The reality is that nonprofits that did well pivoting to online meetings, online service delivery and virtual volunteering during the pandemic, and that continue to successfully leverage online tools, are those that already had excellent relationships with employees, volunteers and clients before the pandemic. They are those that already were well-managed and had excellent communication among teams and partners and the public, and that came from trust and a commitment to their staff and supporters, not from being techies. Their success was about the trust they had cultivated, not the technology they used.

No, I haven’t done academic research on this and I have only my own experiences and anectodal observations to back this up. But I have seen and experienced enough to know it’s true. You do too.

And these same successful organizations, most of them quite small, won’t stop using online meetings, online service delivery and virtual volunteering, even as they re-introduce onsite meetings back into their work. Because they know what works and they want to do the best they can to support staff and clients.

If your organization isn’t doing well adopting a new tech tool or using what it has or leveraging social media, the problem may not be your understanding of tech – it may be your lack of understanding of your own organization and its people.

For more advice on virtual volunteering, including how to cultivate trust among volunteers, employees and clients in such relationships, have a look at The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. It’s the most ultimate guide to digital engagement and it’s available both as a traditional print publication and as a digital book. And if you buy it directly from me, the last two boxes in my closet will soon go away! And your copy will be signed with best wishes from me! I also get a bit more money than if you buy it from Amazon (and it’s slightly cheaper to buy from me as well). Note that if you buy two or more books, you get an additional book for free!

Also see:

• The dynamics of online culture & community: Working with people online means building trust and communicating clearly and regularly.
• The Difference in Email, Social Media & Online Communities: A Graphic Explanation.
• Leading in a virtual world: on engaging in activities that influence others online, that create a profile for a person as someone that provides credible, important, even vital information about a particular subject.
• Cultivating Online Civility: Can online civility be restored? Is it possible to challenge misinformation and destructive speech in the strongest, most deliberate of terms without being accused of hate speech yourself?

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