Urban Humanitarian Emergencies Course, July 28 – 30, 2015, Harvard U

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Urban Humanitarian Emergencies Course
July 28 – 30, 2015
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Registration: $1195 USD

The Urban Humanitarian Emergencies Course offered by the Humanitarian Academy at Harvard is a three-day workshop designed to train humanitarian professionals on the current issues and practices involved in this unique and expanding area of research and practice. Experienced course faculty will join the workshop to discuss the complexities of urban humanitarian response.

The three-day course will include curriculum covering all aspects of the urban humanitarian environment:

  • Response to Recovery
  • Coordination
  • Communication
  • Assessment and Prioritization
  • Integrated Sectors
  • Finance and Economy
  • Markets
  • Housing and Shelter
  • Delivering Aid
  • Violence and Protection
  • Health
  • Exit Strategy

For more information and registration, please visit the workshop webpage.

Please send any questions about the workshop to hhiurbancourse@gmail.com

Taking a stand when you are supposed to be neutral/not controversial

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handstopSo many people responsible for communications at nonprofits, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government programs and international development agencies like the United Nations do their work from a place of fear: fear of negative publicity, fear of reprimand from supervisors or partner organizations, fear of controversy, etc. One of the consequences of this fear-based work style is that these communications professionals overly-censor themselves on social media, avoiding messages that relate directly to their program’s mission, simply because they don’t want to make anyone angry.

It’s impossible to work in communications and not make anyone angry. Impossible. While I think it is very important to be culturally-sensitive/appropriate in communications, the reality is that the work of most mission-based organizations is meant to grow understanding and change minds – and that means, at least sometimes, being challenging, even provocative. I long ago accepted that not everyone is going to like the messages of whatever program I’m representing, even messages that seem quite benign and non-controversial to me. As long as I make all messages reflective of the mission of the program, and ensure all messages come from a place of sincerity and honesty, I make no apologies.

If you want to post a message to social media that promotes something that relates to your program’s mission, but you want to keep negative responses to a minimum – or have a solid response to anyone who complains about such a message, including a board member or donor, here’s what you do: find the message you want to say on your headquarter’s Facebook or Twitter account, or a partner organization’s account, and share it or retweet it.

Here’s an example: I’ve had colleagues at the UN say, “We cannot talk about rights for gay people. It will make too many people angry.” Yet, the UN has a human rights MANDATE that includes rights for gay people. So, what could an office in such a position do in order to promote that human rights message and have a firm defense for doing so in the face of criticism? Follow the United Nations Free & Equal initiative on Twitter (@free_equal) and on Facebook. This is an initiative of the Office of the High Commissioner for United Nations Human Rights (follow that initiative on Twitter and Facebook as well). Share and retweet the messages that initiative says that you feel you cannot say yourself, such as this video from the UN Secretary General in support of the Free & Equal initiative. No one can argue that you shouldn’t share it – unless they can point to a specific, verifiable threat as a result of such a message that could endanger staff.

Another example: while working in a country with a lot of armed conflict going on, our communications office decided that celebrating the UN’s international day of peace with our own messages could be seen as taking sides in the hostilities – saying “We hope for peace” could be interpreted as encouraging one side to “give in” to another. So we decided not to post our own messages – but to share and retweet official UN messages related to international peace day.

It’s a good idea to make a list of Twitter accounts and Facebook accounts that interns and/or volunteers could monitor and whose messages they could share or retweet without pre-approval from a supervisor. You might want to also make a list of accounts they should absolutely *not* retweet or share; for instance, at one work site, I would not allow articles from a certain media outlet to be shared or retweeted via our official account, because I felt the media outlet was profoundly biased against our work and because I felt their articles were often riddled with misinformation.

No matter what: keep communications mission-based. Think about the intent of your message: To educate regarding an issue related to your program’s mission? To encourage someone to do something related to your cause? To celebrate your program’s activities or accomplishments? To create goodwill with a certain community? Always be able to justify any message you want to send.

And did you see what I just did there?

Also see:

Why you should separate your personal life and private life online

 

 

How to Handle Online Criticism / Conflict

why you can’t find/keep volunteer firefighters

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I’m one of the few – and maybe the only – consultants regarding volunteer engagement that regularly delves into the subject of volunteer firefighters. I’m not sure why most DOVIAs and other associations of managers of volunteers avoid the subject. Surely the fundamentals we volunteer management experts believe are essential to success in involving volunteers also apply to involving volunteer firefighters? Yet, go to a conference on volunteer engagement and you will find few, if any, workshops related to engaging and supporting volunteer firefighters. Go to a web site with resources about volunteer engagement, and you may not find any information about the particular environment of volunteer firefighting. Likewise, walk into a fire station which is staffed fully or partly by volunteer firefighters, and you probably won’t see any books related to volunteer management, in general, and few managers of volunteer firefighters attend DOVIA-related meetings or conferences.

This gap really bothers me.

I’ve been interested in the reasons fire stations involve volunteer firefighters, and the challenges faced in recruiting and retaining such volunteers, since 2001, when I started dating a volunteer firefighter in Germany. He’s now my husband (and now a volunteer firefighter in the USA). It’s been fascinating to compare Germany – with the highest number of volunteer firefighters, per capita, in the world – with the USA. Both are facing similar challenges regarding volunteer firefighters – and both have far more people complaining about “the way things used to be,” rather than addressing the realities of the day and leveraging our times many strengths to recruit, involve and support volunteer firefighters. Earlier this year, I compiled research and case studies regarding recruitment and retainment of volunteer firefighters & justifications for involving volunteer firefighters that do NOT relate to “money saved”. It was my tiny effort to get stations that are staffed wholly or partly by volunteers to quit complaining and start changing so they can flourish in the world we live in now.

I also try to track issues related specifically to volunteer firefighters that are talked about in the news. Recently, a colleague passed on two articles to me:

Without volunteers, rural fire districts wouldn’t exist, laments the lack of volunteers in several rural areas of Oregon, and blames the problem on the attitude of young people, with comments like:

  • Young people don’t believe in an expectation that they will volunteer for their community
  • “Most of the younger folks say, ‘We don’t have time,” or ‘We’re too busy with class,'”
  • “It’s hard to get the volunteers to show up (to calls)…It seems like on training night they have something else better to do. If it’s in the middle of the night, the younger guys would rather sleep, so it’s just two or three of us that show up on a regular basis.”
  • “They want to be firemen and (then) they see something they don’t like. Like a wreck.”

The article never interviews any current or former volunteers, to find out why they have volunteered, challenges to their volunteering, why they left, etc. It never interviews young people to find out their attitudes about volunteerism and community service – it just takes the word of a couple of guys that do not represent that demographic. And those comments wouldn’t make me want to volunteer there if I were in my 20s or 30s, as they obviously don’t like people from that generation – they say so! 

And in the same publication is this: Coos Bay trying to buck trend of declining volunteer firefighters. It attributes lack of volunteers to:

  • the community’s aging population
  • economic problems
  • stricter standards for volunteers regarding their training
  • lack of monetary compensation
  • busier lives
  • lack of social interactions – it’s just work to do, no fun aspects, like there used to be when you could drink alcohol in the stations

Again, no current or former volunteers are interviewed.

These articles also leave out some other factors that are, no doubt, affecting the numbers of volunteer firefighters:

  • Firefighters don’t fight fires all that much. They don’t even do rescues all that much. The vast majority of their calls are medical calls. They do far more ambulatory/paramedic work than they do true firefighting work. Ask your volunteer firefighters, current and former, which calls they find most appealing – most will tell you fire fighting. Perhaps it’s time for the USA to look into the German model, where a separate, dedicated agency handles emergency medical calls? That greatly reduces training costs for firefighters – as well as equipment costs – and means firefighters get to be, mostly, firefighters.
  • The national union for career firefighters has stated it is against volunteer firefighters and would like to see all volunteers eliminated and replaced with paid people. A career firefighter in a big city is not allowed to be a volunteer firefighter in the small rural area where he or she lives, because of union rules as well. Volunteers feel this animosity from some career firefighters, and it creates a very unwelcoming environment in many stations. Unless this animosity is addressed, and statements about volunteers being valued because they save money stop, the number of volunteer firefighters is going to continue to drop.
  • Firefighters haven’t changed how they recruit. AT ALL. A sign out in front of a station that says “Volunteers needed” just isn’t going to cut it anymore. If there are young people in your community, there are potential volunteer firefighters, and you have to go where THEY are. You also have to have an ONLINE volunteering application. You have to be posting videos on Facebook and YouTube and Twitter of your firefighters in action, and reminding people via social media what volunteers do, how to do be one, and WHY to be one. And you have to reach out to people that speak languages in addition to English to make sure they know about volunteering opportunities and how to qualify.
  • Many stations do a substandard job of responding to inquiries aboutvolunteering, and applications from potential volunteers. Are you sure that EVERY person that calls or emails the city, the county, or your station about volunteering as a firefighter is getting a prompt, courteous, encouraging response? And are you sure every application is being responded to rapidly? Read Volunteers needed, but are they wanted? and Fire station turns away volunteers – & how it could be different for more on this subject.

As for the lack of a social aspect among firefighters today, that is HUGELY important for volunteer firefighters, particularly those that are not volunteering as a part of career exploration/advancement. Those volunteers hear all about all the work that needs to be done – but without some kind of social aspect, they aren’t going to last long. Also, social gatherings help to build cohesion among firefighters that can have benefits later during crisis situations. Could your station have a regular, unofficial meetup at a favorite pub once a month for all off-duty firefighters to play some darts, shoot some pool and just hang out socially? Would leaders at your station organize firefighter-only gatherings in their homes, such as potlucks or lawn games, even just twice a year? Would someone organize a rafting trip or a day trip to do bungee jumping for any firefighters interested in such? Creating a social aspect for your firefighters is tricky: activities have to be entirely unofficial, entirely voluntary, and regularly done in order to cultivate the kind of brother and sisterhood you want among all of your firefighters, volunteer and career. But without making a consistent effort, your volunteers will most certainly drift away, tired of being asked only to provide labor, and receiving no real value in return.

There ARE potential volunteer firefighters out there, even in your small town. You might be hearing a lot about how people are preferring microvolunteering, where they volunteer for only a few minutes or hours once, and have no requirement to ever volunteer again, but the reality is that there are also a LOT of people who are hungry to connect, hungry for a deeper, more substantial activity that connects them with the community and causes they believe in. Volunteer firefighting can have a great deal of appeal to today’s young people. But if you don’t have a welcoming environment, if you aren’t trying to reach them where they are, if you aren’t using social media, and if you are just talking about all the work that has to be done and the obligations to be fulfilled, those young people are going to go elsewhere. And that’s a shame, because they have a lot of energy, talent, ideas and strengths from which your fire station could benefit. Are you ready to evolve to involve them?

Of course, the only way to know for sure about the challenges for volunteers in any one fire department or association is to survey both current and departed volunteer firefighters – and perhaps those that applied to volunteer but never completed the process. And this kind of survey should be done at least every other year. Make a list of questions you want to ask these current and former volunteers, and then have journalism students from the local high school or management students from the local college or university ask the questions of the current and former volunteers – volunteers are much more likely to speak freely if it isn’t to the fire chief. Have the students compile all of the answers, and share it freely, openly, and welcome comments from everyone on what is offered. That’s your starting point.

Also see:

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site or my YouTube videos and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

My dream to create &/or teach an entire university course

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Me at Discover e-volunteering even in Warsaw, Poland 2014This year, or next year, I would love to create or co-create, and/or to deliver, an entire, semester-long course as a part-time or full-time instructor at a university or college, within any program that trains current or aspiring nonprofit managers, social workers, public sector workers, aid and humanitarian workers, etc. I would most like to do this onsite here in the greater Portland, Oregon metropolitan area, but I would welcome the opportunity to create and/or deliver an online course as well.

I have guest lectured many times at the university level, you can see my academic / research work at my profile on academia.edu, most of the academic articles that have cited my work regarding virtual volunteering are listed at my Google Scholar account., and I have done intensive trainings for thousands of people over the years. I think all of that qualifies me to create and/or deliver an intensive, practical, semester-long course at a university.

The courses I dream of creating and teaching:

  • communications for mission-based initiatives (nonprofit organizations, public sector initiatives, etc.): basic public relations functions, press relations, outreach to particular audiences, strategic communications (systematic planning and utilization of a variety of information flows, internal and external to an organization or program, to deliver a message and build credibility or a brand), using traditional print, synchronous and asynchronous online / digital communications and emerging digital technologies effectively, integrating the use of all information flows, addressing socially or religiously-conservative audiences, crisis communications, how to address misinformation / misunderstandings, how to deal with public criticism, measuring success in communications, etc.
  • community engagement / volunteer management for mission-based initiatives (nonprofit organizations, public sector initiatives, etc.): involving people from various local demographics as volunteers, from program supporters to advisers, and creating ways for the community to see the work of an organization firsthand. This would be beyond just a basic volunteer management 101 course that covers recruitment, data management, risk management, and other aspects of operational management.; it would also explore ethics, emerging innovations in volunteer engagement, building the capacity of the entire organization to involve volunteers, internal advocacy for volunteer engagement, volunteer engagement to directly support the organization’s mission, creating non-traditional opportunities for volunteers, etc.

How much do I want to do this? I’ve already written early drafts of those courses, with lesson plans and required reading outlined. Yes, that’s what I do in my spare time.

I enjoy teaching, and my goal in any training is to give participants tools that they can use immediately in their work, and to give students a base on which to further build and improve long after the class is over. Capacity-building is always central to any training or consulting work I do. Capacity-building means giving people the skills, information and other resources to most effectively and efficiently address an organization’s mission, and to help the organization be attractive to new and continuing support from donors, volunteers, community leaders and the general public.

I enjoy teaching, and I try to give my classes, online or onsite, a lively, participatory feel.

I have a profile at LinkedIn, as well as details on my own web site about my professional activities. I’m also happy to share my CV with you; email me with your request. If you have any specific questions about my profile, feel free to contact me as well. References available upon request as well.

And, of course, I’m still open to consulting. My consulting services are detailed here. I can deliver both onsite and online services. Also, I love to travel (especially internationally!).

Looking forward to hearing from any universities who might be interested! Questions welcomed!

How to help Baltimore

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I’ve written about how to help Nepal. So… what about Baltimore, site of so much violence, civil unrest, economic injustice, mistrust and lack of opportunity ?

Just like with Nepal, my first comment is going to be: do not go to Baltimore to help. Not yet. Not without a formal affiliation with a LOCAL nonprofit. If you want to help any of these nonprofits, FIRST, you must contact them and tell them what you want to do as a volunteer, onsite in Baltimore or online and offer references that can confirm your abilities and character. If you want to travel to Baltimore,  you need to say when you will be in Baltimore, and state that you will pay for your own transportation, housing, food and all other needs, that you are not, in any way, expecting the nonprofit to provide you any funding or support for your travel or accommodations. And you need to be ready for rejection: most of these nonprofits are completely overwhelmed and may not have the resources and funding to involve an influx of outside volunteers.

Here are some credible nonprofit organizations that are based in Baltimore and are focused on economic empowerment, helping economically disadvantaged people, and/or building stronger, more empathetic, compassionate environments.  I haven’t fully vetted them beyond knowing they exist and are appropriately registered – I haven’t typed the name of each nonprofit into Google or Bing with words like “complaint” and “fraud” and “sued,” to see if anything came up, for instance. But if I had a lot of money to give, I wouldn’t hesitate to give to each of them:

Enoch Pratt Free Library
Serves the residents of Baltimore with locations throughout the city. In addition to being a traditional lending library, it also provides accessibility services, online tutors,
Internet access, classes and events, and kids and teens services.

Community College of Baltimore County
Provide undergraduate education, workforce development, technology training, and lifelong learning/life enrichment in the Baltimore Metropolitan area.

Maryland New Directions, Inc.
Mission: To provide comphrensive career counseling, employment assistance, and post-employment support to people who are in life and career transition. Since 1973, Maryland New Directions has served over 130,000 individuals looking to become self-sustaining through employment.

Public Justice Center, Inc.
Nonprofit legal advocacy organization. We work with people and communities to confront the laws, practices, and institutions that cause injustice, poverty, and discrimination. We advocate in the courts, legislatures, and government agencies, educate the public, and build coalitions, all to advance our mission of “pursuing systemic change to build a just society.”

The Baltimore Station, Inc.
Concentrates on helping veterans that have fallen on hard times. We know that they suffer a special kind of hell, returning to society with the effects of combat (including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), often turning to drugs to silence the trauma. We know the cycle that can spin out of control, leading to poverty, estrangement and homelessness. We know what it takes to break that cycle – a highly structured environment – because most of our staff is in recovery themselves and half are veterans. Recovery is not a “quick fix” battle. It’s a long tough war.

Baltimore Cash Campaign
Connects clients to asset building resources, including financial education classes, one-on-one financial coaching, mainstream banking opportunities (instead of for-profit cash-advance and check-cashing companies), and credit counseling (debt is a major challenge to severely economically disadvantaged people), conducts marketing and outreach about the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and other relevant tax credits for low-income workers, provides free volunteer income tax assistance (VITA), and advocates for issues impacting working families

Win Family Services
Target demographics: at-risk youth and their families. Programs: treatment foster care, community mental health, therapy, and a talent development after-school program

Baltimore Humane Society
I believe with all my heart that encouraging compassion and care for animals cultivates compassion and care for humans.

St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center
Works to create and maintain equal housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income people, primarily in Baltimore City, and to encourage and support strong and diverse neighborhoods. (this was added after the blog’s original publication – thanks, Kate Bladow, for the rec)

Maryland New Directions
a non-profit dedicated to improving lives in Baltimore through employment. (this was added after the blog’s original publication)

Don’t stop there: look for nonprofits in Baltimore that are focused on giving all people access to the arts, such as dance and theatre, or that are focused on sports, or senior services, or whatever activity you think could help the people of the city. Look at Volunteer Central Baltimore and VolunteerMatch as well for nonprofits seeking volunteers in Baltimore.

It was a beautiful thing to see all of those local people in Baltimore spontaneously volunteering in their community, starting to clean up even DURING the riots. So many people, so many photos. Just go to Twitter and search for Baltimore and volunteers, and you will see what I mean. Wouldn’t it be great if all of those people, as well as those that were rioting, volunteered with even one of these nonprofits? And wouldn’t it be great if those nonprofits had the training and resources to involve that influx of volunteers?

Also see:

We need volunteer police officers – & an overhaul as well

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The tragic, utterly avoidable death of Eric Harris, shot and killed by Robert Bates, a volunteer police reservist in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has lead not only to grief and protests, but also to some people, including police professionals, saying the involvement of volunteer police officers needs to end.

I am not one of those people.

I’ve been reading all that I can about this tragedy, and there were so many red flags before this shooting, about not only the shooter, but the agency’s involvement of volunteers overall:

  • it’s doubtful the volunteer had received proper training and certification to perform the law-enforcement duties he was allowed to perform
  • it’s doubtful the volunteer had receive proper training regarding the carrying and use of firearms on the job
  • it seems the reservist was, essentially, paying to volunteer alongside career police officers – he donated tens of thousands of dollars in cars, SUVs and equipment to the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office over the past 10 years
  • there’s no evidence that this volunteer was properly supervised or screened regarding the roles he was undertaking on the police force
  • this volunteer was involved in a violent crimes and narcotics task force, not as an observer, but as an arresting officer, and was equipped with a firearm – it cannot be shown that his involvement in these activities, and that his carrying a firearm, was necessary at all

We would never tolerate a career police officer lacking that kind of screening, training and support – we should not tolerate it of a volunteer.

And then there is the reason that some law enforcement agencies involve volunteers; note this excerpt from an article from CNN:

Why do law enforcement agencies have volunteers?
Money, money, money.

Strapped police departments are increasingly looking to do more with fewer resources, and volunteer programs can help plug holes in their operating budgets, says the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which runs the Volunteers in Police Service program. 

Of course, that statement makes me INSANE, because that is NOT the primary reason why an agency should be involving volunteers! This kind of mentality is what pushing the dollar value of volunteer hours by the Independent Sector, the Corporation National Service, and others is causing: the myth that volunteers are free, and that the best reason to involve volunteers is because they save money.

Why involve volunteer police officers? Here are FAR better reasons than “money, money, money”:

  • The motto of so many police forces is “to protect and serve.” Volunteers can be representatives of that community the police serve. Volunteer involvement can be an excellent way to connect more deeply with community members, by having them see local police work first hand and, to a degree, participating in such. Volunteer involvement allows members of the community to come into a police agency, as volunteers (and, therefore, with no financial stake in the agency), to see for themselves the work that agency does. Involving volunteers — representatives of the community — can help educate the community about what the police do, even changing negative perceptions.
  • Community engagement is community ownership. Volunteer involvement demonstrates that the community is invested in the police and its goals, that they feel a part of those goals. They are more likely to be supportive of the police if they feel ownership of such.
  • Involving volunteers can help your organization reach particular demographic groups — people of a particular age, in a particular neighborhood, of a particular economic level, etc., especially groups who might not be involved with your organization otherwise. How does diversity among your volunteer ranks reflect the diversity of your community?

Police, what demographics are represented among your volunteers, and how does this show community involvement at your agency? What feedback have volunteers provided that has affected your organization, such as improving your services? What do volunteers say about your organization’s performance? How have volunteers helped you build bridges with communities in ways that your career folks could not? If you cannot answer these questions, you are NOT involving volunteers for the right reasons!

Should police be involved in pursuing suspects, investigation of violent crimes, SWAT teams, narcotics task force, and other high-risk activities? Sure – BUT ONLY IF THEY HAVE REGULAR, UP-TO-DATE TRAINING AND PROPER SUPERVISION. This clearly was NOT the case in Tulsa.

Lower-risk-and-still-meaningful ways to involve police volunteers – many of them NOT requiring the officer to carry a firearm:

  • policing community events such as fairs and charitable events
  • staffing DUI checkpoints
  • missing persons investigations
  • neighborhood patrol
  • sex-offender management
  • traffic control
  • helping to staff court proceedings
  • serving low-risk warrants/supporting warrant compliance
  • filling low-risk roles in jails (such as administrative)
  • helping after disasters
  • helping crime victims/victim services
  • leading community events such as bicycle events that promote safety and bike registration
  • chaplaincy
  • code enforcement
  • crime prevention programs
  • translation
  • equipment maintenance

But even in these lower-risk ways, even if volunteer police will not be carrying a firearm, volunteer police still need regular, up-to-date training and proper supervision! THAT REQUIREMENT NEVER CHANGES. They need to be trained even if their role is only to observe and report.

Volunteer police reservists can be an excellent way to connect more deeply with community members, and MORE police departments need to be doing it, not less, particularly in areas where there is friction between the police and those served. But clearly, many police departments need a radical overhaul of their volunteer engagement, particularly regarding volunteers’ training, record-keeping about their training, roles they are given and supervision they are provided. Getting rid of volunteer police has the potential to create even wider cultural gaps between police and the communities they are supposed to serve.

Also see:

When ICT help goes wrong: warning for aid workers going to Nepal

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Here is a comment I read on one of the many online discussion groups I follow, and I think it is really important for aid workers to keep in mind when going to developing countries to help, particularly in post-disaster situations. I’ve removed any specific identifying information, and any emphasis is mine:

One issue we’ve observed many times when doing relief work, perhaps worst in the 2004 tsunami, the 2003 conflict in the Congo, and 2010 in Haiti, is that areas with modest ICT infrastructure that was adequate to the sustainable needs of their market, are swamped by aid workers with immodest expectations. i.e. a desire to video-chat with their families every day, play WoW, and download video porn. So they all show up, and declare “repairing the Internet infrastructure” (to levels never before seen) to be their first priority. They run rough-shod over the local infrastructure operators, step on carefully-regulated or carefully-negotiated frequency allocations, etc.

I very much hope we won’t have to deal with that in this case. Nepal’s ICT environment is mature, its professionals are expert, and its community is well connected. If and when they need help, they’re perfectly capable of indicating what help they need, and anyone from the outside who believes they know better is WRONG. So, if you’re interested in helping, by all means, make your availability known to any of the many other ICT professionals in-country, but please don’t assume that you know what’s needed, or worse, that they don’t.

The Swedish-Finnish telco TeliaSonera operates in Nepal and is engaged in relief efforts, and is urging everyone in Nepal to communicate whenever possible by SMS rather than voice in order to minimize the strain of the network.

Also see: How to help Nepal

How to help Nepal

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I’m already seeing these posts online:

How can I go to Nepal and help regarding the earthquake?!

Unless you have specific areas of expertise regarding post-disaster situations, speak Nepalese, and can go under the auspices of a respected non-governmental organization or your own government, DO NOT GO. And please don’t start collecting things to send to Nepal either.

When a disaster strikes, thousands of people start contacting various organizations and posting to online groups in an effort to try to volunteer onsite at the disaster site. If the disaster happens in the USA, some people jump in their cars and drive to the area.

But what most of these people don’t realize is that spontaneous volunteers without specific training and no affiliation can cause far more problems than they alleviate in a disaster situation, particularly regarding disaster locations far from their home. Consider this:

  • In many post-disaster situations, there is NO food, shelter, services or gas to spare for volunteers. Many volunteers going into the Philippines, Pakistan, Haiti, Japan, even the Gulf Coast states in the USA after Katrina or states affected by Sandy, had to be absolutely self-sustaining for many, many days, even many  weeks. No shelter or safety measures could be provided to these volunteers by the government. Those volunteers who weren’t self-sustaining created big problems and diverted attention from local people in need.
  • Just because you have some equipment does not mean you are ready to volunteer: inexperienced people have been killed using chainsaws after hurricanes and other disasters, by falling limbs and live electrical wires, during their DIY clean up efforts. Responding to these people when they get themselves into a jam takes away from the needs of local people.
  • In disaster situations, you are going to be encountering disaster victims. They are going to be stressed, maybe desperate, and maybe angry. As a trained volunteer or paid staff member working with a credible organization, you are going to know how to comfort these people and direct them to where they can get assistance, and how to convince them that you have to save this person over here instead of their relative over there. If you are untrained and unaffiliated, you may become a target of their anger, because you cannot provide them with appropriate assistance, or because you provide them with incorrect information.
  • What will you do when you are accused of stealing from someone? Of harming someone? Of making a situation worse? What do you know about local customs and cultural taboos that, if you violate them, could taint all outside volunteer efforts? Aid workers have been arrested, even killed, because of cultural missteps. Who will navigate local bureaucracies to save YOU in such situations?

I could go on and on – and I do, on this web page about how to help people affected by a huge disaster. Disasters are incredibly complicated situations that require people with a very high degree of qualifications and long-term commitment, not just good will, a sense of urgency and short-term availability.

Also, more and more agencies are hiring local people, even immediately after a disaster, to clean rubble, remove dead bodies, build temporary housing, rebuild homes and essential buildings, and prepare and distribute food. Hiring local people to do these activities, rather than bringing people in from the outside, helps stabilize local people’s lives much more quickly!

If you want to help the people of Nepal, donate to CARE International’s efforts in Nepal and/or UNICEF’s efforts in Nepal and/or Save the Children’s efforts in Nepal (all of these organizations serve all people, not just children).

Here’s more about donating Things Instead of Cash or Time (In-Kind Contributions).

If you want to go abroad to help after a disaster, then here is advice on how to start pursuing the training and experience you need to be in a position to do that – it will take you about 24 months (two years) to get the minimum of what you will need to apply to volunteer for such scenarios.

Also see:

Volunteering empowers, activates, builds, communicates

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CDSckppWMAAvCDsA fabulous quote by Elisabeth Kisakye, of Mozambique and a VSO volunteer (seen in the photo at left):

“Volunteering empowers people to move from being passive recipients to active beneficiaries.”

She said this at the United Nations April joint session of the Financing for Development (FfD) process and the intergovernmental negotiations on the post-2015 development agenda.

I love this statement because it is the TRUE value of volunteers. Are you listening, Independent Sector, Corporation for National Service, governments and corporations? The true value of volunteers is NOT a monetary amount for hours served!

Maybe a more accurate statement would be:

“Volunteering can empower people to move from being passive recipients to active beneficiaries. Volunteering can engage the community, create more dialogue with those a program is meant to serve, promote transparency in decision-making, and create ownership in a program’s goals.”

Oh, I could go on and on…

Two things make volunteer engagement oh-so-different than mere human resources management: Volunteers are unpaid, and volunteer engagement is a program. I will never understand why managers of volunteers aren’t sitting in on every program meeting, and charged to find ways that volunteer engagement can be fully integrated into the mission of an organization. Instead, too many organizations treat managers of volunteers as human resources managers: finding people to do unpaid work so that the organization can save money by not hiring a consultant or employee. Too many managers of volunteers have a primary priority of finding free labor, period. And primarily valuing volunteers by a monetary value for their time served reinforces this horribly outdated way of thinking about reason to involve volunteers.

Elisabeth Kisakye understands this. Why don’t others?

Note: The “post-2015” talk is regarding the soon-to-expire Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which set targets for halving extreme poverty rates, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, promoting gender equality and empowering women, providing universal primary education, and more, all by 2015. People are tweeting about the ongoing discussions with the tags #post2015 , #action2015 S and .

Also see:

Research: Immunity under the Volunteer Protection Act (USA)

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing work of volunteersVolume 6, Issue 1 (Apr 2015) of the Nonprofit Policy Forum features research by Patricia Groble and Jeffrey L. Brudney, “When Good Intentions Go Wrong: Immunity under the Volunteer Protection Act.” It’s research about a law in the USA. The abstract says:

The Volunteer Protection Act (VPA) was enacted in 1997 to encourage volunteerism by protecting individuals from liability for their negligent actions while volunteering. Proponents intended to provide legal safeguards for volunteers, whom they claimed were deterred from volunteering by fears of liability. Little attention has been paid to this legislation since its enactment, however. This article examines the implementation and interpretation of the VPA through the lens of case law to determine whether the act has had its intended effects for volunteers. Our analysis of all court cases in which the VPA has been cited shows that volunteers are at risk for lawsuits over a variety of actions during the course of their volunteer activities. This analysis also demonstrates that although volunteers can avail themselves of the VPA’s protection, their success in invoking this defense is mixed.

A must read for managers of volunteers… however, it’s cost-prohibitive for most of them: the article costs $42.00 / 30,00 € / £23.00 to access (the entire issue of the journal is $235.00 / 172,00 € / £129.00. I’ll be heading to my local library to see if I can access it through them (I suspect I’ll have to schlep 100 minutes by mass transit one-way, all the way to downtown Portland via the bus and train to read it, in order to read it). The Nonprofit Policy Forum is an international journal that publishes original research and analysis on public policy issues and the public policy process related to the work of nonprofit organizations.

Also see: List of

List of research and evaluations of virtual volunteering, as a practice in general or focused on specific projects (much of the research is free to access).