I’m back from Washington, DC!

A group of women, all wearing matching, colorful scarves, pose with Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon).

During the first full week of February, I was in Washington, DC, as part of the advocacy efforts of Habitat for Humanity, training to talk to the staff of congressional representatives and then doing that actual talking! It was an amazing experience. Habitat branded its efforts #HabitatOnTheHill.

I’ve worked in communications related to causes since the mid-1980s, before I had graduated from university, and I’ve certainly done a lot of elevator speeches, usually while tabling for an organization that’s registering voters or trying to educate people about issues related to reproductive rights. But I’ve never talked directly to legislators and their staff to advocate for affordable housing. It was an invigorating, intense experience – these folks are all super busy and we had to make every second count. It also was easier for our group than others, since the legislators my group approached each support legislation and funding to improve the availability of affordable housing and believe everyone, especially those working full-time, should get a chance to buy a house.

In the photo, that’s the Oregon contingent with Senator Jeff Merkley, a staunch advocate for housing. I’m standing on the viewer’s far right, in my Habitat-blue dress.

Some things Habitat International did that other organizations could learn from:

They held two highly-informative webinars for participants, crash-courses in the specific legislation we needed to advocate for and in other preparations we needed to make before the trip.
They had well-established relationships with most legislators; therefore, when they contacted the offices of members of Congress to say we were coming, most representatives and senators cared we were coming and wanted to meet with us.
They gave us all those matching scarves. As a result, on Capitol Hill that day, it looked like Habitat representatives were EVERYWHERE. Representatives of some tribal groups that were also there to advocate for their issues told my group they would absolutely be doing something similar next year.
All participants had an app on their phone that provided us with the names of all speakers we heard from in the days prior to the actual advocacy day, that provided profiles of our legislators, and that provided us with regularly-updated information on our meetings with legislative staff, info that changed minute-to-minute the day of.
They fed us. Always feed your advocates.

If you are going to meet with city, county, state or federal officials about a cause, make sure you:

know what you are going to say. REHEARSE IT. And if you will be in a group, know who is going to say what, who is going to “open” the talk, etc,
know exactly what you want from them: the name of the legislation you want them to support, for instance.
have a one-pager about your cause or nonprofit to leave behind.
thank the officials both after the meetings, in writing, and via email every time you read that they have supported your cause in some way.

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’m in Washington, DC this week

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I’m in Washington, DC this week for a work-related conference. I’ll be here all week. If you would like to meet face-to-face while I’m here, email me at the email address you have for me, or text me at the phone number you have for me, or comment below and send me your email and I’ll get in touch!

Getting great photos for your nonprofit’s marketing needs takes planning.

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a primitive figure, like a petroglyph, shots through a megaphone

I’ve been working at a local Habitat for Humanity affiliate for more than a year now. It’s been a challenging, enlightening, really fun experience.

I have said repeatedly over the years that working at a local nonprofit or in a local government initiative can be fantastic training to work internationally in humanitarian and development programs; it’s also true that working in humanitarian and development programs is great training for this kind of local work! For instance, because I’ve worked internationally, I already knew the importance of not engaging in poverty porn: not sharing photos that present clients as weak or desperate, not sharing photos that show only clients receiving charity, etc.

I’ve spent more than a year hyper-focused on creating a robust archive of a diversity of volunteers in action at our house builds, our home repair projects, our neighborhood cleanups and in our ReStore. Talking to our field staff about how to take and share photos and recruiting a volunteer specifically to come to events to take photos, as well as being at as many events myself as possible, have all been essential in creating this large archive. At this point, I could take a year off and still have more than enough photos of volunteers-in-action for all of our communications needs in 2024 (however, I will NOT be taking a year off).

In the next year, I’ll be hyper-focused on a different communications need: photos of clients. We do not have nearly enough! And I don’t want to have to over-rely on Habitat’s excellent compilation of photos from all across the USA that I could use; I don’t like using stock photos, because I prefer to have my own photo archive representing our own community (and you should too). It’s going to be a challenge: we don’t want to overburden our partner families with requests, we don’t want to make some very shy folks do anything that would make them uncomfortable, and many of our families have moved on to many other priorities, things far more important than a photo session with me. We have written the families and asked for family photos – like of everyone gathered around a Christmas tree, if they celebrate such, and we did end up with one great one!

What’s going to be required is more relationship-building on my part. I need to make sure the clients know me and trust me. For our home-buying partners, that’s easier, because the organization already has a long-term relationship with them. But for home repair clients and people living in neighborhoods where we have cleanup events. it’s shorter-term interactions, and a lot of homeowners are embarrassed to need such help. It’s going to take careful conversations and being there with staff they already trust to make this happen.

One thing I’m also going to do is to try to get a series of shots that show progress on our house builds: I’m going to take the “same” shot from the same place every month from the start to finish of a house build.

As I pursue more client photos in 2024, I want to remind you all of some things to keep in mind for your own photo-taking for your nonprofit or community endeavor (and I’m assuming you will be taking the photos with just a camera phone / smart phone):

Make sure all employees, consultants, clients and volunteers have signed a photo release, and you can lay your hands on that signed release easily. It’s best to have this release signed at the time they sign anything else with your organization, like an application or a contract. This allows you to take photos anywhere and everywhere without worrying if you have permission to do so.

But even though you have signed, written permission, be sure to announce to everyone your name and that you will be taking photos. Tell them the photos are for social media, for your website and for your publications, like your annual report. Tell people how they can request copies of any photos. Assure people that you are going to take respectful photos and always ensure anyone in a photo looks terrific.

If clients or volunteers say they do not want their photos shared on social media or in print, honor those requests. If you might have trouble remembering, ask them, when they see you taking a photo that they would be in, to hold up their hand, palm out. That way, when you go through the photos, you will get the reminder that that person did not want to have their photo taken, and you can edit them out of photos as needed, or not use certain photos.

Before the event where you are going to take photos, make a wish list of photos you want most: women using construction tools, a young person and an older person working on something together, volunteers gathered around a lead volunteer for the morning orientation, etc. That makes it easier to be on the lookout for those moments.

Take a photo at the start of the event, or whenever you remember, that will tell you where and when this event is. It might be a sign welcoming attendees or an information board or the sign on the venue or the front of a t-shirt created especially for the event. Your photos will automatically be dated by your phone camera, and when you go through them, and see the sign or information board, you will remember where the event was, who it involved, etc.

Yes, you MAY stage photos. You are not a journalist; you are a marketing person. Don’t hesitate to tell a group to turn to the camera and smile, or to hold up their hammers triumphantly!

Front-lighting illuminates a subject. Back-lighting can hide faces.

Photos can be easily cropped, especially if you are taking high-resolution photos. Don’t worry if you think a photo isn’t framed perfectly while you are taking it; cropping may do that later. Filters can also sometimes fix photos that are too dark.

Capture people in action as much as possible (especially volunteers).

Smiling faces are not absolutely necessary. If someone doesn’t smile when you say “smile”, that’s okay.

If you think a photo is especially unflattering to a person, don’t use it.

Avoid “butt” shots. These are the photos of someone who is bending over away from the photographer.

You can’t take “too many” photos. You can go through them later and weed out the unusable ones.

When you look through your photos, delete the ones that depict unsafe conditions (or put them aside and talk to the site supervisor about these incidents). For instance, at Habitat sites, volunteers under 18 may not use power tools or work above ground level, volunteers must wear safety goggles when operating power tools, tools should not be placed on ladders, hard hats should be worn at all times and, when on ladder, a person should maintain three points of contact and avoid leaning.

Use only first names when identifying people in photos on social media or in any print publication for the public, or say something that identifies the family but protects privacy, like, “the Hernandez Family.”

Google photo share area is AMAZING. If you have a gmail account, you have a Google photo archive. Just log into your gmail account and then go to photos.google.com and you will come to YOUR photo account. Don’t be shocked if you see photos there already; if you tie your apps on your phone to Google, this happens automatically. The problem is that you are using your own phone, and switching back and forth on a phone between a work Google account and a personal account is a pain. How I do it: the photos go to my personal account and then, on a laptop, I download the most recent, then upload them to my work account.

Note that I’m not the only photographer where I work: I ask everyone to take photos if they are at any event with volunteers or clients “in action.” They don’t take many, so I ask them to send such to a gmail account we have set up especially for photos; Google makes it super easy to transfer photos that are email attachments in that account over to the photo drive.

But be sure to have a backup of your photos elsewhere: on whatever backup system you use, on a separate Google account, and/or on a hard drive.

Also see these previous blogs which have links to sample policies and guidelines for taking photos of vulnerable people:

humanitarian stories & photos – use with caution

Poverty porn, survivor porn, inspiration porn

The opposite of poverty porn: erasing clients from storytelling

What I’ve learned working at Habitat for Humanity

Do you welcome people with your language?

Why you need to focus on your own media literacy – & a New Year’s Resolution idea

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images meant to look like cave drawings, one of a woman using a smartphone and one at a desktop computer.

We all have an obligation to increase our media literacy – every one of us. And I think every human resources office at every company, nonprofit, school, whatever, should consider it a mandate to educate staff regularly regarding media literacy.

The Center for Media Literacy (CML) defines media literacy as “a framework to access, analyze, evaluate, create and participate with messages in a variety of forms — from print to video to the Internet.” CML also notes that media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.

CML defines media literacy as the ability to:

Decode media messages (including the systems in which they exist);
Assess the influence of those messages on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; and
Create media thoughtfully and conscientiously.

The ability to navigate within our complex and ever-changing media landscape depends on acquiring skills and tools to know how to consume and evaluate information, ask critical questions, avoid manipulation, and engage in digital spaces safely and confidently.

We already see the negative impact that media can have – is having – on people, including children. CML says that the negative impacts on children:

Online safety
Cyberbullying
Low self-esteem
Depression and suicide
Substance abuse and other risky behaviors
Negative body image
Reinforcement of stereotypes

They also note “incorrect information”, but this is also a big danger for adults as well, which can lead to violence, to economic instability, to poor, even deadly health choices, and to ill-informed political decisions that end up harming entire communities and countries.

CML’s resource library is primarily focused on young people, and the resources are excellent, but there’s also a huge need for better media literacy among adults – and not just the elderly. CML’s materials can certainly be adapted for adult audiences, and there are other resources as well, such as AARP’s Fraud Network Watch and the American Library Association (ALA)’s Media Literacy in the Library: A Guide for Library Practitioners (PDF) that offers resources and ideas to plan programs and activities to teach media literacy skills to adults. The latter is a resource for library staff, but anyone can use it.

Please understand: I have been online since 1994 or so. I have been advocating for people to leverage online tools and networks for decades. I don’t think the Internet has caused misinformation, bullying, depression, etc., but it has amplified misinformation to an astounding degree. Our online networked world has magnified or intensified messages and disinformation, vastly increasing the reach of such on a scale never, ever seen before. The way to meet this challenge is not to ban the Internet or online tools; it’s to raise all of our levels of online literacy.

I challenge you to accept that you – yes, YOU – have believed misinformation online. Every person has. Look for how you have: did you share a meme or story that turned out not to be true? Did you “like” a video that turned out not to be what you thought it represented? Whatever it was, you need to recognize when you do it, acknowledge it, and learn from it. And if you don’t believe that you have believed misinformation online, then you absolutely are in denial.

I also challenge you to make a commitment to be more positive online in 2024. Take time to just go through your social media and”like” the posts that are positive from friends and family – and even better, to comment on them. Go through your social media feed once a week and “like” posts from nonprofits and community programs you care about – and, even better, comment on them. Post photos to social media that you have taken yourself to social media of beautiful or fun or heart-warming things. Post about an event you have attended, or that you will attend: a farmer’s market, a yard sale, a high school band concert, whatever. Post about a class you’re taking, a book you are reading, a TV show or movie you recently enjoyed, music you love. You can still post political commentary, still post rants, but I’m challenging you to make a deliberate effort to balance that, to even OVER balance that, with something positive, something helpful or something civic-minded. Post about ANYTHING you are grateful for: your dog, your cat, the weather, a new season of your favorite show, whatever.

Here’s more about the damage of online misinformation.

If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, 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.

How high is your bar for volunteer commitment?

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I read these words a lot about volunteers from the organizations they support:

unwavering dedication and selflessness
tireless commitment
always ready and available

Those qualities are, absolutely, worthy of recognition.

But I wonder…

Does your nonprofit require volunteers to have “unwavering dedication”? Or “Selflessness?” Do you expect volunteers to be “tireless?” Is that realistic?

I’ve touched on this before, back in 2018 with the blog Some people think they aren’t perfect enough to volunteer with you. It’s fine to have minimum time requirements for volunteers, and to celebrate volunteers that go above and beyond, but here’s the reality: most of your volunteers aren’t going to have unwavering dedication, they aren’t going to be tireless, and they aren’t selfless and THAT’S OKAY. Those dedicated volunteers who also have strong personal boundaries and don’t want to overextend themselves can also be really terrific volunteers.

Absolutely, honor your outstanding volunteers, but also have frequent messaging about

how easy it is to sign up to volunteer (and is it?)
the variety of ways to help as a volunteer in terms of time commitment and time of day to help (and is there?)
the benefits to volunteering for the volunteer (because the reality is that very few of us are completely selfless!)

And you also need to have a culture with volunteers that, while it absolutely can encourage a high quality of service, it also welcomes suggestions, even criticism, from volunteers, and that volunteers won’t be penalized for needing a break – for not being “tireless.”

Also see:

Expectations for volunteering by the volunteer – too much?

Do you welcome people with your language?

free/discounted apps/tech tools that every nonprofit should know about

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I use to regularly write about this subject – about what I thought were the best free/discounted apps/tech tools that most nonprofits should know about, especially the small ones, the ones under 20 people who barely had tech budgets. But honestly, I can barely keep up with things, plus, there’s such a need for highly-specialized software by specific type of nonprofits. Just take a gander into the various software used by nonprofits that run food banks, or what’s used by animal shelters, or what’s used by museums, and you will see what I mean.

But there was a recent thread on the nonprofit subreddit and I found myself wanting to join in. Here is how I answer the question:

Google Drive (word processing, spread sheets, presentations, forms, calendar, photos, shared work features, etc.)
Gmail, including Gmail chat
LibreOffice (word processing, spread sheets, presentations – great alternative to Microsoft, and works with Microsoft tools)
Cyberduck – for FTP
Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram.
VolunteerMatch for volunteer recruitment
Canva
Grammarly
WordPress for blogs and websites (many web hosts provide free templates as well)

I’ll also give a shoutout to two tools that have gone away: YahooGroups, which was an AMAZING online collaboration tool that I miss beyond measure, and BlueGriffon, an amazing HTML editor that stopped being updated in 2019 and no longer works on my laptop. I have never found the equal of these wonderful tools.

Have a look at the thread on the nonprofit subreddit and this related thread on TechSoup for more. And add your own on those conversations and in the comments below! But it’s helpful if you don’t just list the software: say what kind of nonprofit uses it, what your role is, the size of your staff (including volunteers), etc.

We’ve got to get better at addressing misconceptions about volunteerism.

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I live in the Portland, Oregon area, and a few years ago, the area experienced record-setting heat. In response, various city and county governments set up cooling centers: spaces in libraries, churches and convention centers where people without air conditioning and people who are unsheltered could come, with their pets, to get relief from the dangerous heat. One county government tweeted out several requests for volunteers, including one that said volunteers were needed “desperately.” I decided to amplify the message by posting it to various online communities I’m a part of, including posting it on the subreddit for Portland, Oregon. I highlighted some points in particular from the web site where people were to express interest in volunteering:

Must be 18+, have compassion for all guests. Social service experience helpful.

Please keep in mind that emergency response operations may be very hectic keeping you quite busy for extended periods. You may also experience very slow uneventful periods of time. Such is the nature of emergency and disaster response. Please take time before your deployment to prepare for this working environment.

These are 9-hour shifts. These locations are open 24 HOURS.

I did alter the message to say cooling center volunteers were needed URGENTLY, rather than desperately, because I think desperation is never a good place to recruit volunteers from.

The message was upvoted more than any message I’ve ever posted to Reddit. But there was also significant backlash. The criticisms fell into three areas:

Why aren’t these positions paid? Why are these volunteer roles instead?
Why are the shifts 9 hours instead of 4?
Why didn’t the city plan better & start recruiting sooner?

It’s a shame those first two questions in particular weren’t answered by the recruiting agency in their messaging. As regular readers of my blog know, to not say why positions are volunteer rather than paid is always a big no-no. And saying “we don’t have the money to pay, so these are volunteer!” would not be the answer I am looking for (and probably not most of potential volunteers either).

As for the third comment, I don’t know that the city didn’t start recruiting sooner; I didn’t look on HandsOn Portland, VolunteerMatch and AllforGood, for instance, to see if they had started recruiting there. I don’t know that they didn’t have notices on their own web site sooner than what I saw on social media. So I hesitate to criticize them for how they have recruited in terms of when and where.

I did take issue with one comment that was made, and pushed back at it:

Way too much money and benefits expenses being expended on volunteer “coordinators”

I noted in my response that managers or coordinators of volunteers are some of the lowest paid people at any nonprofit or other agency, and rarely is their only role managing volunteers. I also said:

Volunteers aren’t free: someone has to recruit them, read the applications, interview them, screen them (often, background checks, reference checks and extensive interviews are required), supervise them (both to ensure their safety and client safety, and to make sure they’re doing what they are supposed to), support them (train them, answer questions on demand, etc), record their hours and their accomplishments, address problems, and report regularly to senior staff about what the volunteers are doing. It’s a tough job, made harder by people who think volunteers are free, think volunteer management is “Hey, we need volunteers, come on down!” and the work all magically happens, and balk at coordinators who ask for better training for themselves, software to manage volunteers, etc.

Nonprofits have GOT to do a better job of addressing misconceptions about volunteers and volunteer engagement. This is just yet another example of why.

Also see:

If you have benefited from any of my blogs 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.

A dare for nonprofit executive directors

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Do you head a nonprofit or non-government organizations (NGO)? I have a challenge for you. It’s a simple challenge, but a revealing one, and I’m daring you to do it:

Make this list, entirely on your own, with no consultation with others, of each person at your organization that you believe is supposed to be primarily responsible for:

responding to someone that emails or calls and says they want to volunteer.

meeting with / interviewing someone for the first time that wants to volunteer, getting all the necessary paperwork from the new applicant, etc.

orienting/training someone that will volunteer and what that orienting or training consists of (watching a certain video? going over the employee policy manual? getting a tour of facilities?)

inputting all of the volunteers’ information into a central database.

letting volunteers know about organization events or activities they would be welcomed to join or that they may be asked about from the public they work with.

following up with volunteers to see how their experience is going.

trouble-shooting on behalf of volunteers.

firing a volunteer.

recognizing and rewarding volunteers.

tracking volunteer contributions and reporting such to the organization.

interviewing volunteers that leave, to see why and to address issues.

Now that you have your list, then, at your next staff meeting, ask your staff these same questions. And learn two things:

If you are right.

If the staff that have these responsibilities knew they had these responsibilities.

Don’t be surprised if, in fact, you are wrong about who is responsible for what, nor surprised that there are staff with these responsibilities that didn’t know it. Reflect on these discrepancies and think about how you are going to support staff that didn’t know it was their responsibility to manage a piece of working with volunteers.

And then, finally, ask for a progress report on each of these tasks. And don’t be surprised to hear, again and again, “We’re behind on that. We’ve had other priorities. Sorry.” Because unless you have a dedicated manager of volunteers, someone whose sole responsibility is to support and engage volunteers, it’s very likely all those other people who are supposed to have at least a piece of volunteer engagement as a part of their roles – the marketing director, the fundraising manager, the thrift store manager, etc. – aren’t doing it regularly. And with that, you’ll finally understand why your organization doesn’t have all the volunteers it needs and why volunteers don’t stay.

And maybe then you’ll stop saying, “Well, people just don’t want to volunteer anymore!”

Also see:

Keys to Success in That Project / Process / Disruption You Want to Introduce

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US Digital Response is a nonprofit that leverages a network of pro bono technical expertise – volunteers – to help governments, nonprofits, and public entities respond quickly to critical public needs. As of May 2023, USDR has partnered with almost 300 government and nonprofit partners on nearly 400 projects. For instance, a state workforce partner needed to reopen applications for multilingual claimants who were previously denied benefits and determine if they are eligible to receive retroactive PUA payments. Many claimants had not interacted with the UI system in months or possibly years, causing the potential for confusion when the department reached back out to the claimant. Another concern was the increased call center activity, putting additional strain on support staff working through a backlog of cases from existing claims. To help combat these issues, the state agency wanted to create a self-guided experience that was clear for claimants as well as reduce load on their call center. USDR volunteers helped them do this.

I really like this guide from US Digital Response on how their projects work. I think it’s how all ICT projects that help nonprofits – and indeed, how all capacity-building projects, even those that do not involve tech – should work. Too often, when expert consultants, whether volunteer or paid, come into a program to create what is supposed to be a sustainable project – ICT-related or not – it never really gets adopted by the agency. That’s time and money wasted. I think following this guide can help stop that:

1. Deliver value in days, not months. Quickly demonstrate what's possible.
2. Design for sustainability and usability, always with the end user in mind.
3. Leverage or adapt existing tools and products whenever possible.
4. Help partners build their technical capacity and deliver services on their own.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these:

Deliver in values in days, not months. This isn’t possible for every project, tech-related or not. But it’s always worth thinking about: is there a small win that could be achieved early in a project that, ultimately, will take longer and will quickly demonstrate what’s possible, show why this is worth doing, etc.? If the project will take a long time, could small wins every few weeks be built into the project development?

Design for sustainability and usability, always with the end user in mind. Can I get an amen?! I feel so strongly about this, it really should be number one. To me, sustainability means that what you create can be taken over by the regular staff, whether employees or volunteers, when you, the person designing and implementing this, move on. If that’s not possible, IT’S NOT WORTH DOING. And to do this means you have focused on usability.

Leverage or adapt existing tools and products whenever possible. The first thing I do when I go into an organization is to access what they have in terms of software, hardware, forms and processes. I do NOT go in and start switching whatever they are using for document-sharing, live chat, photo-sharing with the public, donor tracking, etc. The organization MAY have all that they need – they just need to improve how they use it.

Help partners build their technical capacity and deliver services on their own. This, to me, links back to my comment about sustainability.

Of course, all of this is easier said than done. The biggest thing that has affected the success of my own change-based projects at an organization is a leader suddenly changing their mind about what they want and retreating into the but that’s the way we’ve always done it mentality. A lot of people say they want a change, or something new, but then balk when they see what that is really going to look like. I’m not sure what the process is to diplomatically ask, “You say this is what you want – but do you really?”

Also, I am always fascinated how a staff person or volunteer can have an idea for a new way of doing things and it’s rejected outright – but a consultant can suggest the same thing and it’s immediately endorsed and implemented. Before your organization looks for outside expertise, take an honest look inside – you may already have the inspiration, talent and energy you need among current staff.

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.

Artificial Intelligence – friend or foe for nonprofits?

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I thought about writing a blog addressing whether or not AI tools, like ChatGPT, are good or bad for nonprofits, NGOs, etc. But I think, indread, I’m just going to defer to all of the many discussions about AI on TechSoup, many of which I’ve participated in. I think reading these theards is helpful in seeing how complicated this question is and offers some important cautions for the use of these tools:

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in Nonprofit Roles: A Step-by-Step Guide

Ethical Practices for Artificial Intelligence – a resource from SalesForce

Using AI as a text creator – how it went for me

Exploring the ethics of AI robots in volunteerism

UNESCO recommendations to combat gender bias in applications using artificial intelligence

Using Artificial Intelligence for Document and Email Automation

International Nonprofit Is Using Mentors To Help Girls Learn About Artificial Intelligence

World Health Organization issues guiding principles for AI design & use

Nonprofits & AI – How AI Is Helping Humanity

Film spotlights how AI can be a basis for racial and gender discrimination