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 percent between 2005 and 2014. And suicide attempts are on the rise as well.

July 27, 2025 update: The headline proclaims Americans under 30 are so miserable that the U.S. just fell to a historic low ranking in the annual World Happiness Report. “If you were only to assess those below 30, the U.S. wouldn’t even rank in the top 60 happiest countries, the report finds.” It’s not at all a surprising finding: people are increasingly on their own, isolated from interactions with others. People are wearing headphones when and if they walk, listening to music or talking to someone, and not greeting anyone they pass, or talking to anyone when they stop. There are far less of us in face-to-face situations with other community members having any sort of shared experience, like watching a movie, attending a local sports event, participating in a pick-up basketball game, and on and on. Many students are taking classes from home rather than going into an actual classroom. And many young people aren’t volunteering, though they would like to do so, if posts to r/volunteer on Reddit are any indication; rather, they are being turned away, or are so sensitive to guidance that they feel like it’s criticism.

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.

review of latest data on volunteering in the USA

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The Corporation for National Service has released its annual report on volunteering in the USA. And, once again, the way they present the data, and the old-fashioned view of volunteering, has disappointed me greatly.

How was the data gathered? I can’t find anything on the web site to tell me. How many people were interviewed? Or how many organizations provided data regarding their volunteers? Where is a report I can read, to get more in-depth info, not just graphics and summary paragraphs? I spent a lot of time on the web site and searching on Google and cannot find this information anywhere.

Once again, the Corporation is focused on a dollar value for measuring the impact of volunteering: “Over the past 15 years, Americans volunteered 120 billion hours, estimated to be worth $2.8 trillion” and in the year for this report, volunteers gave $167 billion in economic value. That’s right – volunteers mean you can eliminate paid staff! And also contributes to the mistaken belief that volunteers are free (they aren’t).

The Corporation summary of the report breaks down volunteering activities in these categories:

  • Fundraise or sell items to raise money
  • Collect, prepare, distribute, or serve food
  • Collect, make or distribute clothing, crafts, or goods other than food.
  • Mentor youth
  • Tutor or teach
  • Engage in general labor; supply transportation for people
  • Provide professional or management assistance including serving on a board or committee
  • Usher, greeter, or minister
  • Engage in music, performance, or other artistic activities
  • Coach, referee, or supervise sports teams
  • Provide general office services
  • Provide counseling, medical care, fire/EMS, or protective services
  • Other types of volunteer activity

Sigh… so, where do these common volunteering activities go?

  • Participating in hackathons and wikipedia edit-a-thons? What if I’m not doing anything at the computer – I’m walking around serving drinks?
  • Supporting artistic activities but not actually supplying them? Would a theater usher be under the “usher” category or hear?
  • Volunteering to register voters go?

And what about this range of typical virtual volunteering activities go?

  • Managing an online discussion group
  • Facilitating an online video chat/event
  • creating web pages (designing the pages or writing the content)
  • editing or writing proposals, press releases, newsletter articles, video scripts, etc.
  • transcribing scanned documents
  • monitoring the news to look for specific subjects
  • managing social media activities
  • tagging photos and files

And, as always: where is the information about the resources it takes to engage volunteers? It takes money and time – yet the report never says a word about this. Volunteers do not magically happen.

I have all the same complaints about CNCS and its report on volunteerism that I had in 2014, so I won’t repeat myself here. But please, CNCS, read it. Drag yourself into the 21st Century and let’s get the data we truly need to help politicans and the general public understand and value volunteerism.

#GoVolunteer

Also see:

Volunteering to help national public lands cleanup after shutdown

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Updated February 1, 2019, at the bottom of the blog entry:

The House and Senate have passed a bill to reopen the government until February 15, and the President is expected to sign it – it may be signed by the time this blog is published.

The impact of the shut down on US public lands – national parks, national forests, national monuments and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land – is still being assessed, but we already know, per numerous press reports and social media reports by visitors, that it’s been bad: trash, graffiti, plant destruction, trail destruction and more.

Official groups that volunteer on US public lands have all been somewhat or entirely inactive as well during the shutdown because they are under the auspices of official partnerships with federal offices, and their liaisons have all been out during the shutdown. Many have been making plans during the shutdown on what to do immediately when the shutdown ends, and many will be starting activities ASAP to address the damage that’s been done to national public lands.

If you want to help volunteer in the next two weeks in particular to address the damage on US public lands during the shutdown, look for “Friends of…” groups that support specific national parks, national forests, etc. You can find these using Google, Bing and Facebook. Check their social media accounts for updates on what their immediate volunteering activities will be and apply to volunteer via their web sites. If they don’t have a way to fill out an application on their web site, email them and ask how you can become a part of their efforts.

These groups do not provide transportation to the public lands they support, nor do they provide accommodations – that means if, say, you want to help at the Grand Canyon, you have to get yourself to the Grand Canyon, find and pay for a hotel or motel room somewhere, etc., all paid for by you. If you decide you want to join in on these volunteering efforts, you need to be prepared to be self-funded and get to wherever the group wants you to be on your own.

You also need to apply to become an official volunteer with any volunteering group you want to help – don’t just show up at the gates of a national park, national forest, etc., and say, “Here I am!” These groups have information on their web sites on how they do this. You may want to apply to volunteer with more than one group – I have no idea if they are getting lots of applications or very few, nor any idea if you will get a quick response, or any response at all.

These groups could all be shut down again on Feb. 15, if no more permanent legislation is passed.

Also, remember that these groups need help year-round – when there’s not a shutdown happening. Many would welcome your support running their gift shops (which raise money for their efforts), building and restoring trails, leading groups and more.

Update: I curated tweets sent by various people and organizations about #volunteers helping on public lands – national parks, forests, monuments, BLM land, etc. – during the 2018-2019 US Federal government #shutdown. The tweets have a lot of links to news articles. I’ve posted this list of curated tweets to Wakelet.

One of the social messages that went viral during this shutdown was a video of a group of spontaneous, unaffiliated community volunteers being told they had to stop cleaning up in the Shiloh National Military Park in Tennessee. Again: official groups that volunteer on US public lands had to be inactive during the shutdown because they are under the auspices of official partnerships with federal offices, and their liaisons were all out during the shutdown. The park worker or law enforcement person or whoever it is in the video did a very poor job of trying to say this in explaining why the people had to stop trying to clean up the park, and his explanation left these community members confused and angry. What he should have said was this:

Thank you. I know you all really care about this park and it’s bothering you to see trash and other debris laying around. These are public lands, your lands, and of course, you feel like you want to clean them up. However, even when the government isn’t shut down, even when there is staff in the parks, people cannot just show up at the park and “volunteer” here. We don’t allow people to spontaneously volunteer, without any formal affiliation with our park, because of liability risks and because of the risk, however small, that unsupervised volunteers will do damage. I so appreciate what you are doing, but park policy says you need to stop. Here is the name of the person you can call the day after the shutdown stops so that your group can volunteer.

Of course, if you’ve watched the video, based on the logic used by the worker, all those unaffiliated volunteers had to do was say, “Oh, we’re not volunteers. I’m an individual citizen enjoying the park and this is how I choose to enjoy it.”  They might have gotten away with it.

Sadly, there have been cases where even “official” volunteers on public lands have caused damage. For instance, 30 miles of dirt trails and primitive roads in Deschutes National Forest in Oregon were deliberately wrecked in 2014 by unsupervised volunteers who were supposed to be doing necessary, environmentally-appropriate trail maintenance. They caused more than $200,000 in damage.

Also see:

Free guide updated: Basic Fundraising for Small NGOs/Civil Society in the Developing World

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I’ve updated Basic Fundraising for Small NGOs/Civil Society in the Developing World for the first time in four years. I swore I wouldn’t anymore, and even said so on my web site… it’s quite the beast of a project, given that it’s entirely unfunded work. And I’ve been updating it since 2004.

But the continued pleas on sites like Quora from small NGOs in Asia and Africa, including very specific questions about crowdsourcing, a topic not covered in the 2015 version of the document, prompted me to spend oh-so-many hours updating it.

The PDF book is now 41 pages long and is available to download, for free, from my web site. It includes chapters on:

  • Fundraising: Some Things You Should NEVER Do
  • Networking & Establishing Credibility
  • Guidelines for Integrity, Transparency & Accountability
  • Using Social Media to Build Credibility
  • Absolute Essential Preparations To Solicit Donations
  • Finding Donors & Making Contact
  • Proposal Writing
  • Ethical Principles in Fundraising
  • Crowdfunding & Online Donations
  • Beware of Fundraising Scams
  • Financial Sustainability Action Planning
  • Individuals Raising Money in Another Country for Your NGO

The work of small community-based organizations (CBOs)/civil society organizations (CSOs)/non- governmental organizations (NGOs) in developing countries, collectively, is vital to millions of people. There is no group or institution doing more important work than CBOs / CSOs & NGOs. They represent local people and local decision-making. They often are the only group representing minority voices and the interests of those most-marginalized in a community. I call them mission- based organizations: they are organizations that exist, primarily, to fulfill a mission. They have a mission-statement that is supposed to guide all of their activities – in contrast to a business, which exists to make profits.

Financial support for their vital work, however, is hard to come by, and staff at these organizations, whether paid or unpaid (volunteer), have, usually, never had training in how to raise funds, what different funding streams can look like (individual donors, foundation grants, corporate grants, fees-for-service, government contracts-for- service, etc.), or how to maintain an accounting of funds.

I can’t solve this challenge with a book, but I hope I can give these NGOs the most basic information they need to secure funding. I hope it also helps consultants who are trying to help these small NGOs in developing countries.

Will I update it again? Not any time soon, barring the correction of some egregious mistakes, and maybe not at all. I need money too, folks. I need to devote my energy to projects that pay me. Please read more about my consulting services and let me know if you might like to work together!

vvbooklittleA resource that isn’t free but is very much worth your investment – at least I think so – is The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. The book, which I co-wrote with Susan Ellis, extensive, detailed suggestions and specifics about using the Internet to support and involve volunteers: virtual volunteering. It includes task and role development, suggestions on support and supervision of online volunteers, guidelines for evaluating virtual volunteering activities, suggestions for risk management, online safety, ensuring client and volunteer confidentiality and setting boundaries for relationships in virtual volunteering, and much more. The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is available both as a traditional printed book and as a digital book.

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Why your public meetings are so sparsely attended

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You represent a nonprofit. Or a local government citizens committee or board. Or an activist group.

You have a monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly or yearly meeting, open to the public. You want your members or the public to attend.

But meeting attendance is poor. Why?

I’ll tell you why! It’s one, or more, or ALL of these reasons:

  • You don’t make it crystal clear why the meetings happen. Why are you having this meeting? What happens at this meeting? Will I sit and hear a lecture? Will I watch a video? Will I have to offer an opinion or participate in some group exercise or vote? Can I just listen and observe? Why do you want me there? What will the meeting be like? All of these questions should be explicitly answered on your web site, in your email newsletter, on your Facebook event page, and in any other ways that you communicate about the meeting. This is the number one reason few people are coming to your meeting.
  • You put the information for the meeting in just ONE place. That one place could be your newsletter. That one place could be your web site. That one place could be a Facebook event page. Worst of all, that one place could be a PDF file somebody has to download as an attachment from email or from a web site (a lot of people don’t even bother opening a PDF). The information needs to be in multiple places. Does your city have a web site of community events and, if so, have you sent them this meeting information? What about the nearest public library? What about to civic organizations, business associations, neighborhood groups and cultural groups?
  • The meeting information isn’t updated on your web site. It’s 2019, but your web site is still talking about 2018. The upcoming meeting is in February, but your web site is still talking about December. The outdated information makes someone wonder if the meetings are still happening, even if your web site said that your group meets on the second Thursday of every month.
  • Your web site just says your group meets on the second Thursday of every month – or whatever. And that might be true, but it’s not enough to prove that this meeting really happens. Photos from the last meeting, or the minutes from the last meeting, or the focus or agenda for the next two meetings, with the actual meeting dates included, would affirm that, yes, these meetings really happen.
  • There’s no information about parking. Is free parking nearby?
  • People can’t get to your meeting by public transport easily. There’s a bus, but it only goes by every half hour, and there’s only one other bus it connects to – in a city of more than 50 buses. That means, to get to you and your hour-long meeting, most people would have to take mass transit around four hours round trip.
  • You don’t provide child care. And you probably don’t want a bored child – or more than one bored child – at your very important meeting.
  • Your meeting is at a time when I can’t attend. You didn’t survey membership or potential members and find out when the best time is for them to meet. Or you don’t offer meetings at different times – maybe every other month’s meeting could be in the evening instead of the afternoon.

There is no excuse for not addressing those first five bullets. None. Start with those. You may find that you need to ask people to RSVP for meetings and then text them a reminder, to better ensure they will attend. You may find you need to post reminders to social media as well. You may even need to look into broadcasting the meetings online, so that those who can’t attend in person can view the meeting online, perhaps even participate online as well (ask questions, vote, etc.).

If, after doing at least these first five bullets, your meetings are still poorly attended, then it’s time to sit down and call 10, 20, even 30 people you really want to attend these meetings and ask them why they can’t, or won’t, attend and if these reasons can be addressed.

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Proliferation of SmartPhones leads to proliferation of rape videos

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I have talked with women who help manage or even just use community tech centers all over the world – in Egypt, Afghanistan, Jordan and various countries in Africa – and very often, they have told me something that they never put into a program report for UNDP or whomever was funding the center: that the men and boys coming to the center used the computers to view porn more than any other subject.

This story from the BBC has brought this memory back to me. Here’s an excerpt:

…even as it becomes easier to access pornography thanks to cheap data and smartphones, there is concern that this isn’t being accompanied by any meaningful understanding of sex and relationships. Local boys in the village freely admitted to the BBC that they watched videos of molestation and rape. One 16-year-old said he had seen more than 25 such videos, adding that his friends often shared them on their smartphones.

Sunita Krishnan, the founder of Prajwala, an organisation in the southern city of Hyderabad that deals with issues of sexual violence and trafficking says these violent videos reinforce the old belief that a woman’s choice is insignificant and she has no agency.

This earlier story from BBC about the kidnapping, rape and murder of a child talks about some of the reasons for the attitude in the country about women.

India is not alone when it comes to high rates of incidence of rape. But many believe patriarchy and a skewed sex ratio may be making matters worse. There is public apathy as well: the rights and security of women never become election issues.

This story for INews by Divya Arya gives more background:

India has seen an internet revolution of a different kind in the past few years. Low-cost smartphones, cheap data and popular social media apps have enabled vast rural parts of the country to stream videos like never before. Pornhub, widely reported to be the world’s largest porn website, claims that India is now the third largest consumer of its content in the world after the United States and United Kingdom. The majority of its content in India is accessed using mobiles.

For many young Indian men, their introduction to sex is the first time they watch porn. India does have an Adolescent Education Program but implementation remains a challenge and girls and boys rarely mix with each other in smaller cities and villages. As I started travelling and talking to young men about this for a new BBC World Service documentary airing as part of the 100 Women season, the impact of watching porn in the absence of real interaction with women became clear. It was not only leading to objectification of women in their mind, but also re-enforcing the entitlement men have traditionally felt on women’s life decisions. In marriage, motherhood and desire to work, women remain secondary citizens…

Multiple men confirmed to me that videos of molestation, and professionally shot violent pornographic content, both were the most searched content online in cities as well as more rural areas. As more violent content became available, watching simple sex stopped being the preference for many. These men confided about wanting to replicate what they saw online and some of them explained that it did affect their personal relationships adversely.

Clicked on a link within the original story about a related story and it opened with a situation that sounded all too familiar to me:

On his many trips to Internet cafes in the bustling central Indian city of Indore, lawyer Kamlesh Vaswani discovered what he calls the “epidemic” of pornography.

“I would go to download important Supreme Court judgments, and pornographic adverts would pop up instead. And when I looked around, I saw rows of children surfing porn openly without a care in the world,” 

There are calls for bans on porn but there are fears this will lead to banning sites regarding sexual health, even breast cancer.

Here’s an hour-long documentary from BBC’s 100 Women series about the proliferation of online porn in India via smartphones.

I’m glad to see the discussions about what to do about the massive increase in the use of smartphones and social media leading to widespread myth-spreading and all of the consequences of that – but what about this very real issues of these online tools being used to promote and encourage violence against women?

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