latest moment of volunteer management madness

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Many of my blogs and web pages are inspired by first-hand experience as a volunteer or as a volunteer manager. And, sadly, it’s often bad experiences, usually as a volunteer myself, that lead to new blogs and web pages.

Of course I don’t name the organizations that inspire these blogs, and I try to put a very positive spin on these, to help other nonprofits, NGOs, libraries, schools, public sector agencies and other mission-based organizations to not make the same mistakes I’ve experienced. I consider them learning experiences, and I want others to learn from them as well.

Here’s some of these blogs and web pages that were inspired by my own experiences as a volunteer:

Here’s the latest moment-of-volunteer-management-madness inspired by a real organization:

This particular multi-state organization has leadership volunteering roles, on the local level, to handle the organization’s project management, including the management of local volunteers, in individual communities. But often, some of these local leadership roles are not filled, because no one is interested or no one has the time to do all of the tasks a particular role requires. Therefore, the lead volunteer for all other leadership volunteers in that community gets saddled with all the roles that aren’t filled, in addition to all of his or her other volunteer responsibilities.

One group of leadership volunteers in one community had a brilliant, oh-so-logical idea for lessening the burden on the lead volunteer and getting necessary tasks done: allow volunteers to commit to completing individual tasks, rather than the entire, hard-to-fill, leadership roles. For instance, allow one volunteer to be in charge of the online community for local volunteers, another volunteer to be in charge of updating the web site, and another volunteer to help with designing paper fliers – which, altogether, are most of the duties of the communications manager volunteer.

There were people ready to assume these much less-intensive volunteer roles. That means all the tasks of that role get done, the local lead volunteer manager – a volunteer herself – wouldn’t be overburdened trying to do these tasks as well as her other responsibilities, and maybe, after a few months, one of these task-based volunteers would decide, hey, I think I could do the entire job myself – I’m ready to commit to the entire leadership role! It’s a fantastic opportunity to cultivate new leadership volunteers – people who might get a taste of the experience and decide they would love to take on a more substantial role.

So, great idea, right? Well, not according to the organization. An employee representative who attended the local meeting where this idea was introduced quashed the idea. She said that the entire role has to be filled by one person and absolutely cannot be divided among several volunteers. Since no one is going to take that role in its entirety, all those tasks are going to be assumed by the already over-burdened team leader.

What a mistake! What a missed opportunity to cultivate new volunteers and new leaders!

Well, at least I got a new blog out of it…

 

REQUIRED info re: volunteers on your web site

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If your organization involves volunteers, then I believe there is certain information that MUST be on your web site regarding this volunteer engagement, no excuses!

To not have this information sends a message: it says that your organization or department takes volunteers for granted, does not value volunteers beyond money saved in salaries, or is not really ready to involve volunteers. Here is what absolutely should be on your web site regarding volunteers.

On a related note, I believe that among this information you provide on your web site regarding volunteers there should be a mission statement for your organization’s volunteer engagement (saying WHY your organization or department involves volunteers). Such a mission statement will guide employees in how they think about volunteers, guide current volunteers in thinking about their role and value at the organization, and show potential volunteers the kind of culture they can expect at your organization regarding volunteers. The page includes sample mission statements.

Unacceptable excuses for not having this information on your web site:

  • I don’t have time to put this on the web site (then recruit volunteers to help you)
  • I won’t be able to get approval from senior management to do this (it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission; if you are in charge of volunteers at your organization, it’s your responsibility to do this)
  • The web master says there isn’t enough room on the web site for this material (this is an excuse that is complete nonsense. If your web master won’t allow the information on the web site, do your own web site – and recruit volunteers to help!)

 

PowerPoint / slide shows: the antithesis of thinking

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I hate Microsoft PowerPoint users. I hate all slide show users, actually.

Hate. I’m a hater.

I hate slide show presentations because:

  • people stare at the presentation rather than listening to and hearing what’s being said
  • people stare at the slide show rather than looking at the presenter 
  • people think reading the slide show later, having missed the actual meeting, will provide them with all the information needed
  • the presenter often stares at the presentation instead of the audience

I’m not the only hater…  a Swiss political party wants to outlaw the software. I’m sure it’s a joke, but it is true when the organizers say that slideshow software (and unnecessary meetings and presentations in general) are boring employees and costing companies billions in lost work.

But the problem is much worse than boredom: T.X. Hammes’ blog Dumb-dumb bullets: As a decision-making aid, PowerPoint is a poor tool really struck a chord a few years ago, and it’s worth it to revisit. Hammes uses PowerPoint to mean any slide show, even though there is a range of software that people use to create boring slide show presentations:

(PowerPoint) is actively hostile to thoughtful decision-making. It has fundamentally changed our culture by altering the expectations of who makes decisions, what decisions they make and how they make them.

He continues

Before PowerPoint, staffs prepared succinct two- or three-page summaries of key issues. The decision-maker would read a paper, have time to think it over and then convene a meeting with either the full staff or just the experts involved to discuss the key points of the paper. Of course, the staff involved in the discussion would also have read the paper and had time to prepare to discuss the issues. In contrast, today, a decision-maker sits through a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation followed by five minutes of discussion and then is expected to make a decision. Compounding the problem, often his staff will have received only a five-minute briefing from the action officer on the way to the presentation and thus will not be well-prepared to discuss the issues. This entire process clearly has a toxic effect on staff work and decision-making.

If I didn’t know that Hammes retired from the Marine Corps after 30 years, I would swear, based on the above, that he, too, worked at the United Nations. Please read the entire blog. He’s so right on.

I do slide shows for my presentations because they are expected by whomever hires me, but, honestly, I don’t really need them, and I frequently forget to forward a slide because I’m too busy walking around and looking into the eyes of the audience and talking with them, listening to them, etc. I like for my presentations to be lively and to have a healthy dose of discussions, with the audience chiming in throughout the presentation with their own thoughts, even answering each others’ questions, instead of all answers and information coming from me. Slide shows kill this  interaction. They kill listening. Instead, audience see glowing colored lights, audience stare at glowing colored lights, audience no listen, audience no think.
And don’t even get me started on laptops and smart phones during presentations…
Next time you are asked to do a slide show for a presentation, think about what it is you are really trying to accomplish with that slide show. Is a slide show really the right mechanism to deliver your message? Are you relying on it WAY too much?
Tags: communications, presentations, teaching, training, software, presenter, trainer, consult, consulting, briefing, communicating, outreach, interaction, audience

Are Interns Exploited?

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A Guardian blogger is outraged at what she sees as exploitation of interns at charities in the U.K. She doesn’t think interns are volunteers; she thinks they should be paid. She asks Should major charities offer unpaid internships?, and has a poll on the subject as well.

The Guardian blogger is outraged first because “These are not just tea-making, post-sorting roles – they are proper jobs with real responsibility.” Um… yes, volunteers are capable of roles that come with real responsibility. In fact, volunteers are capable of leading paid staff in projects. Many organizations actually reserve roles with “real responsibility” specifically for volunteers rather than paid employees, for reasons that have NOTHING to do with money. Is the outrage that these volunteers are – gasp – university graduates?! Sorry, but I don’t at all buy that argument against volunteers/unpaid interns.

The other argument I can more agree with: by requiring interns to work full time, and to make a three, six, even 12-month commitment, companies involving these volunteers are excluding otherwise capable people of these internships, because these people cannot afford them. Any time a volunteer engagement program excludes various people only because of the lack-of-financial resources of these people, the organization is losing out on talent, and people are being denied a valuable, even essential, experience.

And I have a big problem with this from the article: when the Guardian blogger interviewed charities involving interns in longer-term commitments, “they all stressed that their ability to continue to carry out their important work relied heavily on the contributions of their valued volunteers.” That means: we involve unpaid staff because we can’t afford to pay people. We wouldn’t involve volunteers if we could afford to pay staff for these activities.

As I blogged about yesterday, I am firmly in the big tent regarding who is a volunteer: pro bono consultants, executives on loan, court-ordered community service people, online super fans, online community members, and, yes, even interns: they are all volunteers. If my organization is not paying you, and you are providing time and talent to the organization in any way, you are a volunteer. If you want to call yourself an intern, that’s fine, so long as your experience is seen by us both as primarily a learning experience for you.

A much better question: why does an organization involve volunteers, including interns? If it’s the reasons the Guardian blogger heard then, indeed, these charities need to have their employees packed off to some volunteer management trainings immediately, because they are living in the dark ages regarding volunteer engagement. Just as some jobs are best done by paid employees, some nonprofit/NGO/charity jobs are best done by unpaid staff! Certain positions should be reserved specifically for volunteers.

As I’ve blogged about before: the majority of programming by the Girl Scouts of the USA is delivered by volunteers, not because volunteers save money, but because volunteers are the best people to deliver the Girl Scouts leadership programs for girls. Even going all-volunteer can be the right thing to do for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with money saved: It’s been true for the Pine Creek Information Center, it’s been true for the Aid Workers Network, and it’s true of lots of other organizations. In fact, I question the credibility of nonprofit organizations, NGOs, charities and even government agencies focused on services to the public, like schools and state parks, that do not involve volunteers in a variety of ways, including in decision-making and high-responsibility roles.

Now, with all that said: yes, there are many nonprofits, NGOs, charities and others that exploit interns (and other volunteers, for that matter), by treating them merely as free labor. Once upon a time, at an employer I won’t name, I raised a fuss about how I felt some staff were treating interns (merely as free labor). We ended up creating a mission statement for involving interns:

Such-and-such organization is commited to helping to cultivate new professionals in the field of name-of-field-redacted. Therefore, we reserve certain tasks and roles for interns, to provide career-development experiences to emerging professionals.

We also created written guidelines about:

  • what tasks could and should be reserved for interns
  • written role descriptions for interns, shared with other staff (including the HR department)
  • what training an employee that wanted to involve volunteers would have to commit to provide his or her interns
  • what experiences an employee would have to commit to providing interns (what staff meetings and site visits they should attend, a project for the intern to lead, etc.)
  • creating a performance plan and learning plan for interns at the start of the internship, and then evaluating activities based on this plan at least midway and at the end of the internship, in writing
  • how the intern will evaluate his or her own experience, including the support and supervision he or she received (or didn’t!)
  • a six-month cap on all internships (no person could serve in an unpaid internship past six months)
  • how the employee should represent his or her involvement of volunteers, including interns, in his or her own performance plan

Such guidelines for involving interns make the internship focused primarily on being a learning experience rather than a getting-work-done experience. It raises the bar on justifiying the involvement of interns, reducing the risk that interns will be exploited. It also raised the bar on who could be an intern; it meant internships were reserved for emerging professionals in a particular field.

Why not do this for ALL volunteer roles? Because not every volunteer wants to be an intern or wants this kind of learning experience – a lot of volunteers would balk at the idea of creating a learning plan, having a six-month cap on their service, etc. Talking to all volunteers about what they want out of their experience is always mandatory. 

Oh, and for the record: yes, I did an unpaid internship right after I graduated from my university, a million years ago. It was for three months. And I had to pay for my own housing and travel to the site for the summer. Was it worth it? Totally, in that it lead to paid work at another nonprofit two months after the internship ended, gave me skills I use to this day, and put me in the pathway of people who are my friends even all these years later. But my supervisor was awful, and delighted in watching me work 14 hour days while she went out to dinner; her horrible treatment inspired me to treat interns — and all volunteers — far, far differently than her, and remains in the back of my mind whenever I speak, write or train on the subject of volunteer engagement.

Also see:

Another anti-volunteer union; includes a review of the value of volunteers

Volunteers are suing!

Volunteers – still not free! Even at Wikipedia!

Government support re: volunteerism increasing worldwide (but not their financial support)

Going all-volunteer in dire economic times: use with caution.


Tags: volunteer, volunteers, internships, interns, community, engagement, young, professionals

Online community member? Supporter? Volunteer?

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Not much sets tongues wagging more among people that work with nonprofit organizations, NGOs, or other mission-based organizations, than a debate on who is and isn’t a volunteer.

I recently had a person responsible for a Second Life community assure me that those people involved in that community are not volunteers. In 2010, NetSquared, an organization I’m a big fan of, talked about how to encourage donors to contribute their time and/or talents virtually  – and never once used the word volunteers.

I’m firmly in the big tent when it comes to who is a volunteer: if you are doing something to support a nonprofit organization, and you are not being paid for it, you are a volunteer. I don’t care if you have been assigned community service by the court or a school, if you want to be called intern, if you are online or offline, if you will be the unpaid manager in charge of an entire department during your volunteer service, if you are doing a so-called micro-assignment and you are never ever going to do one again – I’m going to call you a volunteer.

The aversion to the term volunteer is astounding to me. I’ve had co-workers passionately try to explain to me why an intern isn’t a volunteer, despite the fact that that intern is NOT being paid. Or why an online community member, who helps other online members, and offers advice and feedback, isn’t a volunteer. Or a supporter who blogs and tweets about the organization regularly – and very positively – resulting in more publicity for the organization isn’t a volunteer. Or a board member isn’t a volunteer. My response to this: NONSENSE!

Part of the reason for the aversion to calling anyone and everyone who provides support to an organization, but isn’t paid to do so, a volunteer is because of how rigid so many staff members see their roles. If online community members are volunteers, who is in charge of those volunteers? Very traditional volunteer managers who see their role as being responsible for involving all volunteers, rather than supporting all staff in involving volunteers themselves, will balk at the increased (actually, just different kind) of responsibility. The program manager responsible for an online community of supporters, or the fundraising manager responsible for working with the board members and leadership committee members, may balk at the idea of having to be more internally-transparent about his or her involvement of such people and providing reports to the volunteer manager. It means approaching work and responsibilities more as a team, and many nonprofit, NGO, government and other mission-based managers just are not ready for that, terrified that it will diminish their manager or director role.

In addition, as I said in my blog on this subject back in 2010, I’ve heard some people say that they think the word volunteer conjures an image of very traditional people (whoever they are — I’m still not sure) doing traditional things like stuffing envelopes or handing out food at a homeless shelter. I’ve heard some people say that they think the term volunteer means someone who is merely providing free labor rather than free expertise, so they prefer to talk about pro bono consultants or executives on loan. Or online community member or supporter.

Does that mean all volunteers should be managed by the same person, or that they should all be screened, supported, recognized and supervised the same way? No. Volunteers’ level of responsibility, the amount of time they are donating, the length of their commitment, the nature of their work as a volunteer – all this and more will determine how they are screened, supported, recognized and supervised.

So, once again, I’ll be a rebel: I fully embrace the word volunteer. I’m going to keep using the word volunteer to mean when a person is donating time, talent and skills, whether onsite or online.

Tags: volunteer, volunteers, online, virtual, volunteering, community, discussion, supporters, members, fans, super

Do you fear online super fans?

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TechSoup recently held an online community meetup regarding building Super Fans. The event defined super fans as people online who demonstrate a particular brand of loyalty that, once recognized, stands to benefit your organization tremendously. Super fans are those individuals who are engaged with your organization above and beyond your average supporter.

In other words, super fans are super online volunteers – super-devoted, super-passionate online volunteers. And they usually emerge on your online community, in the comments section of your blog, in the comments section of your Facebook page, on Twitter (retweeting your stuff), etc.

As I said in the comments section of this blog recap: in this era when so many are claiming that most people only want micro-volunteering, just-whenever-you-might-have-time volunteering activities, it’s nice to read an article that acknowledges there are many people who want to be online volunteers with longer term commitments and much higher responsibilities, that want to be influencers, not just unpaid task-completers, and there are organizations that really do want such volunteers.

And as I also noted in my comments: I’ve found many nonprofits greatly fear “super fans” – they fear the intensity of their passion, their motivation, their loyalty and their energy. They fear the super fans unasked-for-suggestions and ideas, their independent tweeting and blogging, their spontaneous helpfulness to “regular” online community members… In fact, many nonprofits will shut down a super fan that they feel is too “super” – not for any policy violation or inappropriate behavior, but because of the perceived pressure such a fan can put on employees and other volunteers (when they “outshine” staff in an online community).

For the record: I fear not the super fan. I might make a suggestion to an online volunteer that’s a super fan, to make it clear they when they are speaking as an individual versus a rep of the organization, to change the wording on a blog or comment to make it more accurate, to let me announce something to an online forum first, etc. I might ask that super fan to join a formal committee to explore, in a more traditional manner, this or that program activity, outreach activity, etc. But I do not want to dampen that super fan enthusiasm! I have no idea how long it will last – will the person burn themselves out in a three months? Less? Super fans are never forever.

In fact, I’ve turned a couple of online super critics into super fans… but that’s another story.

I’ve also been a super fan myself, and most of the time it’s been super appreciated – but twice over the years, indeed, I was asked to curb my enthusiasm (“please don’t post to our online forum so much”) – both times by very traditional organizations that have been around a very long time.

So, why do some nonprofits sometimes fear super fans? Is it the unofficial or non-traditional nature of super fans that causes the fear? Is it that they fear anything they can’t completely control? How do you convince a nonprofit not to fear you, the super fan?

You can leave your comments here, or you can go over to the TechSoup forum thread I’ve started on this subject and post there.

Also see:

What is “too much” from an online contributor?

The dynamics of online culture & community

How to handle online criticism

Tags: volunteer, volunteers, online, virtual, volunteering, community, discussion, enthusiasm, enthusiastic, supporters, members, fans, critics, critic

online volunteer scam goes global

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At the start of this year, I outed a shady company in Florida, Community Service Help, Inc., that sells community service hours: the company claims it can match people have been assigned court-ordered community service “with a charity that is currently accepting online volunteers” – for a fee, payable by the person in need of community service to the company. However:

  • There is no list on the company’s web site about what people do as online volunteers through the company, and no list of “charity partners” that use this service.
  • There is a list of testimonials from people who have supposedly used the service — testimonials which all sound amazingly the same, as though they were all written by the same person.
  • There is also no listing of the names of the staff people and their credentials to show their experience regarding online volunteering or community service.
  • It’s statement on its home page, The only place to complete your court ordered community service online!, is a blatant lie! It’s NOT true! There are many places to complete online volunteering for court ordered community service – FOR FREE
  • The company has no profile on Yelp.com.
  • And the final kicker: no online volunteering service is performed at all. Instead, in return for your fee, you get access to online videos that are supposed to help you be a better person. The people who use this service do no activities other than watching videos as their “community service.” Through a nonprofit organization in Michigan, the company arranges for paperwork to be sent to the court or probation officer that says the paying customer has completed the “community service” and how many hours they spent doing such.

I call this a scam because I’m sure any court that has accepted these community service hours has no idea that no community service was actually performed. I’m sure the judges or probation officers have no idea that all the person did to complete his or her community service hours was to pay a fee and watch videos on his lap top or smart phone (or, at least, someone watched those videos — who knows who!), that there was no completion of an actual activity that helps a nonprofit, a government agency or those such agencies serve. And, finally, there is NO need to pay this company to find online community service – here is a list of credible organizations that involve online volunteers – freely offered!

Just how unscrupulous is Community Service Help, Inc.? The company now proudly has a tag on its web site as featured on NBC news! per an investigative piece done by an NBC affiliate out of Columbus because of my original blog outing this company as a scam!

It’s a story that just keeps on giving. And here’s the latest: this scam has gone global! A comment was submitted to my blog, by katy_electrician@yahoo.com, which said, in part:

Court ordered community service is a new way punishment. Are you looking for community service .To gets started just check your email first and follow the directions to see if you need an online time sheet. Most people will not need an online time sheet for court ordered community service. If you read the guide and find that you do need the online time sheet just follow the directions and we will help you set it up. After you read the CS101 Community Service Guide you will discover how easy it can be to find court ordered community service options and your assignments will start coming as fast as you can complete them.1.Sign up Online2.Receive your Assignments3.Record your hours worked online4.Print out your completed time sheet Keep the judge Happy and Stay Outta Jail!

You can read the entire message for this latest scam here. I did some digging, and found the first paragraph of the same post on Topix, and it seems the person promoting this scam is in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Yes, that’s right: this company hired someone to promote his or her scam, and the person not only keeps forgetting to include the web address for the company, the person submitted the information to a blog that is fighting against these kinds of scams!

Sigh.

If you need community service hours, and you want to engage in online volunteering for those hours, here is a long list of credible organizations you can volunteer with. No fee to me required – I offer this list of fully vetted, credible organizations freely. This is a list of real virtual volunteering. There’s even advice on the page on how to negotiate with a court representative regarding performing your community service online (not all courts will accept such!).

Here’s also a web page to help you if you want to perform your court-ordered community service onsite, in-person – again, freely offered by me.

See this blog for more info on how to identify these online community service scammers – not just for those assigned community service – probation officers, court representatives, judges, you need to read this page as well! and other such companies.

November 6, 2012 update: I just got got email from a TV reporter in Atlanta, Georgia who used my blogs about this scam to create this excellent video about this scam and the people behind it. Thanks Atlanta Fox 5!

February 2013 update: Here’s the latest on what’s going on with this company.

July 6, 2016 update: the web site of the company Community Service Help went away sometime in January 2016, and all posts to its Facebook page are now GONE. More info at this July 2016 blog: Selling community service leads to arrest, conviction

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

Tags: court, probation, community, service, home, home-based, arrest, arrested, DUI, volunteer, volunteers, lawyer, lawyers, legal, virtual, volunteering, microvolunteering, micro

Social media policies for mission-based organizations

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Social media policies. It’s a frequently-discussed topic on so many of the online discussion groups I follow. The main point of the participants in these discussions seems to be:

How do I keep our employees from saying something online that our organization could be sued for, that could lead to negative press coverage, or could make one of our donors angry?

I have to admit that I find most of the discussions about social media at nonprofits and other mission-based organizations annoying. I’m frustrated to see nonprofit organizations, NGOs, government agencies and other mission-based organizations much more focused on how to avoid upsetting anyone than on how to be bold in pursuit of their missions. Also, I’ve been hearing about this fear since around 1995 or so, and was appalled all those years ago to watch so many organizations wring their hands over this whole cyberspace thing while other organizations embraced it, ran with it and ended up doing amazing things for their clients and communities.

David Meerman Scott has been blogging recently about the conflict between legal staff and communicators when if comes to real-time media. Scott’s blog today links to his recent missives, as well as linking to three company’s staff guidelines to social media activities that he thinks are outstanding (I do too):

Also see this list of social media policies at six different companies by from BulletProof Blog – though many of these have WAY more legalease than I think is necessary – they come from a place of fear, and that’s never a good place to come from when talking about talking and working with the community.

Why don’t I panic more over what employees and volunteers might be doing online? Because I believe if an organization has a culture where every employee and every volunteer feels responsible for the organization’s reputation, and feels a part of that organization’s success or demise, where moral is high, internal communications are excellent and a sense of team is a way of working, not just a catch phrase for the annual report, that organization has nothing to fear about its staff’s online activities – if an online misstep happens (and it will), that organization will easily recover. For organizations that are oh-so-fearful of online activities: perhaps there’s something else you should be worrying about?

Also see:

Handling an Online Social Media Faux Paux (props to the American Red Cross!)

How to Handle Online Criticism

Evaluating Online Activities: Online Action Should Create & Support Offline Action

Using RSS for Media Monitoring

Social media: cutting both ways since the 1990s

Need a Social Media Policy? Maybe Yes, Maybe No.

Tags: policy, guideline, guidelines, staff, employee, employees, volunteer, volunteers, lawyer, lawyers, legal

Transcribe & caption!

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Captioning a video, or offering a transcription of a video or podcast, should be a priority for your organization. Why?
    • Many people that don’t have time to watch that video or listen to that podcast DO have time to read the transcript.
    • Many people are in an environment that would not allow them to listen to a podcast or online video (their surroundings are too loud, they would disturb people around them, they can’t use headphones or ear buds for some reason, etc.).
    • Many people want to quote from a video or podcast in something they are writing (and if that’s online, that quote will often link back to the original broadcast).
    • A person may just need very specific information, and a text search makes that information oh-so-easy to find.
    • Some people prefer reading to listening or watching (I’m one of those people); they are much more likely to access your information in text form than a video or audio.
  • And, of course, so people with hearing impairments can access the information.
In short, you greatly increase the number of audience members for a video or podcast, reaching more potential donors, volunteers, clients and others, by captioning a video or offering a transcription of a video or podcast. At minimum,
  • Any video or audio training materials you have should be captioned and/or transcribed.
  • All PSAs you want to be distributed widely should be captioned and/or transcribed.
  • Videos and podcasts that are part of your service delivery should be captioned and/or transcribed.
Think you don’t have the resources to caption or transcribe a video or podcast? You do: volunteers. There are online volunteers who would love to transcribe your audios and videos. These volunteers may have speech recognition/voice recognition software that they can use to convert spoken words to text, or they may be willing to listen and type. Either way, you will want volunteers checking up on other volunteers’ transcriptions and captioning, to ensure information is rendered correctly. Keep such volunteer transcribing assignments small: you might have trouble finding a volunteer to transcribe a two-hour-long panel discussion, but it might be much easier to find someone to transcribe just a 10 minute excerpt. If a video or podcast is particularly long, you could divide the transcribing or captioning job up among several volunteers. You might even be able to find a volunteer who would happily lead up the entire project for your organization – leadership volunteering opportunities are highly sought by many people these days! Recruit these volunteers from among your existing volunteers and their networks, via your web site, via VolunteerMatch and AllforGood if you are in the USA, Idealist and whatever resources are available in your country, or, if you are in a developing country or your NGO or nonprofit is focused on such: the UN’s Online Volunteering service. December 21, 2017 update: I recently created a five-minute pitch video for the OpenAIR hackathon – the Accessibility Internet Rally – for Knowbility, a nonprofit based in Austin, Texas (I’m in Portland, Oregon). I also used the YouTube captioning tool for the first time ever – I couldn’t believe how easy it was! If I can figure it out, anyone can – including online volunteers you might recruit to caption all of the videos your nonprofit has on YouTube already.
cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices
A reminder yet again that The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook provides detailed advice on creating assignments for online volunteers and for working with online volunteers, including volunteers that are going to transcribe or correct the transcriptions of your videos or podcasts. The book also has detailed guidance for using the Internet to support and involve ALL volunteers, including volunteers that provide service onsite, for ensuring success in virtual volunteering, and for using the Internet to build awareness and support for all volunteering at your program. Tech tools come and go, but certain community engagement principles never change, and those principles are detailed in this comprehensive guide. You will not find a more detailed guide anywhere for working with online volunteers and using the Internet to support and involve all volunteers. It’s co-written by myself and Susan Ellis. Tags: volunteering, volunteers, community, engagement, volunteerism, volunteering, online, micro, microvolunteering, virtual

Volunteer Centers not involving volunteers?!?

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Colleague Martin Cowling recently did a training with a group of volunteer centers (he’s being coy about which country he was in, but I have my suspicions…) and he asked how many of them utilize volunteers in their own operations.  

The majority of these volunteer centers did not not involve volunteers themselves.

As he says in his blog on this subject:

The reasons these guys had for not engaging volunteers in their own work were jaw dropping when you consider these were Volunteer Centres:

  • “the roles are too complex”
  • “we don’t have time to train volunteers”
  • “we know we should have volunteers”
  • “we have one volunteer”
  • “we have found volunteers to be unreliable“

Martin concludes:

The very institutions charged with promoting volunteerism should be the ones who engage volunteers first.

For those of you in the USA of a certain age: remember how on Saturday Night Live, Prymaat Conehead would suddenly start saying, “Unacceptable! Unacceptable!” when he was really upset? That’s how I feel right now. I think the shape of my head alters as well as I hear about volunteer centers that don’t involve volunteers.

Why would anyone trust a volunteer center, or a nonprofit that runs an online database of volunteering opportunities, that does not involve volunteers themselves?!

If your organization promotes volunteerism, you had better have volunteers at your organization – short-term volunteers/micro-volunteers, leadership volunteers, and everything in between! And you had better note that involvement on your web site!

And I’ll go further:

If you are a volunteer manager, a volunteer resources manager, or anyone else responsible for recruiting and placing volunteers at your organization, you had better involve volunteers yourself in your own work, in all the ways you are wanting other staff to involve volunteers!

and

If you are a volunteer management/community engagement consultant, you had better volunteered yourself, worked with other volunteers, volunteers online, and otherwise engaged in volunteer management-related activities in at least the last six months!

How can you call yourself a credible volunteer center, a credible promoter of volunteerism, or a credible volunteer management trainer otherwise?!

Also see

UK Volunteering Tsar Doesn’t Have Time to Volunteer

Jayne Cravens: As a Volunteer

Tags: volunteering, volunteers, community, engagement, international, volunteerism, volunteering, training, trainer