Provocative campaigns against voluntourism

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The pushback against voluntourism – where Westerners pay large amounts of money to go to another country for a few days or weeks and engage in an activity they believe is helping people in some way with just a few hours of volunteering – seems to be getting more intense, judging from what I’m seeing online. I’m now not the only one posting about the dark side of voluntourism on sites like Quora and Reddit – which is so different from 10 years ago, when I felt like the lone voice on sites like YahooAnswers, and on my own web site, begging people not to support voluntourism.

In fact, the pushback against voluntourism is spilling over into all humanitarian action, with many local NGOs in high-poverty countries asking large international NGOs why they aren’t being paid to teach their own children, build their own schools and water wells, etc., instead of bringing in foreigners to do so and why there are so many Westerners – most of them white – starting their own NGOs in developing countries. Here’s one of a few memes I’ve seen reflecting this: 

To be fair, many international agencies have greatly evolved and already focus on hiring local people for their humanitarian interventions. Many international agencies running refugee camps are, whenever possible, hiring refugees themselves, in the camps, for the work that needs to be done.

Still, the campaigns getting the most traction are the ones against voluntourism, and one of my favorite messaging on this subject is this video, Who Wants to Be a Volunteer from Radi-Aid, an annual campaign created by the Norwegian Students’ & Academics’ International Assistance Fund (SAIH).

There’s also the even more provocative No White Saviors campaign, which I found out about via an online group for professional humanitarian workers – highly-skilled people who go to a developing country for several months, even years, to build the skills of local people so that they can take over the work themselves. The campaign is using social media to share highly provocative images and messages, which you can view and read here:

It’s similar to the satirical White Savior Barbie campaign.

Here is one of their tamer memes:

And here is one of the campaign’s much more provocative memes:

I shared these No White Saviors campaign memes on the volunteer subreddit, an online group on Reddit for the discussion of volunteering, and, as you can see if you look yourself, some folks were outraged, calling the campaign racist. I disagree, and think this campaign is important in pushing forth some very important questions that need discussing – the campaigns have certainly made me reflect on not only my international humanitarian work, but my own local volunteering activities and attitudes right here in rural Oregon.

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

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know before you go: volunteering by foreigners is illegal in some countries

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I’m one of the moderators of the forum on Reddit – called a subreddit – on volunteering. Most of the questions on that forum are by people looking to volunteer and, often, they are looking to volunteer for a few weeks in another country. This is voluntourism, and anyone who reads this blog regularly knows I’m not fond of the practice: it is vanity volunteering, focused on giving a foreigner a feel-good experience rather than actually helping someone and, in fact, such “volunteering” can actually harm children, wildlife – even the volunteers themselves.

In some countries, volunteering by foreigners is, in fact, illegal. Despite its illegality, some NGOs – which are really for-profit companies – try to recruit foreigners to pay thousands of dollars to come “help” in their communities.

For instance, in most cases, volunteering by foreigners in Indonesia is illegal. The Indonesian immigration police in the country make regular visits to certain communities to check the legal status of people who say they are volunteers and foreigners who say they are being paid to work. You can read a news report from July 2016 about one of the raids on foreign volunteers here.

Bukit Lawang in North Sumatra, Indonesia is a popular tourist destination located on the edge of the Gunung Leuser National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site home to numerous bird, plant and mammal species, most famously the Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii). Nearby tourist businesses operate jungle treks, transport, tours, and other activities in the area – and field a LOT of questions about wildlife volunteering.

bukitlawang.com has a page about the laws regarding volunteering by foreigners in Indonesia, one that I wish more countries and popular tourism sites had. The Bukit Lawang page says that the main type of foreign visas for the country are the following (the bullets are cut and pasted from the site):

    • visa-free entry permit (received on arrival, free, at the airport) – voluntary work is always illegal

    • visa-on-arrival (paid on arrival at the airport at the cost of $35) – voluntary work is always illegal

    • tourist visa (paid abroad at the cost of around $50) – voluntary work is always illegal

    • social visa (paid abroad at the cost of around $50) – voluntary work is usually illegal. For the voluntary work to be legal, the social visa must have been sponsored (with an accompanying letter) by a registered Indonesian yayasan (charity/foundation) and during the application, the sponsorship letter must state that the foreigner is performing volunteer work for the foundation. A sponsorship letter that merely says something along the lines of ‘I am an Indonesian citizen and I am sponsoring Mr. X to visit Indonesia’ would NOT be valid for volunteer work in Indonesia, it ONLY entitles you to stay in Indonesia for a holiday/family visit, and no kind of work is permitted. A sponsorship letter from an individual, one that is not stamped by a charity/foundation is almost certainly NOT valid for work in Indonesia.

  • KITAS – sponsored by a charity or employer. This costs around $1200 per year (including work permit and visa) and is valid for paid and/or unpaid work of the specified nature at the specified employer.

The page also offers the following throughs about voluntourism. Remember – these are coming from an Indonesia-based organization:

Voluntourism is big business around the globe. In Indonesia specific considerations are:

    • low cost of labour – the minimum wage is around $5/day, and many earn even less. If you emphasise the ‘tourism’ aspect of voluntourism, then it may make sense to spend thousands on your trip, but the ‘volunteer’ element may be lacking.

    • your skills – if you are a young person with no work or life experience unfortunately you may have little to offer except your time. Effective volunteers will have specific skills that are relevant and scarce in a rural developing area.

    • culture differences – Indonesian culture is very different from your own. Communities are interconnected and foreigners are ‘other’. You will also face a language barrier – while those working in tourism will speak English, these are certainly not the people in need of help – those in need are generally far from the tourist areas.

    • transparency – Indonesia does not have a big charity culture; rather, charity is said to begin at home, and the concept of working for free is largely alien. You should therefore check exactly how the goals of the charity or project organiser himself are aligned with those of the charity. Do not be afraid to ask questions. Indonesian staff need money, but they must explain to volunteers exactly how they benefit financially from their charity.

    • safeguarding – Indonesia and other developing countries are open and have few safeguarding policies in place. This means that children can be at risk. If your project is working with children be sure to check about their safeguarding policies

    • effectiveness – be sure that your project is effective in achieving its and your goals. Ask specific questions and look at how results are measured.

  • immigration concerns – your volunteer work is likely to be illegal – see above.

It’s refreshing to see a local institution speak out so strongly against voluntourism and be so explicit about what the law is.

All that said, I should note that it is certainly possible for foreigners to visit Gunung Leuser National Park and see the Sumatran orangutan, something I hope to do myself someday. I learned about it by reading Lone Rider by Elspeth Beard. She’s one of the first women to ride a motorcycle all around the world, doing so back in 1982 – 1984. She wrote about an NGO working in this area, helping to address the huge problem of Indonesians abducting baby orangutans and then wanting to get rid of them when they grow older and are so much harder to care for. Her account of this visit is a good example of transire benefaciendo: “to travel along while doing good” – she didn’t attempt to work at the NGO as a volunteer (which would have been illegal), but she did elevate its work through her book.

I did something similar in Hungary: while camping in Hortobágyi Neuzeti Park, a sea of grasslands, the camp host told us that there was a bird rescue clinic right next door. The next morning, I went there. It turned out the clinic allowed visitors, so we toured, taking photos of their rehabilitation rooms and spaces and getting information, which I translated once we were home so that I could write about the Hortobágy Bird Clinic on my blog. Here is the web site of the clinic as well.

In addition to researching the laws regarding foreign volunteers in a country where you want to go, you should also look at your own country’s laws regarding going elsewhere to volunteer. For instance, Tauqir Sharif, 31, from Walthamstow, England, founded the organization Live Updates from Syria in 2012, providing support and assistance for families in Syria and raising awareness about the devastating situation on the ground. He has been living and working in Idlib, Syria alongside his British wife, Racquell Hayden-Best. He had his UK citizenship revoked in May 2017.
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Susan Ellis Matters

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In the winter of 1996, I started a new job, directing The Virtual Volunteering Project. I was based in Austin, Texas, and I flew to Washington, DC to meet one of the advisors of the project, Susan J. Ellis.

She terrified me.

She seemed to know absolutely everything there is to know about volunteerism. She had thought about virtual volunteering far, far more than I ever had. She was absolutely sure of the impact online volunteers could have on the world and had already envisioned specific examples of possibilities. She wasn’t surprised at all by anything I told her regarding what I knew about working with online volunteers or what I knew about organizations engaged in virtual volunteering. She was five steps ahead of me no matter what I was saying or thinking. It was one of the most intimidating meetings I’ve ever had.

I have remained in awe of Susan’s expertise and ways of thinking and strategizing every day since that meeting, but I also am so happy that, since then, Susan became a frequent collaborator and good friend. Back in those early days, we would do workshops together at various volunteer management and volunteerism conferences and ask the room, “How many of you have an email address?” Maybe a quarter of the room would raise their hands. I wanted to be tentative and gentle about introducing virtual volunteering – she didn’t, and would challenge the room with statements about how they had better get ahead of this because, if they didn’t, tech-savvy volunteers would create their own efforts and leave them behind. Over the four years I directed the Virtual Volunteering Project, I became far bolder in my statements and advice as well, and it was because of her. She never officially consulted on the United Nation’s Online Volunteering Service when I directed the project at UNV, but so much of what I did in managing that service was because of what she taught me, and any success regarding that service is, in part, because of her. 

Her book From the Top Down: The Executive Role in Successful Volunteer Involvement changed everything I had been thinking about volunteerism, and I still refer to it regularly when trying to create a presentation or a research paper or write a blog post. When she told me she had suggested the authors writing the book What We Learned (the Hard Way) about Supervising Volunteers to contact me for a contribution, I was floored – what did I know?!? She had so much more faith in me than I ever did in myself. I read her oh-so-provocative Hot Topics, her monthly blog series, and was inspired for months to come with new questions and comments for colleagues – and always checked it whenever I had what I thought was a new idea because, very often, Susan had the same questions or comments months or even years before me.  

The first time I visited the Energize, Inc. office in Philadelphia in 1998, we were both active participants on CyberVPM, a then very popular and pioneering online group to discuss volunteer management. Sitting in her office, we decided to author a joint post and propose a discussion that the President Bill Clinton intern/sex scandal was, in fact, a volunteer management issue, since the intern was unpaid and, therefore, a volunteer. Many on the group balked at the idea of discussing “politics”, but Susan didn’t back down: she asked point blank how these organizations would handle the same situation in their own organizations, what policies they had in place to address it, etc. 

Susan was disruptive long before it became fashionable to be such.  

Let’s be clear: there is no person on Earth who has done as much to promote volunteerism and the best practices for engaging and support volunteers than Susan J. Ellis. Her contributions cannot be overstated. That any academic paper regarding any aspect of volunteerim can be written without quoting Susan at some point is beyond me. I have not done a presentation on volunteer engagement in the last 22 years that I did not reference Susan Ellis. 

Susan wasn’t just a pioneer regarding the identification and promotion of volunteer management best practices and innovations, she wasn’t just a guru regarding all things volunteerism: Susan J. Ellis was a pioneer geek fan girl. Her company, Energize, Inc., was named for the term “energize” in Star Trek, and she had fantastic stories about being a Trekker in the earliest days of the show. She also was a huge fan of David McCallum and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and a few years ago, over a huge sandwich at a Schlesinger’s, a legendary traditional Jewish deli in Philadelphia, she told me a wonderful story of waiting outside a stage door as a starry-eyed young fan girl so she could show McCallum, who was appearing in a stage production, the scrapbook she’d put together for years watching his show. She did, indeed, meet him and show him her work, and he had seemed quite impressed. Many years later, she decided to wait outside another stage door for him in a different show, just to get another autograph, and he said upon seeing her, “You’re the girl with the scrapbook.” She beamed at that story, as any fangirl does, to be remembered by someone whose career you have followed and promoted with such passion.

Susan also wrote a Master’s thesis on the history of scrapple, a traditional and not-at-all kosher food of Pennsylvania, and I not only read it when I last stayed at her house, I also delighted in playing for her the scrapple song by one of my favorite performers, Robbie Fulks. I had intended to get him to autograph something for her in March when i see him perform, to honor her scrapple research. 

In 2005, Susan and I were at yet another volunteerism conference together – I had been living in Germany for four years. And we sat at a table and had a conversation in German. She was so delighted to hear me stumble through the language of her parents and to be able to have a bit of back and forth in it. It’s one of MANY moments I cherish with her. 

The blanket on my couch is the one Susan gave me as a wedding present. One of my favorite outfits is one I bought when I met up with her in London to tell her I had started a completely revising our book on virtual volunteering. And, of course, so many of the books she wrote and published are on my bookshelves. 

You have probably noticed by now that I’m talking about Susan in the past tense. Susan passed away yesterday morning, Sunday, February 25. I wanted to wait a day before posting my tribute online because I wanted to make sure that those who were closest to her would know this news by now and wouldn’t learn it by reading this blog or any social media posts I made.

Seven years ago, Susan was diagnosed with cancer. She made a remarkable recovery from that initial diagnosis and the toll the initial treatment took on her, but never quite a full one: the cancer kept showing up in other places and the treatments greatly affected her health in a myriad of ways. She handled her health challenges with remarkable grace and humor, even coming back from the brink in late 2017 – her friends, of course, dubbed her Susan Ellis: hard to kill. But ultimately, the fight became too much. I’m so glad that her final days were peaceful and surrounded by friends. 

Please check the Energize, Inc. web site for details about Susan’s funeral and burial, which will be happening quite quickly, as well as the memorial in Philadelphia next weekend. Any other plans for remembering Susan will be posted there as well. 

I made a Flickr group of photos of and “to” Susan you can see here.

SO many of us are having trouble thinking about a world without Susan. I’m so grateful to have been mentored by her – and to have been able to call her my friend. 

Update: her official obituary from her company. Also, the newly formed Susan J. Ellis Foundation will, in the coming months, “provide grants or support programs that will expand volunteer administration and support education and research activities in volunteerism” and contributions are being accepted for it. 

Susan’s obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

Pioneering Internet Initiatives Deserve To Be Remembered

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So much of what the press and bloggers herald now as pioneering or disruptive on the Internet isn’t at all. In 1995, I was talking online with friends, old and new, in all the ways I do now, with the exception of live video: we were writing messages in real-time and messages posted somewhere to read later. We were making and sharing audios and videos. We were creating communities. We were using online tools to train, to learn, to change minds, to promote ideas and to research. The names of the tools have changed, and they have all definitely gotten more sophisticated, but rarely do I read an article about something new online and find that, in fact, it really is something new, innovative, or disruptive. Many tech pioneers and early tech history have been forgotten, and web sites that detailed these efforts are gone, sometimes not even available on the Wayback Machine (archive.org). In addition, attempts to preserve some of this important, rich early Internet history on Wikipedia often get wiped out by veteran Wikipedeans who don’t think the entries are worth remembering – especially if the entries involve women primarily. There are certain tech-related initiatives from the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s that I think are worth not only remembering but worth reviewing and mining for lessons we can use right now – and worth celebrating. I also think the people involved in these early initiatives are worth looking up by researchers and the press alike, to find out what they think about where our networked world has been and where it might be going. Below is a list of pages on my web site that are a part of my attempts to preserve some of this important history and to make it more findable on various search engines. Note how most are focused on nonprofit and government initiatives, rather than for-profit companies – just like those that created the Internet:
  • Early History of Nonprofits & the Internet The Internet has always been about people and organizations networking with each other, sharing ideas and comments, and collaborating online. It has always been interactive and dynamic. And there were many nonprofit organizations who “got” it early — earlier than many for-profit companies. So I’ve attempted to set the record straight: I’ve prepared a web page that talks about the early history of nonprofits and the Internet. It focuses on 1995 and previous years. It talks a little about what nonprofits were using the cyberspace for as well at that time and lists the names of key people and organizations who helped get nonprofit organizations using the Internet in substantial numbers in 1995 and before. Edits and additions are welcomed.
  • What Was NetAid? First there was Band Aid, then Live Aid, and Farm Aid, and then came NetAid, an initiative that was also launched with celebrity-laden concerts and a great deal of media coverage. The NetAid initiative was meant to harness the Internet to raise money and awareness for the Jubilee 2000 campaign, to raise awareness for the challenges in developing countries, and to allow people to volunteer online, donating their skills to help people in the developing world. NetAid’s goal was to make global philanthropy more efficient. This page reviews who was involved, how the initiative evolved, and its legacy regarding virtual volunteering.
  • Impact Online: A History Impact Online was a nonprofit organization founded in the mid 1990s. It was one of the first web sites, and maybe the first web site, where nonprofits could post their volunteering opportunities and people that wanted to help could sign up to help. It later became VolunteerMatch. Unfortunately, someone requested that old versions of the Impact Online web site be removed from the Internet Wayback Machine, and so all archives of the original web site are gone. Luckily, I downloaded some of text and graphics from that original, pioneering web site. I’m sharing them here because the original Impact Online initiative deserves to be remembered and honored.
  • Al Gore Campaign Pioneered Virtual Volunteering Back in 2000, when Al Gore ran for president, his campaign championed virtual volunteering by recruiting online volunteers to help online with his election efforts. I’ve tried to present some of what his campaign did – this pioneering effort deserves to be remembered, as do some of the lessons from such.
  • A history of the Smart Valley initiative In 1994, perhaps earlier, an initiative called Smart Valley was launched in California. Smart Valley was a 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization focused on creating an “information infrastructure” in Silicon Valley, California – Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, San José, Santa Clara and the surrounding area, creating projects to enhance the quality of life in Silicon Valley. Smart Valley’s projected included SmartSchools NetDay and PC Day, Smart Voter, to help people learn about upcoming elections, Connect 96: The Global Summit on Building Electronic Communities, the Public Access Network (PAN), a Telecommuting Initiative, and the Smart Valley Webmasters Group. Smart Valley was also affiliated with the nonprofit organization Plugged In, one of the first digital divide efforts, working to bring “the tremendous technological resources available in the Silicon Valley to youth in low-income communities” in East Palo Alto and SV-PAL, the Silicon Valley Public Access Link.
  • San Francisco Women of the Web (SFWOW): A History In the 1990s, various associations sprung up all over the USA to support women using the Internet as a primary part of their work – or who wanted to. These associations created safe, supportive, content-rich, fun spaces, both online and in real spaces, for women to talk about their tech and online-related work, to ask questions, and to learn from each other. One of the best well-known at the time, San Francisco Women of the Web, chose 25 women in 1998, in 1999, in 2000 and in 2001, recognizing them with their Women of the Web award. To help highlight some of the many women who played important roles in the 1990s Internet – which I consider the “early days” – as well as some truly pioneering tech projects that laid the groundwork for the success of so many initiatives today, I have reproduced this list of Top25 Women on the Web on my own site.
  • United Nations Technology Service (UNITeS), a global volunteer initiative, created by Kofi Annan in 2000, that both supported volunteers applying information and communications technologies for development (ICT4D) and promoted volunteerism as a fundamental element of successful ICT4D initiatives. It was administered by the UN Volunteers program, and during the tenure of UNITeS, the UNV program helped place and/or support more than 300 volunteers applying ICT4D in more than 50 developing countries, including 28 Least Developed Countries (LDC), making it one of the largest volunteering in ICT4D initiatives. The activities of UN Volunteers, as well as those by tech volunteers working through NetCorps, CompuMentor, the Association for Progressive Communications, Australian Volunteers International, NetCorps, Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA), were tracked and promoted by UNITeS as part of its overall mission. Part of the UNITeS mandate was to try to track all of the various tech volunteering initiatives and encourage them to share their best practices and challenges with each other. UNITeS was discontinued as an active program in 2005.
  • United Nations Tech4Good / ICT4D Initiatives, a list of the various United Nations initiatives that have been launched since 2000 to promote the use of computers, feature phones, smart phones and various networked devices in development and humanitarian activities, to promote digital literacy and equitable access to the “information society,” and to bridge the digital divide. My goal in creating this page is to help researchers, as well as to remind current UN initiatives that much work regarding ICT4D has been done by various UN employees, consultants and volunteers for more than 15 years (and perhaps longer?).
If you are a Wikipedia volunteer, I encourage you to try to create and maintain entries for the initiatives named on these pages, especially if you are male or perceived as male online – male contributors, or those perceived as such, have a MUCH easier time of it on Wikipedia than females. Also see: Wikipedia needs improvement re: volunteerism-related topics Why Do So Few Women Edit Wikipedia? Insights into virtual volunteering Crowdsourcing / Hive Mind – it’s been happening since at least 1849! History & Evaluation of UNV’s Early Years volunteers scramble to preserve online data before government deletes it
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school parent volunteer engagement ethics

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersI got this message from a friend. And then I had another situation I had wanted to offer up on a blog as well. So… what do you think about the ethics of required parental volunteering in schools?

I’m preparing to go to [[name of private school redacted]] to work a basketball game. I don’t want to go at all but I have to put in so many volunteer hours every school year for my daughter to be able to go see a movie with her class at the end of the year. And nobody wants to be that deadbeat parent whose child has to stay behind because they didn’t volunteer enough. She’s not even playing basketball! They’ve got quite a racket going here: work me for 20 hours for a $20 movie trip.

Apparently, a parent can’t simply pay the movie ticket admission and, say, a bit for gas: they must volunteer or the child isn’t allowed to go on the trip.

A neighbor also told me that her son is on the swim team for the public high school where he attends but she can’t afford all of the fees for him to participate, so the school gave her the option of volunteering 30 hours a semester so her son could participate.

But, on the other hand, students at schools with high volunteer involvement flourish – good grades, fewer discipline problems, etc.; schools without much parental involvement struggle – students with poor grades, more discipline problems, etc., so there is a big incentive by this and other schools to get parents into the school for student events or into the classroom. And this kind of required time better guarantees that happening.

What are your thoughts about the ethics and optics of either of these cases? What about a situation where a parent absolutely cannot volunteer, because of childcare issues, caregiver issues, job issues or lack of transportation? What if a parent has a conviction that precludes him or her from ever volunteering in a school?

Also see:

Comparing schools with high & low volunteer engagement

How schools & small governments should be using social media

Volunteering to help your own mental health

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I see things like this posted to various online fora regularly – and even sometimes get emails that say something like this:

I’m sad and bored and need a change in my life. I feel like I have no direction. I need to reconnect to humanity and feel like I have a purpose. I want to go overseas and really make a difference somewhere, like helping refugees or orphans. I see the videos on TV and it really breaks my heart. But all the places I’ve looked into want me to have at least a university degree and some experience. I don’t have any experience, but I have a really good heart, I’m a hard worker, and I also really need this. Don’t suggest the Peace Corps – not only do they want me to have a degree, they want me to go for a really long time. I just want to go for a month or two. I think this would really help me have more purpose in life and be happier. I’d really love something that lets me just keep traveling on and on and pays for my travel and places to stay. 

Or this:

Hi, I am a 22-year-old male living in the Atlanta area. I’ve had mental health issues and substance abuse issues, and it’s hard to put into words, but a coping mechanism I have been taught was to find a happy place and go to it. The only time I can remember feeling overwhelming joy was working at Summer camps. I’ve never been so happy as I was watching those kids have fun and being able to teach them things they’d never learn otherwise. I’m willing to give any amount of time and effort so I can feel that way again.

Or this:

I’ve been dealing with mental health problems for about five years. I think what I need is to immerse myself in volunteering and make a difference. What I am looking for: (1) Away from the town where I live. Out of the country would be great. (2) Ideally something with an atmosphere where good people  who would be supportive of my mental health and accommodate me, because I have social anxiety and trouble interacting with people. (3) Dealing with something truly important, addressing a serious problem. I was thinking maybe something to prevent infant mortality, but I might not have the mental capacity for something that serious, and I don’t want to make my mental state worse. Climate change is another thing that might be good. I want something that’s bigger than myself and my mindstate. (4) An organization that provides a very immersive situation so I’m deeply connected with the people I am working with, and where I can see a difference being made. (5) Well-structured. It would be less anxiety-provoking if I don’t have to make too many of my own decisions. (6) The option to leave and go back home when I want.

Each of those three requests is based on an actual posts I’ve read on various public platforms – I’ve changed some words here and there so as not to single out any real person for their request, and changed some phrases for clarity.

I have no doubt these people sincerely want to help, but I am stunned at their expectations of  host organizations regarding the volunteer experience they want.

Volunteer hosting organizations – nonprofits, charities, schools, government agencies, etc. – have thousands of priorities that come before a goal of ensuring a person’s volunteering experience helps that person feel less lonely or improves that person’s self-esteem. Of course these organizations want volunteers to have a good experience – but they also aren’t therapists and they haven’t set up their volunteering as therapy – volunteering set up as therapy requires expertise, resources and constant supervision that most nonprofits, NGOs and charities do NOT have, and an emphasis on such would, in fact, take away from their primary mission of helping people experiencing homelessness or domestic violence, or promoting and celebrating the arts, or cleaning up a watershed, or accommodating lost, abandoned and surrendered animals, or supporting small-scale family farmers, and on and on. These organizations do not have a mandate nor the resources to create volunteering opportunities with the primary or even secondary purpose of giving volunteers a feel-good experience worthy of Instagram, helping them become more social or helping them address their own mental health issues.

Here’s also something you should know up front about volunteering: a volunteering role may not give you a sense of purpose and fulfillment. It may not increase your self-confidence. It may not improve your mental health. It may not make you feel like a superhero. It may not give you a feeling of accomplishment. It may, instead, be stressful and frustrating. The people you are there to help may annoy you. You may walk away from it feeling a sense of failure rather than accomplishment. There is no guarantee you are going to have the experience depicted on the volunteer recruitment materials.

The reality is that volunteering can be a LOT like dating: it may take spending time with a lot of different people, in various different places, before you find one that fits you – and you have to accept that, after months or even years, it may turn sour and it has to end.

Absolutely, volunteering can positively affect a volunteer’s mental health. Volunteering can help a person meet other people, give someone a sense of well-being, help develop a new social circle – you may even meet the person you want to marry through volunteering. Volunteering can even help you develop skills to improve your employment options. Volunteering can be good for you, mentally and physically, no question. But you cannot assume any of this is going to happen just by signing up to volunteer somewhere. You cannot assume volunteering is going to never be anxiety-inducing or never be stressful.

I have lots more detailed advice specifically for people seeking volunteering as a way to alleviate loneliness and mild depression here.

Is it possible for an organization to create such volunteering experiences for people seeking to improve their mental health? Sure! You may see a group of volunteers cleaning up a beach and not realize that they are all part of a therapy group for people with eating disorders. You may see a regular work crew around your county repairing playgrounds and public facilities and not know that they are recovering from addiction and do this volunteering under the supervision of a treatment program. You may interact with a volunteer at a local animal shelter and never know that the volunteer was coached for weeks by his therapist on how to apply for a volunteering role and then coached and supported by that therapist for the first three months of his or her service. You may be a volunteer working alongside other volunteers in a public awareness campaign and never realize that the volunteer in charge of putting together the newsletter got dumped by her fiancé and is using this experience to rebuild her confidence. But note that it’s not the organization hosting the volunteers that is responsible for their mental health support – it’s a therapy group or a professional therapist, and the host organization has been fully briefed and, sometimes, even financially supported to help accommodate these volunteers.

Also see:

the growing youth & loneliness crisis (& lack of empathy crisis) – could volunteer engagement help?

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The results of a nationwide survey by the health insurer Cigna released last year said that nearly 50 percent of respondents in the USA felt alone or left out always or sometimes. Two in Five felt like “they lack companionship,” that their “relationships aren’t meaningful” and that they “are isolated from others.” And the loneliest demographic among respondents was young people: members of Generation Z, born between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s, had the highest loneliness score, followed by Millennials. Yesterday, CBS Sunday Morning did segment that mentions this Cigna study and on the growing loneliness epidemic in the USA.

And then there is this report: significantly large numbers regarding unemployment among young people worldwide: in 2017, it was reported by CNN Money that youth unemployment in the eurozone has been stuck between 19% to 25% for the past eight years. In Spain and Greece, it’s north of 40%. The number of people in Italy aged between 15-29 years that are not in education, employment or training rose by 21 percent from 2008 to 2012, to 23.9 percent, and that number hasn’t improved seven years later. In Arab states, youth unemployment is around 30%. The incidence of unemployment among youth in Northern Africa was at 29.3% in 2016, representing the second highest rate across all regions.

Economists and government officials focus on the cost of unemployment to the economy as a whole, but for the unemployed, it’s a personal issue. Young people need jobs for the obvious reason: they need income to give them employment to pay for what they need to survive, day-to-day. But studies have shown that prolonged unemployment harms the mental health of workers and can actually worsen physical health and shorten lifespans as well. Prolonged unemployment can lead to an erosion of skills and, more worryingly, lead to pessimism, resentment and anger. Those negative feelings can be targeted at anyone that an unemployed person blames for their situation – people not from the area, people who are perceived as not at risk for unemployment, people perceived as taking the jobs the unemployed want, government officials, institutions, and anyone who is perceived as different.

While promoting volunteer engagement does nothing to address the immediate financial needs of the unemployed, volunteering can help a person with skills development for a career change and eventual employment. Could volunteer engagement also address other issues, like disconnection from society, resentment and anger for certain groups of people, like immigrants or ethnic minorities, and growing distrust in institutions? Can volunteering can give a person a connection to other people and to society as a whole, help increase their awareness about people and cultures different from their own and help build or restore trust in people and institutions? I think so, though there’s little data that directly supports my position.

When an organization involves volunteers, it gives non-staff a first hand, in-person experience with programs that are trying to improve the community or the environment – anything from promoting the arts to helping children’s education to accommodating dogs and cats that have been found or surrendered. This volunteer engagement can help build trust in organizations, in institutions, in the community and among people. It can give a volunteer a sense of value and influence. Volunteer engagement can play a vital role in building social cohesion and intercultural understanding, bringing together different segments of a population in a setting that can help build relationships and community. Volunteer management is community engagement and, as such, I believe volunteer engagement can help to address youth unemployment, cultural conflicts, intergenerational misunderstandings, integration, community cohesion, social integration, and on and on.

However, I’m not at all calling for business and government to start yet another Get-Out-And-Volunteer campaign. Please, don’t do that. Rather, this is a call for business and government to realize that, if they expect nonprofits, NGOs, charities and other organizations to involve more young people as volunteers, they need to provide the funding for that to happen.

Volunteers are not free. I just don’t know how many times I’m going to have to say that for it to finally be understood. For organizations to involve volunteers effectively, to involve more volunteers and to create opportunities for volunteers that go beyond just getting work done but also to build civic engagement and greater trust in the community, these volunteer-involving organizations must have the expertise to do it – which may come from training (which isn’t free) or hiring staff (also not cost-free) – and they may need additional resources to support additional volunteers, such as software or physical spaces.

Are corporations, governments, foundations and individual donors ready to step up and fund what’s needed to increase volunteer engagement, especially among young people?

April 16, 2019 update: Since the late 1960s, researchers have surveyed young people on their levels of empathy, testing their agreement with statements such as: “It’s not really my problem if others are in trouble and need help” or “Before criticizing somebody I try to imagine how I would feel if I were in their place.” According to this NPR article, Sara Konrath, an associate professor and researcher at Indiana University, collected decades of studies and noticed that, starting around 2000, the line starts to slide and young people are becoming less empathetic: more students were saying it’s not their problem to help people in trouble, not their job to see the world from someone else’s perspective. By 2009, on all the standard measures, Konrath found, young people on average measure 40 percent less empathetic than the previous generation. Again: could volunteer engagement help? Could exposing young people to those different from themselves help? And are corporations, governments, foundations and individual donors ready to step up and fund what’s needed to increase volunteer engagement, especially among young people?

July 16, 2019 update: US Teen and the number of suicide deaths among young people began climbing around 2008 and reached a new high in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Suicide rates lately have been increasing in all age groups in America, in almost every state. The number of teens diagnosed with clinical depression grew 37 percentw between 2005 and 2014. And suicide attempts are on the rise as well.

Also see:

Welcoming immigrants as volunteers at your organization

“Internet-mediated volunteering – the impact for Europe“, part of the ICT4EMPL Future Work project. This 2013 study on virtual volunteering in European countries includes information on volunteering as a path to employability and social inclusion, especially for young people.

Volunteering to Address Your Own Mental Health (Depression, Loneliness, Anxiety, etc.)

Deriding the monetary value of volunteer hours: my mission in life?

can volunteer engagement cultivate innovation?

Volunteer management is community engagement

hey, corporations: time to put your money where your mouth is re: nonprofits & innovation

Corporations: here’s what nonprofits really need

5th year anniversary of my book on virtual volunteering

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It’s the FIVE-YEAR anniversary of the publication of my book with Susan Ellis, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook! The book is the result of more than 20 years of research and experience regarding virtual volunteering, including online micro volunteering, crowd sourcing, digital volunteering, online mentoring and all the various manifestations of online service. It’s packed with examples from a variety of organizations – it’s not just our ideas about how virtual volunteering might work but how it does work, and how challenges are overcome, at many different nonprofits, NGOs and school-based programs.

Susan and I wrote The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook in such a way that it would be timeless – as timeless as a book about using computers, laptops, smart phones and other networked devices could be. That’s not easy when it comes to technology, but we gave it a try – and upon re-reading my own book, I was shocked at how successful we were!

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is for

  • both practitioners – people involving volunteers – and academics that do research regarding volunteering.
  • both people brand new to recruiting and supporting volunteers and those that are veteran managers of volunteers
  • both people brand new to virtual volunteering and experienced managers who are looking for confirmation they are on the right track or information to help them make the case to expand their programs.

It is USA-centric but it offers a lot of international perspectives as well.

The book includes:

  • Detailed advice on virtual volunteering assignment, including one-time “Byte-Sized” tasks (micro-volunteering / microtasks), longer-term, higher-responsibility roles and virtual team assignments.
  • A thorough look at various practices for screening and matching volunteers to assignments, with an eye to getting the most capable volunteers into your volunteering ranks and preventing incomplete assignments or burdensome management tasks
  • How to make online volunteer roles accessible and welcoming for a variety, diversity of people
  • More details about how to work successfully with online volunteers, so that they are successful, your organization benefits and volunteer managers aren’t overwhelmed
  • Ensuring safety – and balancing safety with program goals
  • Respecting privacy of both the organization and online volunteers themselves
  • Online mentoring, including adults mentoring children/students
  • Blogging by, for and about volunteers
  • Online activism
  • Spontaneous online volunteers
  • Live online events with volunteers
  • The future of virtual volunteering and how to start planning for oncoming trends

There’s also a chapter just for online volunteers themselves, which organizations can also use in creating their own materials for online volunteers.

In conjunction with the guidebook, I have maintained the Virtual Volunteering Wiki, a free online resource and collaborative space for sharing resources regarding virtual volunteering.

Here’s why we called it the LAST guidebook and reviews of The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook.

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is available for purchase in paperback or as an ebook (PDF) by Energize, Inc.

If you read the book, I would so appreciate it if you could write and post a review of it on the Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Good Reads web sites (you can write the same review on all three sites).

Here’s some of my free advice on volunteer engagement, not just virtual volunteering:

I also frequently blog about virtual volunteering. Examples:

Expand national service programs in the USA?

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersAccording to this story from National Public Radio, the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, a federal panel (USA), says it is working on answers to those questions — and is considering how the USA could implement a universal service program and whether it should be mandatory or optional. The commission is due to submit its final report in March 2020. Between now and then, the panel will hold public hearings on ideas of how to meet America’s service needs. The first such hearing is slated for Feb. 21 in Washington, D.C.

The possibilities under consideration range from boosting the stipend volunteers receive during service to awarding college credit for national service work. Another potential plan would create a Public Service Corps program, similar to the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, which could offer scholarships and special training to “students at colleges throughout the nation in exchange for a commitment to work in civil service.”

And the commission noted an option to “retain programs to forgive student loans for Americans who work in public service careers for at least a decade.”

My thoughts: initially, President Trump proposed eliminating all of the current USA national service programs – AmeriCorps, SeniorCorps, etc. – so any recommendation to actually expand national service would be DOA during this administration. Also, mandatory service is VERY expensive to implement: this new, additional workforce, even if they are entirely unpaid, must be properly screened, trained and supported in whatever volunteer role they take on, and organizations will need funding to create roles for this new volunteer workforce – where will those additional funds come from? Young people who engage in community service for several weeks will need to receive something substantial, such as a living stipend (in lieu of paid work – money they very much need), or significant breaks on tuition. Finally, Germany got rid of its mandatory service requirements a few years back – it was just way, way too expensive to maintain anymore.

Your thoughts?

Paying thousands to volunteer abroad & ignoring same opportunities at home

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Late last year, I did an all-day training for a state fish and wildlife department – a government agency – about how to better engage volunteers: how to better design tasks for a variety of volunteers, to better support volunteers, to better track what they are doing and to recruit – not just recruiting volunteers to get tasks done, but also to recruit in order to reach a variety of communities and people. The people I taught were a mix of biologists and long-time volunteer leaders who had never had training in volunteer management.

(read more about my consulting services and training work)

Before doing this type of intensive, specialized training, I do a lot of research to look at what similar organizations might be doing, trends that the client might want to consider, etc. One of the things that struck me as I was researching state fish and wildlife departments all over the USA was how many activities these agencies have for volunteers that people will pay thousands to go do in another country: building and repairing fish and wildlife habitats, counting wildlife, reporting on habitat conditions and more.

I thought about how this is true of so many other agencies as well: there are nonprofits and government programs all over the USA that will help people learn English, that help refugees navigate their new homes, that help people better understand the risks associated with HIV/AIDS, that help people who have lost their home, that help impoverished women with maternal health and infant care, and on and on – yet, people are willing to pay thousands of dollars for voluntourism experiences that make them feel like they are helping refugees, helping children, helping people at risk, etc., rather than participating in these programs just around the corner – or, at least, in their own country.

I don’t like voluntourism, where people pay money to go to another country and feel like they are helping people or the environment in just a few weeks, and I blog about my distaste frequently. So many – not all, but so many – are scams: a supposed wildlife sanctuary captures wild animals and puts them into enclosures and then sells voluntourism experiences, bringing in foreigners to “help.” A supposed orphanage is full of children who have parents, but the parents are paid to keep their children in the “orphanage” so that foreigners will pay large sums of money to come from overseas and “help.” The organizations take anyone who can pay – they don’t need anyone with actual skills or expertise because, supposedly, no one locally can do this “work”, so they must bring in anyone from abroad with “a good heart.” Sure, there are some worthwhile organizations for short-term volunteering abroad – and I list them on this free resource on my web site. But most are, to me, loathsome.

But I also am puzzled as to why so many nonprofits and government agencies in the USA – and other countries – do such a lousy job of talking about their volunteering opportunities. When I told the state agency I was training that people pay thousands of dollars to go do in, say, Kenya, many of the same volunteering tasks that this state agency struggles to find volunteering activities for, they were stunned. But it’s true!

Have a look at some of those shiny, heart-warming voluntourism sites. I’m not going to link to them here, but trust me, they are easy to find on Google or Bing. Look at photos on their sites, the language they use – look how much fun they make volunteering sound, or how they make volunteering sound like a challenge worthy of traveling thousands of miles for – and paying top dollar to experience. Now look at your organization’s web site: how does your agency talk about volunteers and the activities they do? Don’t oversell your program, but do recognize that any activity that allows volunteers to be outside, to be very physical, or to interact with clients are highly desired by many people. What you may see as just more work to do they may see as an opportunity to make a real difference in a cause they care about deeply.

Here’s more of my advice on volunteer recruitment:

And here’s more of my blogs regarding voluntourism and Westerners going to help abroad:

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

Read more about my consulting services and training work.