Fans of Superheroes Are Acting Like Superheroes

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Back in the 1990s, I noticed online communities of fans for the X-Files, Xena, Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, other TV shows and various entertainers and sports teams engaging in volunteering, activism and philanthropy. It was more than virtual volunteering: it was the creation of intentional communities, where fans used their passion and sense of fellowship to support a variety of good causes. I noted that many of these online groups weren’t directed by any formal organization to engage in philanthropy; the fans decided to engage in these activities on their own.

I wrote and published an online article about it in July 1999: Fan-Based Online Groups Use the Internet to Make a Difference. My article includes examples of such groups at that time, with comments from members regarding their online philanthropic activities and what makes them successful.

That DIY fandom-for-good spirit has continued online, and I’ve paid attention to one of those more recent efforts in particular: The Harry Potter Alliance. The HPA has raised money for various causes and lead campaigns to create awareness about hunger, bullying, child slavery and more. The group also has the Granger Leadership Academy, named for the Harry Potter character Hermione Granger, and the Wizard Activist School, which create programming and workshops aimed to inspire and train members in a variety of topics, including feminism, environmental issues, fighting racism, social justice, conflict resolution, leadership styles, goal-setting, and on and on.

We founded the HPA in 2005 with a simple idea: what if fans used their passion and creativity to make activism more fun and the world a more loving, equitable place? For almost sixteen years that idea has driven hundreds of thousands of fan activists to organize protests and charity drives, to write letters and make calls, to donate books and time and money to make their communities better for all.

The Harry Potter Alliance is changing its name to Fandom Forward, and it’s now for fans of Avatar, Star Wars, Percy Jackson, Doctor Who, Marvel, DC and, of course, Harry Potter – and most everything else out there in the sci-fi / fantasy / superhero world. Its purpose is to turn fans into “heroes.”

We use the power of story and popular culture to make activism accessible and sustainable. Through experiential training and real life campaigns, we develop compassionate, skillful leaders who learn to approach our world’s problems with joy, creativity, and commitment to equity.

As it became more and more clear that our community had grown even bigger than the boy who lived, we started talking to friends from all corners of fan organizing about how to move forward together. We talked to you, our community members, about what you wanted to see next. Over 1,000 of you weighed in, and the answer was overwhelmingly consistent: this place we’ve built? It doesn’t belong to just one fandom. It’s for anyone who believes in the power of stories and fans to change the world. It’s for everyone, and our name should reflect that. 

Fandom Forward even offers its own virtual volunteering management guide. My favorite advice from the guide is section 4, on cultivating leadership among volunteers. The entire section is terrific. I like this especially:

Default to trusting volunteers. This is a big one, and something that is hard for a lot of people to grasp. After doing this for 15+ years, however, we whole-heartedly believe in the idea that you can and should default to trusting your volunteers. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should give anyone access to your organization’s most sensitive information. But if you have a task that needs to be done that involves giving a volunteer an organizational log-in to a website, give it a try! We’ve found that most people can be trusted. If anything goes wrong, you simply remove the volunteer from that task or the organization. However, most times it will go right.

I’m fascinated by this and other fan-based efforts for many reasons: because I’m a fan myself of many of these stories, because I love seeing the Internet used for good, because there are frequent stories and studies claiming that there is a decline in young people wanting to volunteer – stories and studies that ignore these efforts – and because of complaints that younger generations aren’t joining traditional civic groups like Rotary, Optimist, Lion’s, etc. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: younger generations ARE volunteering, ARE getting involved in their communities – but they are doing it in different ways. Maybe the local civic group didn’t bother to create any social media channels to talk about their work, haven’t updated their web site in years, and have spent more time complaining about declining numbers than trying to do an honest assessment of why that is happening. Maybe the local fire station makes it clear that only career first responders are the superheroes and volunteers are just there to roll hoses and serve coffee, or doesn’t make it crystal clear how a person would become a volunteer first responder. Maybe these groups need to pay more attention to Harry Potter fans.

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. 

Me as a volunteer? More frustrated than ever.

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I’m a consultant regarding volunteer engagement (among other things). And one of the ways I keep my skills sharp and I keep learning and evolving, is by volunteering myself, both online and in traditional, face-to-face assignments.

In October 2011, I wrote a blog called How to get rid of volunteers, based on a really bad experience I had as a volunteer.

In February 2012, I wrote a blog called I’m a Frustrated Volunteer., based on more bad experiences as a volunteer.

In May 2018, I wrote a blog called Still trying to volunteer, still frustrated, based on even more bad experiences I’ve had as a volunteer.

And now, in 2021… I’m still here and still frustrated. The upside is that it helps me to keep creating what I think are practical, highly-relevant guidance for successfully engaging volunteers. The downside is… I don’t like being repeatedly frustrated, and it’s a reminder that volunteering is NOT always the uplifting, inspiring experience so many say it is.

I saw this meme and it hit so close to home regarding my own volunteering experiences in 2021 I almost burst into tears.

Never push a loyal person to the point where they no longer care.

When I express interest in volunteering with a nonprofit or program, I’m excited. I’m energized. I’m inspired. I’m highly motivated. I’m ready to help regarding a cause that I’m feeling strongly about. And very often, I’m hoping for a long-term experience. I’m hoping to volunteer for months, maybe even years, not just a few times. I’m hoping to enjoy myself.

Too often, I leave a volunteering experience that I’ve wanted to be a long-haul after a year or less, feeling overwhelmed, taken advantage of, ignored and/or under-appreciated. And I haven’t enjoyed myself. At all.

As I read the message in that image, I immediately thought not just about my own experiences as a volunteer, but also how many programs have lost fantastic volunteers because of not being clear about expectations, or changing those expectations, or asking too much of a volunteer’s time, or not welcoming and showing appreciation for a new, enthused, passionate volunteer, or otherwise “pushing.”

For this latest experience, I joined a county advisory board regarding the arts. It was a really nice experience the first year, though quarterly meetings were always in-person and held in places that were extremely difficult to get to via public transport (that’s how I get around weekdays, pre-COVID). The second year of my volunteering service was dominated by the global pandemic, and suddenly, we were allowed to do something our host organization assured us was absolutely impossible and not allowed: have meetings online. At the end of 2020, I was asked if I would consider being chair and thought, hey, what the heck, I should step up and do this for one year.

At my first meeting as chair, the bomb was dropped: our government host organization was dropping our board as a responsibility and we would move under the fiscal sponsorship of a nonprofit. At that first meeting, it was said several times, “Things won’t really be changing.” That proved to be a gross misstatement: my required time commitment skyrocketed as I realized a whole host of new processes would have to be researched, developed, proposed and voted on by the board members in a very, very tight timeframe. I went from meetings once a quarter to two or three times a month, and dozens of emails a week – sometimes dozens of emails in one day. Lots of steps in the transition hadn’t been identified by the previous host and the new host, and as I asked questions for clarification, more and more work to do got revealed. I was no longer a part of an advisory group; I was a full-fledged board member of a brand new nonprofit that the board had not asked to be a part of. And I was the chair. And that is NOT what I signed up for when I agreed to volunteer.

My passion wained quickly. My excitement evaporated. My energy and motivation have been squashed.

How did this happen? The people who created this substantial change:

  • did not consult with the volunteers who would be told to take on the responsibility.
  • were in denial that it was a substantial change.
  • have not taken a volunteer management 101 workshop or read any of Susan Ellis’ books.

Yes, I’m still a frustrated volunteer. I still haven’t found a volunteering experience since returning to the USA that’s been what I’m looking for. I still haven’t really had fun volunteering since 2009. But I’m so happy to have yet another experience that will help me as a consultant regarding volunteer management.

Other blogs inspired by my volunteering:

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. 

Microsoft shutting down Academic Search and Related Services

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Lots of folks online are upset at the news that Microsoft is planning plan to shut down its Microsoft Academic Search at the end of 2021. As one blogger put it, “it provides/provided better results than Google Scholar along with a number of features GS doesn’t provide at all” and has been “wonderful and powerful.”

It’s not that there aren’t other services – there are a number of other academic research search tools, many of them free. Some include bibliographic information/direct links to open access articles as well as bibliographic info about paywalled materials. Others, provide material only about open access content. These include:

There’s also alerting services from Semantic Scholar offers (free).

I rely heavily on these services, both to find resources to add to my list of virtual volunteering-related research on the Virtual Volunteering Wiki and to find out who might be quoting my book, The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, or any of my other research or academic work, in their own research. And without a university account, I don’t have access to most academic research journals – I can read only the summary of articles on the aforementioned services.

Which of these services – or some other – is your favorite? Will the Microsoft change affect you and, if so, how?

Decolonizing International Aid (including international volunteering)

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Discussions about unequal power dynamics in international humanitarian aid and development systems have entered the mainstream and become much more prevalent. Local people in communities that are the target of such international aid have become increasingly vocal about the ways in which power and resources in the system remain dominated by, and between, certain organizations and relationships largely based in the “Global North” or “the West” – meaning North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Aid flows between former colonial powers and former colonised regions often mirror their past colonial relationships, with decision-making power concentrated in the Global North.

Structural racism is so deeply embedded in the everyday culture and working practice of those in the sector that it has affected the way local staff regard their own communities and how they engage with INGOs.

In November 2020, Peace Direct, Adeso, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security held a three-day online consultation with 158 activists, decision-makers, academics, journalists and practitioners across the globe. Participants and guest contributors exchanged insights and local experiences on the current power dynamics and imbalances that exist within the humanitarian, development and peacebuilding sectors. They discussed how structural racism manifests itself in their work, and how they envision a decolonised system that is truly inclusive and responds to their needs. The consultation received more than 350 detailed comments across nine discussion threads. This report presents the findings and recommendations from that consultation:

Time to Decolonise Aid: Insights and Lessons from a Global Consultation.

There are many volunteering abroad programs focused on humanitarian, development and peacebuilding and, just like with paid staff, many of these programs also promote unequal power dynamics. If you want to better understand the backlash against international volunteering (not just voluntourism) and the “White Savoir” complex, this report is worth reading.

Also see:

My voluntourism-related & ethics-related blogs.

Teaching youth about poverty – teaching compassion or supremacy?

Systemic Exclusion in Volunteer Engagement.

Managers of volunteers & resistance to diversity.

accessibility, diversity & virtual volunteering.

Busco información en español sobre cómo trabajar con voluntarios

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

Busco información en español sobre cómo trabajar con voluntarios. Información sobre apoyo y gestión de voluntarios. Puede enfocarse en un país de habla español (España, México, etc.) o en una comunidad de EE. UU. Pueden ser libros para comprar o información gratuita en línea.

He encontrado esta guía gratuita de HacesFalta. La información sobre cómo trabajar con voluntarios comienza en la página 64. La sección tiene cuatro páginas

También encontré este consejo para los padres, para participar en las escuelas.https://kidshealth.org/es/parents/school-esp.html

Y Claves para la Gestión del Voluntariado en las Entidades no Lucrativas de la Coordinadora de Organizaciones No Gubernamentales para el Desarrollo de la Comunidad Autónoma de La Rioja (CONGDCAR) en España.

Y “La Importancia de la Participación de los Padres en las Escuelas.”

Y La Guía del Voluntariado Virtual.

Y La entrada de Voluntariado en Wikipedia.

Mas?

(Perdóname por mis malas habilidades en español)

21 May 2021 actualización: El canal de YouTube de La Plataforma del Voluntariado de España. La PVE de es una organización no gubernamental que coordina la promoción y difusión del voluntariado y la acción solidaria a nivel estatal, una actividad que en nuestro país desarrollan casi 3 millones de personas. Uno de los objetivos principales de la PVE es la sensibilización social sobre el voluntariado a través del arte y la cultura.

My 2021 summer teaching gig at Gratz College

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I am so pleased to announce that I will be teaching a course for Gratz College this summer: MGT 553 Using Technology to Build Community and Grow Your Organization. It is part of the college’s MS in Nonprofit Management. 

The 553 course will examine online networking tools that can be used to foster connectivity, communication, and collaboration in order to strengthen nonprofit and religious-based organizations. As someone that has been online since the early 1990s and still believes that online communities are the heart of the Internet, I could not be more excited to teach this course! I will use a mix of books, online readings, podcasts and my own audiovisual materials to explore how mission-based initiatives can use online tools to create a sense of community among donors, volunteers, clients, neighbors and partners, and how to attract new people to be a part of those communities. It’s a class about facilitation, trust-building, outreach, and working with humans – online. 

The original course was designed in 2016 by Dr. Deborah Kantor Nagler, who passed away because of COVID-19 in April 2020. It has been bittersweet to have this opportunity because of the global pandemic, and I have dedicated this revised course to Dr. Kantor, who I’m so sorry I never met.

Much has changed since this course was last taught and, of course, I have my own approach to the subject, so I’ve spent a LOT of time creating new lectures and lessons. Online community has gotten buried under ad-ridden web sites with questionable content, memes and hate speech. I hope my course helps students see the potential of online communities for the nonprofits they are affiliated with and plays even a small part in bringing back civility to the Internet.

Gratz College is based in Philadelphia. It just celebrated its 125th anniversary. The College’s historic focus is on Jewish studies and education, and it continues to be internationally recognized as a leader in developing effective educators, professionals, leaders and scholars, both within and beyond the Jewish community, with a broad commitment to the intellectual and professional growth of diverse constituencies, grounded in Jewish values. The college is renowned for its Holocaust and Genocide Studies. They also offer an M.A. in Human Rights, with courses in areas such as Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, Children’s Rights, Sexual Identity and Gender Rights and Refugee Rights.

Per the emphasis of the college, some of my examples of effectively using online tools to engage and build community will be from programs focused on historic genocides and prevention of genocide – you can see a list of Twitter accounts I will be featuring here (additions are welcomed).

I love teaching at the university level. It is one of my very favorite things to do, right up there with riding my motorcycle. My experience to date? I was the Fall 2015 Duvall Leader in Residence at the University of Kentucky’s Center for Leadership Development, teaching sessions on online leadership. I have also guest lectured at classes at Portland State University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work and St. Edward’s University on both volunteer management-related topics, usually virtual volunteering, and on using online tools as a part of nonprofit service delivery and outreach. And I regularly train professionals in these and other topics: in 2020 alone, I created and delivered workshops for the University College Dublin Volunteers Overseas program, Centre d’étude et de coopération internationale / Centre for International Studies and Cooperation—CECI, the Iowa Commission on Volunteer Service, the USA Office of Healthcare Information & Counseling, the Points of Light Foundation / Corporation for National Service, America’s Service Commissions (ASC), and the Community Foundation of Henderson, Kentucky, among others (my busiest year as a trainer ever).

For the time being, I’ll also be continuing my very part-time role with TechSoup, helping to manage the TechSoup online community – introducing topics, answering community questions, trying to attract new participants and helping to move the community to a new platform before summer. Yes, joining and participating in the TechSoup community is going to be one of the assignments for my Gratz College students!

So, if you want to book me for a training or consultation, know that my schedule is very tight now and through August! And it’s also that time of year when I start getting contacted about leading workshops in the Fall, so it’s not too early to talk to me about my schedule after this class is done.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

Of course, you can have on-demand training from me regarding virtual volunteering anytime, through my free videos on m YouTube channel and via my book, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. If you want to deeply integrate virtual volunteering into your program and expand your engagement of online volunteers, such as in an online mentoring program or other scheme where online volunteers will interact with clients, 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 purchasing the book is far, far cheaper than hiring me as a consultant or trainer regarding virtual volunteering – though you can still do that!

Does your web site make people cry?

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drawing of two people, one using a smartphone and one using a desktop computer

I’m an advocate for accessibility on the World Wide Web. I’m not a web designer, but I am a human, and just as I want every person to be able to easily enter a public building and see a movie, get a passport, buy a meal, enjoy artwork, get medical care, complain to the management, etc., I want every person to be able to access the critical information and services they need via the Internet. Accessibility isn’t just nice to do in a web site design – it’s a sign of respect. It’s a human right. And a site that doesn’t try to be accessible is, to me, a sign of profound disrespect.

Just how distressing and painful an inaccessible web site can be was brought home for me recently: an elderly neighbor needed to put her sweet, beloved 12-year-old dog down. She was heartbroken. It was important to her for this procedure to be done in her own home, so she could be there at the moment of his death – something she couldn’t do in a vet’s office because of COVID-19 precautions. She booked an appointment through a company that specializes in euthanasia for pets at home via phone. Then she went online to pay. Her only Internet access is through her Android phone. She went through the very lengthy online form four times, and four times, she got to the end and there was a frowny face and the words, “Show you are human.” She didn’t understand what it meant. She clicked everywhere she could think of, hit return over and over and, each time, would have to go back and start all over. She was in tears by the time she texted me, begging for help.

I had to make the appointment for her on my Apple laptop, and I was confused by the form several times – it often wasn’t clear which field box went with which field box description. When I got to the end of the form, I was presented with a captcha – that’s what wasn’t working on her smartphone when she was trying to pay. By the end of the process, we were both even more stressed out – we had wanted to focus that day on saying goodbye to a beloved friend, and instead, we were both emotionally drained by an inaccessble web site.

How many older people have been in the same position because of an inaccessible web site? How many people have been urgently trying to make an appointment, pay a bill, get critically-needed information, and have been frustrated and even demoralized by an inaccessible web site? How many web sites have literally made people cry?

These accessibility recommendations from the State of Illinois are a good place to start in making a web site more accessible. 

And the keyword #WebWeWant on Twitter is a good one to follow.

Also see:

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. 

What should my next virtual volunteering video be?

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Since the start of the global pandemic last year, I have been creating and sharing videos to help organizations understand virtual volunteering and to quickly create roles and activities for online volunteers. I share them on my YouTube channel. These videos include:

I’m a professional consultant, and I cannot pay my bills with my goodwill and sharing free videos. However, sacrificing some – indeed, a lot – of my potential income to try to mitigate at least some of the negative impacts of the pandemic on nonprofits has been my way of feeling like I’m doing something worthwhile in this intense, tough time, as a way to feel not quite so helpless.

So, let me continue to try to help in my own small way: what would you like my next free training about virtual volunteering to be? What is a subject I could cover in just 5 to 15 minutes that would help your nonprofit, charity, school, NGO, library or other cause-based program regarding virtual volunteering? Please note the subject you need most in the comments below.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

While I don’t think these videos nor my blogs are a substitute for reading my book, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, I do believe that the information can help nonprofits who already have experience involving volunteers in traditional settings – onsite, face-to-face – pivot quickly in creating roles and tasks for online volunteers. But if you want to deeply integrate virtual volunteering into your program and expand your engagement of online volunteers, such as in an online mentoring program or other scheme where online volunteers will interact with clients, 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 purchasing the book is far, far cheaper than hiring me as a consultant or trainer regarding virtual volunteering – though you can still do that!

Also, FYI, please note my videos that aren’t specifically about virtual volunteering, including:

Looking forward to reading your suggestions!

Volunteering is no substitute for government programs

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

The Washington Post published an editorial on Monday by Katherine Turk, an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of. The headline and subhead:

Volunteering and generosity are no substitutes for government programs.

Conservatives have weaponized Americans’ desire to help to attack the social safety net.

As the editorial notes:

…as we honor these selfless acts, we should also recall National Volunteering Week’s dark origins story, when president Richard Nixon distorted benevolence to serve the least generous of goals. This history makes it clear that volunteering cannot stand in for government provided support…

…(President) Nixon, a Republican, set out to change the conversation about what the government owed to citizens when he became president in 1969. In particular, he sought to shrink Aid to Families With Dependent Children (often called simply “welfare”), the program that paid modest sums to low-income families. He also wanted to fulfill his campaign promise to be a president of “law and order” by redirecting War on Poverty funds into expanding incarceration and more aggressive policing in urban communities of color.

To lay the groundwork for these changes, Nixon took up his predecessors’ focus on volunteerism, and warped it. Many Americans needed assistance, Nixon claimed, but their generous fellow citizens could meet those needs. Volunteer programs should replace government-funded and run services… Nixon outlined an ambitious vision in which teens tutored youths; business leaders mentored aspiring entrepreneurs; housewives cooked for elderly neighbors, and those elderly served as foster grandparents. Most anyone could be recruited to aid another person free.

This praise for volunteerism helped erode the notion that basic sustenance was a right — something for which Americans shouldn’t have to rely upon the vagaries of charity. 

I strongly encourage you to read the entire editorial. As for me, I love volunteer engagement, I love volunteerism – and I absolutely agree with this editorial.

I won’t repeat myself – I have blogged about this so many times. I’ll let those past blogs speak for me:

Training on risk management in social media

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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:

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.

I was pleased to find that what I was recommending was, in different words, also what the Forbes Nonprofit Council recommended, via this article, How To Ensure Volunteers And Staff Follow Your Ethical Standards.

To summarize the entire training’s messages:

  • 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.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

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.

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