Google researchers, the People Analytics team, studied the qualifies of effective teams at Google. Code-named Project Aristotle – a tribute to Aristotle’s quote, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” (as the Google researchers believed employees can do more working together than alone) – the goal was to answer the question: What makes a team effective at Google?
Research from Google’s Project Aristotle found that the most important dynamic of a successful team is members feeling psychologically safe. This occurs in environments where no one else will embarrass or punish others for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea.
Reading this was like a punch in the gut for me. For any job that hasn’t worked out, that I couldn’t wait to leave, this was always the primary problem I faced with supervisors.
I hope that all managers of people that see this do a deep, honest examination of the culture of their own departments and companies with regard to this kind of fear-based way of working. But I hope managers of volunteers look at the culture around volunteer service as well. And I hope you won’t get defensive if the evidence you gather points to toxicity in your program or your entire organization.
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Nonprofits, community groups and other mission-based programs in the USA need to be aware that legislation and politics are affecting your staff (employees and volunteers) and your clients/customers. Such is affecting their families and their day-to-day life, their health care, the life-altering choices they can make, their participation in society, and on and on. And that means it’s also going to affect staff job performance with you and potentially affect the impact you can have with clients/customers.
Regardless of your own personal politics and regardless of your organization’s mission, you need to be aware of how legislation and politics are affecting your staff and to think about how you are, or are not, going to support staff as this is happening.
You have employee, volunteers and clients who may become pregnant and need to seek abortion services. Or maybe denied access to abortion services despite an ectopic pregnancy, an incomplete miscarriage, placental problems and premature rupture of membranes. How are you going to support them as they undergo these experiences?
You have employees, volunteers and clients who have same-sex marriages, something the US Supreme Court may overturn. If that happens, and their marriages are declared invalid, will you continue to give spousal benefits for staff, such as maternity leave or health care coverage? If that happens but those marriages remain valid, but no more can happen, will you give spousal benefits, such as maternity leave or health care coverage, to those staff members now forbidden by law from marrying? Will you still send track the names of those partners in your database if you do so already?
For an election, some states are putting just one ballot drop box to serve an entire county, or prohibiting most people from applying for absentee ballots. Are you going to give your employees and volunteers paid time off to vote on election day? Are you going to make sure staff and clients know about non-partisan voter education programs, like guides from the League of Women Voters, and debates?
Some staff have family members who are not legally in the country and are living in day-to-day danger of being deported, and if such happens, it could not only mean the separation of a loved one, but sudden changes regarding income, in options regarding child care, and more. What will you do to support such staff?
Consequences of not thinking about this or addressing it:
You will lose employees and volunteers.
The productivity and performance of employees and volunteers could be affected, which affects your service delivery.
Inaction may go against your stated organizational values.
Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.
Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances. For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.
On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.
But if you think politics isn’t personal and can’t affect a nonprofit, whether it’s a performing arts center or a literacy program or an animal rescue group, think again.
And you should consider mentioning to funders how these state and federal actions are affecting your staff, your clients and your work in general. They should know.
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Someone online asked the following – they were asking about people in a particular developing country:
If you had to teach an IT skill (IT used in the very broad sense and including social media management, online chat support, microblogging) to a group of people whose only exposure to tech is their cellphones and social media platforms, in 16 half-day sessions, what would you pick? These should be skills that are in demand by employers and can give them a foot-in to work on platforms like Fiverr and Udemy.
I found the question interesting because, when it comes to online volunteering, finding roles where you use ONLY a smartphone are few and far between. Similary, I’ve never seen a paid job where all you need is a smart phone (but LOTS of scams implying there are such).
My answer was very different than everyone else’s. Here are the suggestions I made:
I would make sure they understood:
the basics of cutting and pasting, editing,
spell check with the free version of Grammarly, when something is online/in the cloud and when something is downloaded,
when something SHOULD be in the cloud versus when something is downloaded,
using a VPN,
keeping information safe online,
knowing what of your information should be private and what’s okay to be public,
how to protect privacy online and stay safe online and detect scams,
the basics of netiquette and
how to build trust online.
I would do a workshop on what an effective online video interactivemeeting looks like versus an online panel or online presentation. I would show how YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook video work – how to post, how to “like” a video, how to set privacy settings for videos, how to moderate comments, and if possible on a phone (I’m not sure if it is), how to edit such. I would emphasize that online tools are fluid – what we use now might not be what we use in 10 years, and that’s okay, because what we learn and how we work now will just transfer over to whatever comes along.
What’s interesting is that the person didn’t really seem to like the answer. She found them too “basic.” My rebuttal, which I didn’t post on her original question, but will here:
The aforementioned skills are what I look for when hiring someone,and I find them severely lacking among both applicants and co-workers – especially co-workers under 35. Whether the role is social media management, web site design, database management or online counseling, all of the aforementioned skills are fundamental to an employee, consultant or volunteer’s success in that role – and when any of these skills are lacking, the work suffers and it reflects poorly not only on the person but the entire organization.
Basic or not, these are the essential skills 21st-century workers need to master, no matter where they are in the world. And way too many of them are falling short. When an applicant has these skills, they get hired and they FLOURISH, no matter what tech changes come along.
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I have been uncomfortable for many years with the lack of guidance about the specific discrimination black volunteers and black professional humanitarian workers face when they go abroad. I’ve seen the discrimination, firsthand: at airports, in restaurants, in shops and even on the streets in countries all over the world without many black residents – including Germany and Afghanistan. And I’ve heard so many first-hand horror stories from humanitarian colleagues about what they’ve experienced. Yet, when I’ve tried to find guidance on how to be an ally or guidance for people experiencing discrimination, I’ve found nothing.
So I was impressed that the Peace Corps starkly and specifically acknowledged this situation and was frank about just how much harder it can be for black volunteers – specifically for Ukraine, but the reality is that this warning would be valid for a variety of countries where the Peace Corps has, or used to, place members, including Russia. The Peace Corps recommends that the Black volunteers react to racism in various ways depending on the situation, choosing to “remove themselves” from the situation for their own safety, get help from other volunteers or staff, or practice and explore self-care or coping strategies. It’s similar to the recommendations for women humanitarian workers – or women travelers: when you are in a country where you may not be respected, you’ve got to be prepared to deal with ugly comments and ugly situations and you won’t have the resources you have in the USA (not that law enforcement in my country always takes a woman’s safety concerns seriously, but I digress).
This article in the Atlanta Black Star says “Some have rebuked the Peace Corps for not doing more to protect Black volunteers.” One person tweeted that the Peace Corps shouldn’t send black Americans “to a place like this where you know they’ll be racially abused” and claimed that the Peace Corps was placing “the burden of educating racists” on the shoulders of Black members.
I think it would be a terrible shame if the Peace Corps didn’t send black Americans to Ukraine or anywhere in Eastern Europe or Asia or anywhere else where there is not a large black population, or if the United Nations didn’t send black African professional humanitarians to Afghanistan or elsewhere in Asia and on and on. Absolutely, people need to be safe, and there has to be a consideration for what specific challenges an African, a woman, a trans person, a person of a particular nationality, and others may face in various countries – and it may mean not sending a great candidate somewhere because the security situation is just too tenuous for the person, specifically. But while the Peace Corps’ primary mission is to empower communities in underserved parts of the work, the corps is also intended to promote mutual understanding between citizens of the USA and foreign peoples. Black Americans are a part of the rich fabric that makes up the USA. You cannot understand this country without experiencing its very specific forms of black culture.
I’m going to continue to do all I can, including abroad, to be an ally. I stumble, sometimes I flounder, often I misstep, but I’m going to keep trying. And I hope everyone else will too, not only for Black Americans but for any person who might be targeted for insults, harassment, abuse or violence.
I’m also going to continue to try to encourage people, especially women, to travel abroad, while also offering realistic safety recommendations (and I’ve been criticized for my recommendations by women travelers who say they have never experienced any problems and I’m being alarmist. Sigh.).
When your perceived race, sexual identity, religion or nationality can put you in danger in a region, you have every right to know of the specific dangers you might face, and you have every right to reconsider going to that region. And when you feel insulted anywhere, you have every right to choose how you are going to react, based on what you think is the appropriate thing to do.
I know if I made a list of everything that has been said to me by local people where I’m living or working, targeting me as a woman or as an American, I would scare a lot of folks from traveling abroad. Sometimes, I have pushed back: I’ve sometimes expressed anger, I’ve sometimes expressed hurt feelings, and I’ve sometimes just walked away – it depends on how safe I feel and what I think the consequences might be. It’s all my choice to make. I hope that my reactions have sometimes helped to change some local people’s minds – but I can only do so much.
What do you think of its advisory to applicants about racism they may face? Share your thoughts in the comments.
For those who think the Peace Corps, or any other volunteering abroad or humanitarian agency, should “do more” to “protect” black volunteers & humanitarian workers, what would that look like? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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One of the many, many things I loved about working at nonprofit theaters and at newspapers, before I started doing what I do now… whatever that is… was the constant striving in each of those environments for perfection with each production and each publication, along with the team ownership when mistakes happened. Our goal with every stage show or every newspaper was for it to be flawless – and it never was. But after every show or every publication, we made a list of everything that went wrong and looked for ways to prevent it in the future. And we bonded over that effort. In fact, we often bonded over mistakes.
Were angry words said? Did tempers flare? Absolutely. But there was, ultimately and in most of those places where I worked, a belief that everyone was doing their best and that we all needed to support each other to be successful. There was also a belief that, at some point, each and every one of us, from the star on the stage to a volunteer usher, from the executive editor to the typesetter, and everyone in between, would make a big mistake we would all have to address in some way. If you work with humans, that’s just how it is.
I’ve not worked in an environment like those in decades, I’m sad to say. Most of the workplaces I’ve worked in since have been focused on blame and shame, as though there is a way to avoid any misstep 100% of the time, and any mistake is because of a person’s recklessness or laziness.
I thought about this as I re-read Meridian Swift’s excellent blog from 2020, Thanks to the volunteers who lied, stole and created havoc. It’s a fantastic take on how to view mistakes by staff – and not just volunteers. But as I wrote in the comments section of her blog,
Sadly, when these things happen, senior management isn’t as “thankful”, and wants answers as to how this volunteer “got through” (even if they made you scale back the screening you wanted to do of new volunteers that might have set off some red flags had you been able to use it with all volunteers) and reprimands the manager of volunteers per a belief that all problems are 100% preventable.
And it’s not just a senior management approach regarding mistakes with volunteers – it’s one many also have regarding all employees and consultants.
When a mistake is made at your organization, here are some things to consider:
What did this mistake cost the organization, your clients, and/or any one staff member or group of staff? Was the cost in terms of money, time or public relations? How much time and money will it take to address the issue?
Was the mistake made by inexcusable negligence or inappropriate behavior, or was it one person’s or a team’s misjudgment, a misstep, or quick decision that the person or team wouldn’t have made had they given it more thought? Is the person primarily responsible overworked? Do they need better support?
Can the staff member, and the entire organization, learn from this mistake and prevent it in the future?
Explore and weigh the answers to all of those questions before you take action, so that your reaction is truly proportional to what’s happened and why. Always remember the human on the other end of your tirade, and that once something is said, it cannot be unsaid. Remember that people can improve with time and support – you yourself have, haven’t you?
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Those working with volunteers should not have to beg for a spot on the IT staff’s to-do list or argue for basic functions they feel are necessary. If you encounter resistance, go higher and make your case to a manager above both functions. Detail in writing your technical needs to work with volunteers and explain why you are asking for certain post ings or functionality. Just as the author of a book has more say over its contents than the printer, the content and priorities of a Web site or other Inter net outreach should be determined not by IT staff but by those directly involved in what needs to be accomplished. While it is fair to mutually deter mine deadlines with IT staff, your tech-related requests should not be answered with “when we have the time.” Settle for nothing less than real dates for completion of work, getting upper management to back you up. (page 17)
What are the consequences of not having the web pages your program needs regarding volunteer engagement? Or not having a private online discussion group for volunteers? Or not having volunteer management software? Write those out, explicitly – it’s part of the business case you need to have in writing, the evidence you need to shut down arguments against IT support for the IT you need to effectively recruit, engage and support volunteers.
In addition, you have every right to circumvent reluctant IT staff who aren’t doing what they should in terms of support for what you need. There are ways to mobilize volunteers to debunk their arguments against doing what you need in terms of IT.
For instance, if you have new pages you want added to your organization’s web site, and your web master says he doesn’t have time to create and add them, recruit a volunteer to design those pages for you, using your organization’s own web pages as a template, then present the finished pages to your web master: “Here are the pages we want added to the site, all prepared exactly the same as our current page, plus our current main page regarding volunteering with us, with updated links.” With the pages complete, the only thing the web master has to do is upload them to your site – nothing more. If he refuses? Time to have a sit down with HIS supervisor!
Another option: recruit volunteers to build your own free WordPress site with all of the information you regarding volunteer engagement at your program: requirements, accomplishments, recognition, application process, etc. Then ask the web master to link to those pages from the appropriate places on the organization’s web site. If he refuses? Time to have a sit down with HIS supervisor!
Need a private online group for your volunteers? You can do so for free with GoogleGroups – a much better option than a Facebook Group (many people like to keep their Facebook activities and their profile there separate from volunteering and professional activities). A volunteer could be recruited to create such a GoogleGroup for you and help you use it. Get it set up, start using it, make it an essential part of your work, and report on how it’s become essential and how you are using it to your supervisor – and make sure that supervisor knows that it was volunteers who made it possible, not the IT staff at your organization. If you use the group for a year or more and find you need something more advanced later, you will have a track record of success to show that it’s a worthwhile endeavor worthy of investment, one that the IT staff will need to support.
If you want volunteer engagement at your organization to be treated at the same level of importance as fundraising at your organization, you have to insist on it, not just hope for it. It’s so easy to recruit volunteers with the IT skills you need to better engage and support all volunteers. Want to be seen as a leader? Then LEAD. No one knows what you need to do your job better than YOU. And tech-savy volunteers are out there, ready to help you make it happen!
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A coalition of nonprofits in my hometown in Kentucky asked me to put together a two-hour webinar on risk management in social media. And I did. I delivered it in early November 2020.
When I put together a new training on a subject I’ve not trained on before, I do a lot of research on the subject, to make sure my recommendations are timely and accurate. While I can base a lot of my trainings and blogs on my own experiences, I want to see what others are saying and doing as well.
For instance, for this workshop, I researched who “owns” a person’s online activities – when is a social media account the property of an individual and when is it the property of their workplace? The answer is different now than it was back in the 1990s when I directed The Virtual Volunteering Project. When are you speaking online such that it could bring your employer or program where you volunteer into disrepute – and can you be fired for that – and when is it your personal, individual opinion that your employer cannot take into consideration regarding your employment or volunteering? There have been a fair number of controversies about this over the years, and I was surprised at what I found.
I also researched people being fired for social media posts on their own, personal social media accounts and found that, often, those accounts were NOT public. How common is it? It’s very common. Here’s a sampling of what I found:
A Virginia car company fired an employee in 2014 for posting what it considered “racist and other inappropriate posts,” noting in its apology that the company “does not condone nor does it tolerate racism, bigotry or any other expression of prejudice or discrimination against anyone of any race, gender or religion.”
Justine Sacco, the PR executive fired in 2013 over her racist and inappropriate tweets (there was more than one) just before she boarded a plane.
Anthony David Weiner, who represented New York’s 9th congressional district from January 1999 until June 2011, winning seven terms as a Democrat and never receiving less than 60% of the vote – and then resigned from Congress in June 2011 after he sent a sexually suggestive photo to a woman via Twitter and it was publicized.
Employees, consultants and volunteers being fired, or having their contracts not renewed, because of posts they made to social media that disparaged certain groups or advocated violence, even via their own, personal, not public social media accounts, is something I’ve been paying attention to since 2011, via this thread on the TechSoup online community forum.
It’s not a black or white issue regarding firing someone for social media posts: while employers can and do fire employees over social media issues, there are also instances where it would potentially be illegal to do so and employees have been reinstated or been awarded financial compensation. This article from 2018 does the best job, IMO, of explaining when you may, and may not, fire someone for a social media post. This 2020 article from the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) is also excellent.
But I really didn’t want to get bogged down in my training on whether or not someone should be fired regarding a social media post, not only because I’m not a lawyer, but because I don’t think that’s what’s needed in such a training for nonprofits, libraries, etc. Instead, I focused on how to prevent or, at least, reduce the likelihood of such posts from happening at all and what to do when they do happen, from a PR perspective in terms of response.
The reality is that the most common problems nonprofits, charities, NGOs, schools and other mission-based programs will face from social media use by employees won’t relate to a lawsuit – they will relate to public reaction to something posted or “liked” or followed by an employee, consultant, volunteer or client from the program. And I believe the program’s body of work and body of social media posts, as well as that organization’s relationship with the community, are the greatest counter to negative fallout from a social media mistake or from one staff person who turns out to have a deeply-ceded prejudice that could affect their work with others.
I had a four-pronged approach to suggest to the audience about risk management in using social media:
You want to create and promote a culture that better discourages, even prevents, social media missteps.
You want to create and promote written policies that better discourage and prevent social media missteps.
You need to talk to employees, consultants and volunteers frankly about social media use, because conversations reinforce to staff that they need to be thoughtful about what they are posting and “liking” or following online, at all times, even when they are “off the clock.”
You want to have a strategy for how you will respond to when an employee or volunteer violates your social media policies and/or makes statements or likes or follows something online, even “off the clock”, that bring your organization or program into disrepute.
I spent a LOT of time emphasizing how to prevent inappropriate social media posts by employees, consultants and volunteers from happening in the first place and what to do to now so that it will mitigate damage when an inappropriate social media post surfaces. I think the most important strategy for a nonprofit, charity, government program, etc. on both of these points is establishing and reinforcing an agency’s culture regarding being a welcoming place, onsite and online, for all people, regardless of their age, race, gender identification, citizenship or residency status, disabilities, religion (or lack there of) or sexual preference.
You need to say, bluntly, in writing, in interviews, in new employee and new volunteer orientations, etc., that you are an organization that recognizes deep-ceded historic inequities and systematic racism in society, including the local community, and that your program is committed to evaluating its activities through the lense of equity and social justice and inclusion.
The more you emphasize this culture, the more some candidates for employment or volunteering will screen themselves out of your organization – someone who cherishes the activity of insulting and demeaning others or denies social inequities or who follows people who promote prejudice and conspiracy theories is not going to want to volunteer nor work with you otherwise if you are so upfront about your agency’s commitments.
Social media is worthwhile and even necessary for a nonprofit, NGO, charity, school, government agency or any mission-based program to use. You harm your organization or program and exclude vast numbers of donors, volunteers, clients and other supporters by not using it.
Agencies can’t come from a place of fear in using social media. If they do, they’ll never realize the wonderful potential of social media to connect with audiences.
Programs must realize that there is no way to prevent any bad thing from ever happening via something an employee, consultant or volunteer says or writes or likes or follows online, and that they cannot completely control employee, consultant and volunteer behavior, online and off.
An agency should engage in activities regularly that emphasize its values to employees, consultants and volunteers.
An agency should have written policies regarding confidentiality (not just online), privacy (not just online), and the program’s official online and print communications.
An agency should have written suggestions & other communications regarding “using common sense” online.
Employees, consultants, volunteers & maybe clients need training in social media.
There are ways to effectively address social media messages or other activities by employees, consultants and volunteers that reflect poorly on your agency or even bring it into disrepute.
Would you like for me to do a training for your organization? Here’s more about my online trainings / webinars. I can create, and have created, trainings on a variety of subjects, and trainings on communications tools and techniques for nonprofits, particularly small nonprofits, are my favorite. My trainings are based on practice and real-world experience: I am a manager of volunteers and a volunteer myself, I have a great deal of experience in communications for nonprofits and international aid agencies, and I continually keep up-to-date on what various programs, large and small, are doing with regard to community engagement.
If you are looking for training on virtual volunteering, I highly recommend you first view this series of online videos I prepared that, in around one hour, will give you a clear understanding of virtual volunteering and how you can pursue it at your organization.
Couple viewing these free videos with purchasing and reading my book, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, and you will have all that you need for launching or expanding a robust virtual volunteering scheme at your nonprofit, charity, school, etc. You will not find a more detailed guide anywhere for working with online volunteers and using the Internet to support and involve all volunteers – even after home quarantines are over and volunteers start coming back onsite to your workspace. And it’s far, far cheaper than hiring me as a consultant or trainer regarding virtual volunteering – though you can still do that, particularly if it’s regarding some specific aspect of virtual volunteering, let setting up an online mentoring program.
If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site or my YouTube videos and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.
I keep seeing this comment in blogs and articles and tweets:
“Will virtual volunteering continue after the pandemic is over?”
Of course, it will. Just as virtual volunteering was happening BEFORE the pandemic, at THOUSANDS of organizations. Why in the world wouldn’t it continue?
Altogether, these videos cover developing initial online roles and activities for volunteers, how to rapidly engage online volunteers, how to expand virtual volunteering, how to adjust policies, how to address safety and confidentiality, the importance of keeping a human touch in interactions, addressing the most common questions and resistance to virtual volunteering and much, much more. You have my permission to show them at any conference or workshop or class you might be doing regarding virtual volunteering.
For some more advanced topics regarding virtual volunteering:
If your program wants to better use online tools to support all of your volunteers, including those providing service onsite, or if your program wants to create a robust virtual volunteering scheme, such as an online mentoring program or online volunteer engagement as skills-building or other extension of your mission , check out 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. 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.
If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site or my YouTube videos and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.
Humanitarian Advisory Group (HAG) and GLOW collaborated on Remote Monitoring in the Age of COVID-19 as part of HAG’s Humanitarian Horizons research program. HAG and GLOW have partnered on third-party monitoring and evaluation (M&E) assignments for a variety of aid and humanitarian donors, including the Department for International Development (DFID, UK) and DFAT, international NGOs (including Concern World and International Rescue Committee) and research institutes (including the Overseas Development Institute).
This guidance note can be used to:
plan remote monitoring approaches
raise awareness of remote monitoring best practices
advocate with donors for supporting remote monitoring requirements
Strong monitoring systems are important for effective program delivery in humanitarian contexts. During a global pandemic, there is a vital need for real-time data and evidence to inform responses to rapidly changing environments. However, collecting and using monitoring data to inform programming is often challenging. During COVID-19, this challenge is compounded by access, safety and travel restrictions.
In addition to implementing remote management and programming, humanitarian actors are initiating or scaling up remote monitoring. Agencies are re-evaluating their existing monitoring design and data collection processes, and recognising that new methods will require changes in staffing, working with partners and resourcing…
This note is intended to guide international and national operational actors on how to adapt and think about remote monitoring in the context of COVID-19. It provides a snapshot of key takeaways from previous research, and draws together emerging learning and guidance.
A helpful guidance note by USAID on remote monitoring approaches outlines a series of factors to consider before implementing remote monitoring. It also highlights which technological solutions to remote monitoring to use in different contexts.
Back in the late 1990s, I was invited to speak and train at what I was told was a state PTA conference in a state different from where I was living. The list of other invited speakers was shared with me by the organizer and I was deeply impressed and honored to be a part of such a lineup. I wasn’t paid by the organizer for the work, but that was fine – I saw it as a part of what I was already being paid for in my job directing the Virtual Volunteering Project. All of my travel and hotel expenses were to be paid.
The date arrived, I flew to the location, I picked up my rental car and I drove to my hotel. The next day, I drove to the location of the conference, and as soon as I walked in, I realized things were not what they had seemed via email and phone calls from the organizer: this was not, in fact, an official PTA conference: a representative from the state PTA approached me to say that they didn’t know about the conference being organized in their name by this local member until the last minute. The organizer was putting all of the expenses on her credit card, expecting the state PTA to reimburse her, and she had no signed contract with them for anything. The conference was in an un-airconditioned junior high school in the middle of summer, in a state notorious for its heat and humidity, the seating was for children, not adults, and there was an un-airconditioned school bus for taking attendees around to the city’s sights that afternoon. The organizer showed signs of serious emotional instability that I won’t list here. After the first day, most of the speakers and half of the attendees had left, many of them asking me if I was going to stay or flee. I stuck it out over two days and nights, fulfilling my commitment to deliver workshops to the few that stayed and wanted to hear me. I left and never heard from the organizer again.
Misrepresentation and deliberate fraud in the nonprofit sector aren’t unusual. Sometimes, the person perpetuating the misrepresentation isn’t really aware that what they are claiming is unethical, inappropriate, or maybe even illegal – I think that was the case with the aforementioned conference manager. I’ve been contacted by people saying they work for a certain large, well-known newspaper who, in fact, have never had anything published in that newspaper or any other credible daily, but they felt like they could with the story they wanted to do with my help, that the newspaper knew nothing about – I am not sure that’s deliberate fraud as much as someone not understanding the appropriateness of claiming to represent a publication. I’ve heard from people who say they are doing a documentary film and want to interview someone at my organization, but when I do a little research, I find out that they haven’t produced any films before and people they have interviewed already for this project are a little afraid of them now after their encounters. I’ve seen web sites of people claiming to be operating a nonprofit that partners with various corporations and very well known nonprofits, but upon contacting people I know at said “partners”, they’ve never heard of the organization. And since that conference fiasco, I have been contacted by a few people putting together a conference or event that have never done so before, but think getting participation is just a matter of asking for such. In all of these cases, the people engaging in what I would call misrepresentation don’t think they are doing so: they are sincere in their belief that they are a legitimate, credible press representative, documentary filmmaker, nonprofit manager or event coordinator, and if they can get enough people to say yes to their request to meet or participate, they are going to be all that they claim to be. Take this Charity Fashion Show in San Francisco in 2010 – I think organizers probably really believed they were going to raise enough money to donate to charity, and had no idea just how expensive a fundraising event can be.
And then there are the ones who ARE aware they are perpetuating something unethical, like Community Service Help and the Caffeine Help Network and other like them, selling letters for people to use with courts that sentence them to a certain number of community service hours – thankfully, state attornies general are cracking down on such. Or people claiming to be putting on a fundraising event, looking for donations and sponsorships, but most of the money goes to “expenses” – like the We Build The Wall effort or the Trump Foundation.
No matter the focus of your nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO), charity or consulting business focused on such, you need to do at least a bit of vetting on any press person or documentary filmmaker who wants to interview someone from your program, or any person you are thinking of inviting to speak as part of a panel or conference, or any community group asking to partner with you, etc.
If the person lists conferences where they have spoken or organizations they’ve have consulted for, ask to talk to a representative from at least one of those entities to confirm that really happened, look at old versions of web sites on archive.org to make sure the person is listed in the lineup, or ask for a link to an online video showing the speaker addressing the audience.
If the person says they are a writer, ask for samples of their published work. If they say they are a filmmaker, ask for links to their work online. Do they have a YouTube or Vimeo channel you can review?
If the person claims to have managed events, ask for photos of the event, scans of published material that publicized the event, a blog about the event written by an attendee, event participation surveys, etc. For their most recent events, they should be able to provide dates, number of participants, measures of success, etc. – for instance, if the person says their initiative organizes teen hackathons, what were the dates of those hackathons, how many teens participated in each, where were they and where is the list of apps that were developed?
Type the person’s name into Google or Duck Duck Go and see what comes up. If you start to feel suspicious, type in additional words, like scam or investigation or complaint and see if any blogs or articles come up. But be careful if something does come up – it’s harder and harder to find a person or company who HASN’T had a complaint lodged against them.
Even the newest nonprofit or NGO should have a web site that lists its board of directors, staff members (and their credentials), and either their most recent yearly financials/annual reports or their proposed budget for the first year.
With all that said, people do have to start somewhere if they are an aspiring nonprofit founder, an aspiring filmmaker, aspiring podcaster, aspiring designer, etc. Someone with not much of a track record at doing what they say they want to do might not automatically mean that someone is trying to do something nefarious, or that the person is someone with a mental illness. But if someone says they are a blogger, there should be a blog to read. Someone starting an event management business should have amateur experience managing some kind of events – weddings, reunions, small nonprofit events, etc. – and references to affirm their abilities. Someone who says they do video production will have at least a few videos online you can view. And while I have managed many high-profile events where it would have been inappropriate to let anyone but credentialed press representatives inside to cover such, I’ve also managed community events where an aspiring, unaffiliated journalist or university journalism student would have been welcomed to come in and observe and write about it as they like.
In short: don’t automatically take someone’s word for their credibility, or that of the program they claim to represent. Never automatically accept any proposed speaker, journalist, committee member, program partner, panelist, trainer or advisor without at least a little bit of research. Get used to saying, “Thanks for your information / inquiry / proposal / email. First I need a few days to check your web site OR do you have a web site I could review? OR could you let me know the name of your contact at the such-and-such foundation, so I could confirm your affiliation?” And make sure all staff, including volunteers, know how to route emails and calls about donations, partnerships and conferences and calls from the press.
Ethics of paying to volunteer online (reviews, at the end of the blog, some criteria to use to evaluate the credibility of a volunteer-involving organization)
The Information About & For Volunteers You Should Have on Your Web Site: If your program involves volunteers, or wants to involve volunteers, there are certain things your organization or department must have on its web site. To not have this information says that your organization or department takes volunteers for granted, does not value volunteers beyond money saved in salaries, or is not really ready to involve volunteers.
