, like schools and state parks, that do not involve volunteers in a variety of ways, including in decision-making roles.

I believe passionately that certain positions — even the majority of positions in entire programs at some organizations — should be reserved for volunteers. The majority of programming by the Girl Scouts of the USA is delivered by volunteers. The majority of programming by the American Red Cross is delivered by volunteers. Going all-volunteer can be the right thing to do for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with money saved: It’s been true for the Pine Creek Information Center, it’s been true for the Aid Workers Network, and it’s true of lots of other organizations.

Why involve volunteers? What are the appropriate reasons?

    • Volunteer involvement allows members of the community to come into your agency, as volunteers (and, therefore, with no financial stake in the agency), to see for themselves the work your organization does.
    • Community engagement is community ownership. Volunteer involvement demostrates that the community is invested in the organization and its goals.
    • Involving volunteers — representatives of the community — helps educate the community about what the organization does.
    • Certain positions may be best done by volunteers. Volunteers can do anything. They can be counselors, advisers, theater ushers, short-term consultants, board members, projects leaders, project assistants, event coordinators, event staff, first responders, coaches, program leaders, classroom assistants, and on-and-on. Always be able to say why your agency wants volunteers, specifically, in those positions rather than paid staff (and never say it’s to save money!).
    • Involving volunteers creates support for your organization in other ways. How many volunteers are also financial donors? Have volunteers spoken at local government meetings or written letters to the editor of your local newspaper on your organization’s behalf? Are there any influential community members (elected officials?) who are former volunteers with your organization? What have volunteers done to educate friends and family about your organization and its mission?
    • Involving volunteers can be a reflection of your organization’s mission. If you are a nonprofit theater, for instance, you probably involve unpaid ushers. What have ushers experienced that is a reflection of your mission (which may be to present theater productions of that are of cultural significance for your community, or to ensure that community members of all ages and backgrounds are introduced to and educated about the place of theater in our society, etc.). If you involve volunteers as interns, how could you tie this involvement to the mission of your organization?
    • Involving volunteers can help your organization reach particular demographic groups — people of a particular age, in a particular neighborhood, of a particular economic level, etc., especially groups who might not be involved with your organization otherwise.
    • Involving volunteers can create partnerships with other organizations (nonprofits, government, business). Involving volunteers from a corporation might spur that corporation to give your agency a grant. Involving volunteers from a government office could lead to a program partnership.
    • Volunteer involvement can garner good PR (in media reports, government reports, blogs, etc.) regarding your community involvement.

There is no question that parents have the right to help out in public schools! Union president Loretta Kruusmagi is wrong, wrong, wrong to say otherwise. Just as the union of professional firefighters in the USA is wrong to “not condone” volunteer firefighters. Volunteers can, in fact, be the loudest non-Union voice in support of unions and other professionals. Since volunteers have no financial interest in the organization where they donate their service, their voice of support for professionals and their services, and their voice against budget cuts, can get the attention of the community, funders and the press.

For schools, nonprofits and others thinking volunteers are a great cost-cutting idea, see Frazzled Moms Push Back Against Volunteering.

To learn more on how to talk about the true value of volunteers, I highly recommend Susan Ellis’ outstanding book From the Top Down. The third edition has just been released.

Aid workers in fiction – new ABC show in January

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There’s nonfiction books and documentaries about humanitarian workers, but not many dramatizations. I suspect the lack of novels, movie dramas and TV show dramatizations about aid workers, both paid and volunteer, is not because audiences wouldn’t enjoy reading or seeing such; rather, it’s probably because of the difficultly of writing a story that isn’t stereotypical, formulaic, or patronizing: person from North America, Europe or Australia goes to a poor part of the world and helps poor people and experiences wacky cultural differences while learning from local people and growing personally as well. Roll credits. There’s also the big fear of insulting people in developing countries, showing them as needy, ignorant, ineffectual, childlike, etc. while the aid worker is always benevolent and knowledgeable.

Not that such fictionalizations aren’t tried, sometimes with success:

    • I think Northern Exposure did probably the best job of any work of fiction of showing an outsider coming into a ‘foreign” place to help: Dr. Fleischman wasn’t an international aid worker, but going from New York City to rural Alaska comes about as close as you can get, and the local people, including the indigenous people, were presented in a very respectful light, each character allowed to be quite individual, interesting and, yet, less-than-perfect (human!).
    • The Constant Gardener does a decent job showing just how powerless aid workers are amid the chaos of extreme poverty and the influence of much better funded entities and armed groups. I thought the episodes of ER in Season 9 and 10 when a few characters worked in the Congo did a similarly good job of showing such.
    • I adored the VISTA volunteer in the novel in The Milagro Beanfield War, for being so utterly naive and unprepared and finding his situation completely surreal – I’ve so been that person at various times over the years (and, for the record, VISTAs are much better prepared for their placements these days!).
    • The Poisonwood Bible does a fantastic job of showing the very bad (and a bit of the good) by missionaries who are in a poor country to preach and do a little development work as well. While most aid workers are not missionaries, there’s some excellent do NOT do this moments in the book humanitarian workers can learn from.
    • The story arc from the TV show ER, starting with “Kisangani,” which originally aired 15 May 2003, through “Makemba,” which originally aired 11 Dec. 2003 , where two of the show’s doctors are working at a clinic in the Congo, is an excellent representation of what humanitarian work in a conflict zone can look like.

I write all this in anticipation of Off the Map, which will premier in January on USA-based television network ABC and will probably get shown in other countries as well eventually. The series takes place in “la Ciudad de las Estrellas,” a village in the South American jungle. “Six doctors, all of whom are running away from some sort of emotional issues and personal demons back home, arrive at the clinic and soon realize their new path is much different than anything they’ve ever dealt with as they battle the elements in this challenging and dangerous environment.” Sounds like there’s great potential for it to be stereotypical, formulaic and/or patronizing. But I’ll give it a try. I already see a big story problem: a poor village wouldn’t get SIX doctors. They’d get ONE doctor, if they were lucky, and that doctor would be the only one in a 500 mile radius.

If any executives are looking for stories to adapt to fiction, look no further than Peace Corps Worldwide, “where returned volunteers share their expertise and experiences.”

Slackervism on Facebook again

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Back in January of this year, those of you on FaceBook probably saw lots of female friends, family and colleagues posting a colour/color in their status updates  — just one word, or a group of words, like “pink” or “blue” or “nude” or “white with black trim.” It was the color of the bra the posting person was wearing. Some people claimed it was an effort to raise awareness about breast cancer.

However, there is no data whatsoever saying that this what-color-is-your-bra campaign increased the number of women getting medical checkups regarding their breast health, doing self-examinations regularly, etc. There’s no data whatsoever that says someone knows about breast cancer now and how it impacts women that didn’t already know that before the campaign. Yes, Susan G. Komen for the Cure said they got some donations they think may have because some people followed up their bra color status with a link to its web site. But others reported no donations at all.

Lately, people are changing their Facebook profile photos to a cartoon character. They say this is to raise awareness about child abuse. Yet, there is no information offered on child abuse, no information offered on how to prevent such, etc. And there’s no data whatsoever that says someone knows about child abuse now that didn’t already know that before this “campaign.” No one is discussing child abuse; they are discussing cartoon characters.

I think it is yet another example of slackervism, where people clicked something online, or did something equally simple online, and walked away thinking, “Wow, I really made a difference”, but they didn’t. My fear is that these people then do not do what’s really needed — like volunteer or make a donation to an organization like Parents Anonymous, or Prevent Child Abuse America or know how to report suspected child abuse — because they think what they’ve done on Facebook has real impact, that that’s enough to make a difference.

And it’s interesting to note that when I challenged friends and colleagues about this — when they would post the cartoon photo and say, “This is to raise awareness about child abuse”, and I would post a comment asking “how”, people because very defensive, claiming that I didn’t care about child abuse or was “spoiling the fun.” Yes, it’s a lot of fun to change your profile to something silly — I do it often on my personal FaceBook page. But creating this false sense of activism is dangerous. Here’s what so many people are thinking as a result of campaigns like this: Why make time to volunteer or why reserve any money to help others when just clicking helps someone somehow? I can change the world just by clicking something or changing my Facebook status, right? Have a look at the Community Service section of YahooAnswers or similar online fora to see how often people ask for ideas for “just click and help” web sites, because they “love helping without having to really do anything” (do a search on FreeRice if you doubt me).

I made recommendations regarding the bra color-to-raise-cancer-awareness last year, detailing what would have taken this from slackervism to real activism. So, what would have made this cartoon-charater-as-a-profile-pic a true social marketing/health marketing campaign, with real impact (changed behavior, new awareness, etc.) regarding child abuse?

    • Encouraging people to not only change their profile picture, and not just saying it’s to prevent child abuse, but also, to link to a web site for more information about child abuse, including specific aspects of such: child neglect, shaken baby syndrome, child sexual abuse, etc., and information on what to do if you suspect child abuse.
    • Having a banner on the home page of your child abuse-prevention or information site saying, “Did you change your FaceBook status photo to a cartoon character?”, which links to a page focused on educating people about child abuse and encouraging people to participate in the campaign.
  • Having a FaceBook fan page specifically associated with this campaign, and using it to not only educate about child abuse, but also, to survey fans about the impact of the campaign regarding their actions (did they have a discussion this week with friends about child abuse, or just cartoon characters?)

Online volunteering / virtual volunteering is not slackervism. Here’s more on what ROI for online action really looks like. Also see the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) status updates on Facebook from Nov. 25 – Dec. 2, 2010, for an example of an EFFECTIVE online awareness campaign using Facebook regarding preventing and responding to abuse of women.