How to support your online community manager in times of trolling

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If you write anything online, whether it’s blog or a comment on Facebook or even a caption on an online photo, you could become a target for online harassment – insulting posts on social media that call you out by name, insulting comments in reply to your posts on social media and blogs and online communities, down votes on communities that allow such, text messages that criticize you, your work, your family, etc. 

The only way to avoid it? Never do anything online at all, ever. And that’s unrealistic.

Women, in particular, are targets of abuse online, and this misogyny in digital spaces, because it is very personal in nature, can lead to women feeling degraded, terrified, even somehow to blame for daring to take up space online. This targeted hate against women impacts the inclusiveness of the online public sphere through the chilling effect it creates for women’s public participation. — from “Articulating a Feminist Response to Online Hate Speech: First Steps“, from Bot Populi, October 9, 2020.

If your organization has a marketing director that publishes anything online at all, or a social media manager, or an online discussion / forum manager, etc., senior management needs to be aware that the people in these roles are very likely getting anger thrown their way, at best, and perhaps even demeaning or harassing comments.

What should you do?

  • Regularly ask anyone who interacts with the public online (as well as offline) how they are, in a way that lets them know that YOU know that hostility might be thrown their way. “How are you?” isn’t enough. Ask bluntly, “Is everything okay online? I’d like to know if you are getting any insulting or harassing remarks. I know that often happens and I want you to know I’m here to support you.”
  • Direct staff members to screen capture any message directed at them personally that they feel is disparaging, insulting, harassing or threatening. Don’t wait until you hear about hostility online – send an official memo reminding staff of this.
  • If the person or people targeting your staff are violating a social media or community platform’s terms of service, direct your staff person to report them to that company. You or others on your staff should report as well.
  • Tell your staff person they have to right to block or ban anyone who is harassing them online from your organization’s online communities and other online spaces. You may want the staff person to discuss this ban or block with a senior staff person and to document the action in some way (when, who and why).
  • Your comments and questions to the person that is experiencing the “haters” online that can be helpful:
    • Tell me what’s happening.
    • Wow, this is really awful. What an annoying/horrible/disturbing thing to be happening.
    • Are you scared? What can we do to help you feel safe?
    • I hope you know we are here for you, we care about you and I want you to tell me any fears you have or challenges you are having.
    • Should we ask our staff and even our volunteers to go to such-and-such platform and upvote your posts, to counter the down-voting that has been happening? Do you need staff and volunteers to comment positively on your posts for a while, to counter the negativity and show that you aren’t alone?
    • Do you need to take a break from online activities for a while?
    • Do you have ideas on what you think we should do?
  • Comments and questions that are NOT helpful:
    • If you are going to be online, this is how it is. There’s no way to prevent it.
    • You need to come up with a way to prevent this in the future.
    • I’m going to take over our social media channel and online community (do this only after asking the person if this is what they think would be a good idea, because your taking over/stepping in can be seen by others as a sign that the person is lacking the abilities or temperament for the role).
    • Silence

I have been the target of online harassment and trolling. In 2020 and this year, it’s escalated to a point such that I have had to seek legal counsel. I’ve been online since the early 1990s and have never experienced hate and abuse online at these levels until last year. If someone like me, who posts about benign subjects like volunteer engagement and nonprofit public relations and tech use in nonprofits, can become the target of online trolls, any nonprofit social media manager can as well. They need your support to help counter that hate.

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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. 

Your local adventure – & opportunity to help humanity or the environment – awaits

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Below is a question and answer from an interview with by Paul Salopek on the post-pandemic world, and I think its message is something every person that wants to volunteer abroad, or any person that wants to be a humanitarian worker abroad, needs to reflect on:

How can storytellers, who are often used to traveling and seeking stories out in the field, adapt to the new reality and continue telling the stories while staying at home?

I’ve always suggested to journalism students that it’s easy to jet off to some war and make your name covering such dramatic material. It’s actually the most unimaginative, even lazy, way to success. And I say this as a former war reporter. It’s much harder—but far more impressive, in my opinion—to document the same human drama at home. On your city block. In your house. If you tell me that the spiritual, existential dread of a lonesome woman or man in a middle-class suburb is somehow less interesting or “authentic” than a refugee’s woes, I’ll tell you that you are in danger of producing shallow cartoons, not original, impactful work. Take the lockdown as a challenge. Dig deeper into the warzone of your own heart.

A thousand times this! I feel exactly the same way about people that say they want to volunteer abroad but have not done locally whatever it is they want to do in another country: it’s an unimaginative, lazy way of thinking about helping others and making a difference. It is far, far more impressive to engage in meaningful local volunteering opportunities helping educate people with HIV, helping immigrants and refugees, helping unsheltered people, helping foster kids, helping people access the critical services they need, helping to educate people about their rights, introducing arts or sports or outdoor recreation to people in your own community. If you tell me helping abroad is somehow more “authentic” than helping in your own community – or even another community in your own country – I’ll tell you the same thing: you are in danger of producing shallow cartoons, not original, impactful work. In fact, I’ll tell you you’re in danger of promoting a colonialist, even racist, view of the world.

I’m not at all opposed to wanting to work or volunteer abroad. But I am opposed to looking at it as something primarily to help yourself, to give you some spiritual experience, some experience that is completely different than issues in your own country, and something that is more genuine, more lofty than doing the same work locally.

When I moved back to the USA after living and working abroad for eight years, I decided I was going to try to do locally what I had done abroad. It has not been easy: I am looked at with much more suspicion here in Oregon than in communities in Afghanistan, Egypt or Ukraine. In those places, I had the label as “from the United Nations” and “foreign expert.” Here, I’m an outsider who can’t possibly think of the issues faced in local communities in Oregon as worthwhile or exciting as the other places I’ve been. When I go to local government meetings, volunteer at political candidate forums, apply to join a citizens’ advisory group, apply to volunteer with a nonprofit or even apply for a job, people will ask questions with an incredulous tone, like “But why do you want to be in Oregon instead of one of those really exciting places?” and “Why do you want to work here at this government office instead of abroad for some exciting international agency?” Never mind that the work is almost exactly the same. Yes, really, it’s oh-so-similar: researching local conflicts and grudges, understanding local history, attending local events, being respectful of local culture, being careful with word choices in order to stay neutral, filling out lots of forms, writing lots of reports, producing lots of slides for presentations, finding informal acts and conversation points that can build trust (being aware of weddings, births, graduations and other family events, sharing meals, etc.), knowing my neighbors and their complexities and navigating such as necessary (that house is a place for people who have to stay sober, this man has an extensive gun collection, that woman gets angry about dogs peeing on her lawn, this house gets a lot of visits by the police), and so forth.

There’s a nonprofit in the town where I live now that engages in work with local immigrants that is exactly the same as work an initiative I worked in as part of a government-UN partnership abroad: they train women in creating and managing their own small businesses and micro enterprises, most regarding agriculture. And the executive director of this nonprofit was incredulous when I told her how similar her work was to what I’d been a part of in Afghanistan: the approach, the challenges, the conflicts, and on and on.

And local experiences are SO valuable in work abroad: I watched other foreign co-workers feeling uncomfortable in deeply-religious Islamic communities where there were prayers before government meetings, while I recalled my hometown in Kentucky where prayers are said before just about any gathering or meeting (including a presentation I was doing regarding social media management). And my familiarity with professional wrestling has proven valuable everywhere from work with inner-city kids in Washington, DC to talking to security guards in Egypt.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t want to go abroad. Traveling abroad is an extraordinary experience. Let’s remember that Mr. Salopek is traveling right now, despite the pandemic – he’s not in his home country, telling local stories: he’s been traveling for more than seven years on an unprecedented transcontinental 21,000-mile odyssey along the migration route of early humans. And I am writing as someone that’s been to more than 35 countries and as someone who has worked abroad in humanitarian work, and I cannot deny that it wasn’t an adventure and, at times, as mental and spiritual high. Nor can I deny that I am dreaming of getting a new stamp in my passport.

And like me, Mr. Salopek is a man of privilege – it’s nice to be able to say “Stop over-planning your life so much,” but it also has to be acknowledged that most people in the world don’t have the luxury of living the life that Mr. Salopek does, and that a white man crossing a country’s border gets very different treatment than a black man. A white man working at a foreign itinerant farm laborer is going to be treated differently than a woman of any ethnicity.

But with all that acknowledged, I believe, fervently, that you have to have done locally whatever it is you want to do internationally if you truly want to be “authentic.”

Also see:

Your thoughts? Let’s hear them in the comments below.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into developing material, researching information, preparing articles, updating pages, etc., here is how you can help.

The ethics of volunteering abroad during a global pandemic

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I am regularly reading posts and getting emails from unvaccinated young people who want to “get away” from the lockdowns in their own country by volunteering abroad. And these people are stunned that I respond with my very strongly-worded assertion that this is a horrific, selfish idea.

If you are being told by health authorities in your own country that you shouldn’t be gathering with others because it’s not safe, why do you think you should be allowed / approved of to go abroad?

The main office of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the USA sent out this tweet at the end of March 2021:

When you’re fully vaccinated for #COVID19, you can start doing some things again, like gathering indoors w/ other fully vaccinated people. Still protect yourself & others in public places – wear a mask, stay at least 6ft apart, & avoid crowds. More: https://bit.ly/3btJaFU.

The CDC’s guidance here goes for volunteering abroad too.

For people who want to volunteer abroad now: please, please note that there is a global pandemic happening right now. As of the end of March 2021, around three million people were counted as having died from diseases associated with the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), primarily COVID19, and not only is that death toll probably a gross underestimation, it also doesn’t count the many more who have died because they could not get the medical care they needed because of how many resources have had to be diverted to treating COVID-19. In addition, there is no number regarding how many people have been permanently disabled from the disease.

Travel by non-vaccinated people spreads the disease, and spreads the variants of the disease to new areas. In short, travel by non-vaccinated people kills people. And that includes people traveling abroad to “volunteer” because, you know, lockdowns are such a bummer.

The Peace Corps is NOT sending volunteers abroad right now, both because it wants to keep volunteers safe and because it wants to keep communities abroad safe. There is no ethical, credible volunteer hosting or volunteer sending organization that is mobilizing foreign volunteers and sending them abroad for any roles except for critically-needed services, like medical care or public health education, such as through UN Volunteers.

If you are eying a company that says it is sending volunteers abroad right now to rescue turtles or build water wells or lead English classes, that company is unscrupulous and reckless and just wants your money.

And if I’m looking at candidates for a job and I see on a CV that someone went abroad with one of these companies during a global pandemic, I’m going to put that candidate aside, because no way would I consider someone so reckless for a workplace I’m in charge of.

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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. 

Infuriating statements about volunteering

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

When it comes to talking about volunteer engagement, I am just not at all about bunnies and fluff and warm fuzzies and hugs. I don’t like talking about volunteers as nice but, rather, as necessary, for a whole range of reasons that have nothing to do with money. I think talking about volunteers in terms of warm fuzzies devalues both what volunteers do and what the nonprofits and other programs they support do.

I also cringe over the idea of entitlement regarding volunteers: those people who believe that their desire to do a certain kind of volunteering should be all they need to get to do that volunteering, regardless of what people actually need.

I admit it: I’m not very kind in response to such people. Especially lately.

There are statements and attitudes about volunteering that make my blood boil. They contribute to volunteer engagement not being taken seriously and not being financially supported, and in some cases, to a patriarchal, colonialist view of volunteering, and excuse for volunteers for having that view.

Here are some of those statements that send me over the edge:

  • Volunteering is great, but it’s not serious, like a job. Volunteers can never do something as well as someone that’s paid to do that thing. they can never be experts.
  • People can volunteer whenever they might have some time and solve homelessness, create economic opportunities leading to equity, stop climate change, and solve other serious social and environmental issues. Volunteering is something you do when you don’t really have anything else to do or when you feel like doing it.
  • I feel like I would be good at counseling people, because I do it with friends / at my bartending job, so I should get to counsel people as a volunteer, but I don’t want to have to go through a bunch of training.
  • I like animals, so I should get to volunteer with wildlife, like elephants and baby orphaned tigers.
  • My company’s employees want to work with kids, so the local school should let us host a pizza party for the sixth graders this Friday, from noon to 1.
  • People in poor communities wish people with really “good hearts” from other places will come to their communities and do things local people would like to do themselves: build schools, care for orphaned children, build wells, care for wildlife, etc. And those people in those poor communities want to give these foreign volunteers free housing and these people are so grateful that these volunteers come there, even for just a week or two.
  • Volunteers are cost-free.

I read comments like these all the time on Quora and Reddit. Here’s a perfect example of such. I’ve edited for brevity (the original post is much longer):

I am curious if working for nonprofits or volunteering can become be lucrative at all. I wish I could just live off tips or donations from people that I’ve made their lives better.

I spend a lot of time just talking to people about their problems. Genuinely listening and focusing on them, trying to guide or nurture towards where they are looking to grow, or nudge them towards solutions that are just out of reach. I spend a few minutes a day just answering posts in FB vent groups or lonely people. Just generally check in with people and see how I can make their day better.

I always liked the sense of freedom from volunteering. Especially in a situation where you can work as much or as little as you want. Come in whenever, or on a loose schedule, etc.

Is there low pressure, humanistic jobs, volunteer work, or non profit work that would support a minimalist lifestyle but provide enough to not stagnate? I’m not afraid of labor, but would want to do it on my own terms.

The privilege in this post… the vanity… the stereotypes about not just volunteering but about the help people in crisis need, that it’s all something you can do whenever you might feel like it, and just do it, ’cause, you know, you have a good heart and you really “get” people… yes, my blood is boiling.

While I absolutely believe volunteering can be fun, that it can be informal, and that it can be episodic (one-time event, no further obligation), I also believe volunteering should be something that has some sort of actual impact for the organization, that it should serve the organization and its mission primirarily, and that it shouldn’t be mainly about giving a volunteer a feel-good “look, I helped!” experience. While I believe volunteers can have great ideas about what volunteers should do – virtual volunteering has been driven mostly by volunteers, in fact – I also believe that the final say regarding volunteer engagement is always what the organization and its clients need.

I also believe volunteering, even for just a few hours, is a real commitment, because the issues addressed by volunteer are real, sometimes even urgent, issues. Come in whenever you might feel like it? I would fire volunteers for that. It’s profoundly disrespectful to the causes nonprofits attempt to address.

The work of nonprofits is serious. That work addresses homelessness, it helps the environment, it helps people experiencing domestic violence, it helps communities with a range of quality of life issues, it helps people recover from disasters and on and on. It is not for “whenever I might feel like it because, you know, freedom!” Volunteering is not for the cavalier. It’s not for photos for your Instagram page.

My advice to the person I quoted above? Maybe doing some episodic volunteering, like cleaning up a beach – but, you know, only if you might maybe feel like it.

I’m tired.

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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. 

FREE books on management of volunteers

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Wow. The Ellis Archive has released a bunch of volunteer management books for FREE. These are books that Susan Ellis sold for years through her company, Energize, Inc.

If you don’t know: Susan was the world’s expert on the effective management of volunteers, and her company, Energize, was the world’s largest publisher of books on volunteer management. I was her disciple when it came to volunteer management, one of many. And she was the first promoters of virtual volunteering. We wrote The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook together (it’s not free, however).  

If you are a person that works with volunteers, or wants to, all of these books are worth your time to read (don’t just download them!)

Funded by the Susan J. Ellis Foundation, the Ellis Archive primarily consists of digitized documents from Susan J. Ellis‘ personal resource library. The Ellis Archive is searchable by title, source, year, author, and keyword topic. Special tags also exist for Research, Non-US/International, and AVA history items.Items in the archive are organized into 32 keyword topics, with some cross-referencing. These topics also represent a broad range of mission-focused areas, such as the arts, criminal justice, social services, the environment, healthcare, government, education, etc. Most content originates from 1970 through 2004. However, there are seminal works dated as early as 1947, and a few documents as recent as 2010. Also included are numerous items from the private libraries of two pioneer volunteer leaders – Harriet Naylor and Ivan Scheier, prodigious writers and highly respected mentors to Susan. Much of Scheier’s work was originally digitized by Regis University and now continues to be accessible as part of this Archive. In addition, the Minnesota Office of Volunteer Services Resource Library gave a few of its publications to Susan when that office closed in 2002; these publications are now a part of this Archive. The Archive also includes historical items documenting some of the history of the Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA).

Resources to learn plain language writing

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A colleague of mine in another country wants to improve her report writing and writing for the web. She works in a government water & sanitation project. English is not her first language. She has a number of audiences she must write for, via various reports, briefing papers, project reports and the web: donors (mostly foreign governments), other government offices in her own country, the media in her own country and residents of her country, especially those her office is trying to help.

I think resources on plain language are the best guidance for writers anywhere. I use my journalism training and experience, which was steeped in plain language, to write reports, and at UN offices, I got a tremendous amount of great feedback from colleagues about my reports, along the lines of “Wow, I could understand this!”

Here are the free online resources I’m recommending to my colleague. Note that some of these resources link to even more resources:

  • Communicate Health, a health education and communication firm specializing in improving health literacy through user-centered design, research, and content development. Resources promote usability and accessibility of public health materials.

What would YOU recommend for my colleague? Say what you would recommend in the comments.

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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. 

Yes, virtual volunteering will continue after the pandemic

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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?

Maybe my latest video will stop this question from being asked… though probably not. FYI, the video is just four minutes long.

And for a free, basic orientation in virtual volunteering, you can watch these free videos on my YouTube channel – altogether, less than an hour:

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:

Also see:

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. 

National Service Has Presidential Support Again!

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The previous presidential administration tried repeatedly to eliminate national service.

By contrast, the current administration, headed by President Joe Biden, has designated $1 billion in the Fiscal Year 2021 Reconciliation Bill, known as the American Rescue Plan, for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). The investment will help to stabilize existing national service programs, increase the benefits for those who serve, and deploy additional full and part-time members to support their communities’ response to COVID-19.

In a statement, AnnMaura Connolly, President of Voices for National Service, said:

Since the coronavirus outbreak, members of AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps Seniors have acted quickly and creatively to address gaps in services and persistent inequities that have only been worsened by the pandemic… The additional funding provides a triple bottom line: the opportunity to engage more Americans in pandemic relief efforts, such as helping schools safely reopen and tackling the growing hunger crisis; an important accelerator for increasing equity in national service; and a proven pathway help prepare young people prepare for future jobs, particularly for populations hardest hit by the pandemic.

And I am being contacted by state AmeriCorps programs again, at long last, regarding training in volunteer support and management. In fact, one program bought 26 copies from me of the Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service Into Volunteer Involvement for each AmeriCorps member of various public health initiatives.

Make no mistake: this funding from Congress, lead by the President is, in part, because of vocal activism by nonprofits and others to their US Representatives and Senators. It’s long overdue for nonprofits to speak out on these and so many other issues. You ARE allowed to do this if you have nonprofit status!

I am a huge fan of AmeriCorps, particularly VISTA and NCCC. I wish more young people knew about these opportunities. I wish these had been options for me when I was in my 20s. And the help from AmeriCorps isn’t just within the bounds of a service site: there are so many fantastic resources out there because of these national service programs, like this Toolkit for Working with Rural Volunteers. I have the honor to work with AmeriCorps members many times, first back in the 1990s, when I helped put together a handbook for AmeriCorpsVISTAs in charge of managing school-based volunteers for Sanchez Elementary School in Austin, Texas, written by various AmeriCorps members over the years in the program. I also have frequently trained AmeriCorps members on volunteer management 101, and I have a page especially for AmeriCorps members that curates the volunteer management resources I reference in my workshops.

FYI, Voices for National Service was founded in 2003 and is a coalition of national service programs, state service commissions and individual champions, who work to ensure Americans of all ages and backgrounds have the opportunity to serve and volunteer in their community.

Also see:

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. 

Virtual Volunteering & Employability

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Back in 2012 and 2013, I was part of the ICT4EMPL Future Work project, focused on the countries of the European Union and funded by the European Commission. The overall project aimed to inform policy regarding “new forms of work” and pathways to employability that involved online technologies. The overall ICT4EMPL project produced a series of reports on the state of play of novel forms of internet-mediated work activity: crowd-sourced labour, crowdfunding, and internet-mediated work exchange (timebanks and complementary currency) and, of course, internet-mediated volunteering (virtual volunteering).

For this project, I got to research and map the prevalence of virtual volunteering in Europe and explore how virtual volunteering could support people’s employability: Here my complete final paper. And here is the Wiki I created for the project.

Included in this paper was Chapter 4, Internet-mediated volunteering and employability. I’ve reproduced the text from Chapter 4 on the web so that it’s more findable.

Traditional volunteering – onsite, face-to-face – has been a good source for people to acquire or enhance new skills, explore careers and network with others all towards improving their employability. As the paper notes, along with enhancing technical skills and subject knowledge, employers also want other skills, many of which can be acquired through virtual volunteering:

  • Communication and interpersonal skills,
  • Problem-solving skills,
  • Using your initiative and being self-motivated,
  • Working under pressure and to deadlines,
  • Organizational skills,
  • Team working,
  • Ability to learn and adapt,
  • Numeracy,
  • Valuing diversity and difference

This chapter of my paper looks at how virtual volunteering can help to enhance those skills, as well as challenges and risk in promoting online volunteering as a route to employability.

If your agency or organization is considering virtual volunteering as a path to helping people become more employable, 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 and what you and partner organizations will need to put in place, 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. 

I hope we stop talking about virtual volunteering

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I really do mean that headline: I hope we will stop talking about virtual volunteering.

What I mean is: I hope we will stop talking about online volunteers versus onsite volunteers. I would be so happy to never hear the phrase “virtual” volunteers, distinguishing them from “real” volunteers, ever again. I hope that, at last, all managers of volunteers realize they need to be using the Internet to engage and support ALL volunteers.

Co-author Susan Ellis and I wanted The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook to be a turning point, to be the last time anyone talked about using the Internet to engage and support volunteers as something separate and completely different than engaging and supporting traditional onsite volunteers. We hoped the book would be the moment that virtual volunteering stopped being segregated to separate books or a separate chapter at the end of a volunteer management book or a separate workshop on volunteer recruitment, volunteer support, etc.

Sadly, the publication of the book was not the turning point we were hoping for.

So… could the pandemic and the massive rise in popularity of virtual volunteering be that turning point? Could this be the moment that we stop thinking of volunteer engagement this way, with groups completely segregated from each other:

And, instead, we think of volunteer engagement this way, with everyone in the yellow oval being volunteers and intersecting together, and being in more than one grouping?

They are all volunteers. And unless the volunteers don’t have Internet access, you should be using the Internet to engage and support all of your volunteers – to refuse to do so creates so much more work for you, the manager, and leaves out so, so many people as volunteers – it undermines any goals you might have regarding diversity and inclusion.

(Yes, there are volunteers without Internet access – just as there are volunteers who don’t like your traditional thank-you banquet and choose not to attend, or volunteers who don’t like working with the public or in groups and prefer to work behind-the-scenes, alone. No one thing you do onsite, face-to-face is appropriate for all volunteers.)

If you are writing a book or teaching a class about the basics of volunteer management, it should talk about using the Internet to support and engage volunteers – not at the end, but throughout the book or workshop. If you are going to focus on how to

  • identify tasks for volunteers
  • recruit volunteers
  • keep volunteers engaged/volunteer retainment
  • recognize/honor volunteers.

Then you should be talking about:

  • identifying tasks people can do online, not just onsite
  • using the Internet to recruit volunteers for both onsite and online roles and tasks.
  • using Internet tools to keep volunteers engaged/volunteer retainment
  • using your web site, YouTube, social media and other Internet tools to recognize and honor volunteers.

You don’t even have to say the phrase virtual volunteering in your workshop or article. People don’t think of themselves as online volunteers – just as volunteers, so why are you talking about them as this completely separate group?!

Also see:

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

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is a volunteer management book for anyone that supports or engages volunteers, or who cares about the overall volunteer engagement at their agency. The book has never been just for people that want to involve online volunteers. In fact, the book emphasizes support for ALL VOLUNTEERS more than any other topic. When Susan Ellis and I wrote The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, we never envisioned a global pandemic creating this massive, sudden shift to virtual volunteering for so many agencies, and I’m glad the book has been helpful to so many in these trying, fatiguing times, but I worry that people are thinking of virtual volunteering as something that will go away when the pandemic eases. Just as virtual volunteering is a practice that’s more than 35 years old and undertaken by thousands of organizations long before 2020, it will continue to be not only a reality, and an expectation.

Also see:

Request to all those training re: volunteer management (blog).

My own training videos (all free!).

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