Tag Archives: community

volunteering in the digital age – cool, but not new

The timeless act of volunteering in the service of others has taken on new dimensions in today’s digital age. Anyone with an Internet connection or a mobile phone can make a difference.
– United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
5 December 2012, International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development Day

“New” is, of course, relative…

In 2001, I wrote about how people were using handheld technologies in community service, environmental and activist work, citing examples that went back to the 1990s (when we called them “PDAs” instead of “smart”). And, of course, the practice of virtual volunteering is more than 30 years old – as old as the Internet, and starting long before there was a World Wide Web (in fact, Tim Berners-Lee said in an October 2001 event with UN Volunteers that online volunteers played an essential role in his development of the Web).

But I’m glad, nonetheless, to see the head of the UN acknowledging virtual volunteering. His predecessor, Kofi Annan, certainly knew it was a force to be acknowledged and supported. Hope that recognition and promotion of volunteering, online or off, onsite or remotely, continues!

Volunteering in the digital age – it’s not new, but it’s most definitely cool, and worth continuing to talk about.

Also see:

Myths About Online Volunteering (Virtual Volunteering)

Micro-Volunteering and Crowd-Sourcing: Not-So-New Trends in Virtual Volunteering/Online Volunteering

Make All Volunteering as Accessible as Possible

Recognizing Online Volunteers & Using the Internet to Honor ALL Volunteers

 

Striking a chord in 2012

My most popular blogs in 2012, based on visitor numbers, were all focused the points of view of volunteers:

  • I’m a Frustrated Volunteer, my confession at just how many of my blogs from the points of view of people that were trying to volunteer and weren’t able to were actually about my own attempts to volunteer since moving back to the USA in 2009. Got a lot of comments as well.
  • A missed opportunity with volunteers, which included this quote from a colleague (not me this time!!) about her volunteering experience at an un-named organization: “No one ever asked me for my name. They didn’t have a sign in sheet. They didn’t capture any of my information. And I have no idea what all this work that I did means to them.”
  • I’m a volunteer & you should just be GRATEFUL I’m here!, which quoted entitlement volunteers, those folks who think organizations should take ANY volunteer and whatever that volunteer offers, and simply be grateful for what they get, should not have standards, quality control or performance measurements when it comes to volunteers, and that to demand quality from volunteers is insulting.

I expected some defensive comments on these blogs, about how over-worked managers of volunteers are, about how they can’t be expected to respond somehow to every person that wants to volunteer or to ask volunteers about their experience, etc. That’s what usually happens when I try to talk about these subjects on online discussion groups for managers of volunteers. That didn’t happen (progress!), but the visitor numbers show that these blogs really did strike a chord!

Being a volunteer – or trying to volunteer – and talking to others volunteering or trying to volunteer, has taught me more about the essentials of volunteer engagement than any book, article or workshop!

I’m quite surprised that the blogs regarding the results of the volunteer management software survey that Rob Jackson (robjacksonconsulting.com) and I did this year didn’t get much more attention than they did – I fully expected the blogs about this survey to be the most popular of the year, but they weren’t! The purpose of the survey was to gather some basic data that might help organizations that involve volunteers to make better-informed decisions when choosing software, and to help software designers to understand the needs of those organizations. We also wanted to get a sense of what organizations were thinking about volunteer management software. I think we more than met those expectations! In addition to the main blog announcing the results in July 2012, there was also a blog about What’s so fabulous about software tools for volunteer management?, a blog about just how much managers of volunteers love spreadsheets, and a blog about What do volunteers do? The answer may surprise you, as reported by survey respondents, that turned out to be much more wide ranging than many volunteer management consultants and books would have you believe. In short, our survey provided a lot of in-depth information about not just software, but volunteer engagement in general.

In case you missed a blog this year: I’m retweeting two or three of my blogs a few times a week between now and the end of the year (follow jcravens42 for more!), and I’ve created this index of all my my blogs (indexed by date).

2012 isn’t over – I’ll be writing a few more entries in the waning days of the year. Stay tuned!

 

Chat with me on Twitter Oct. 2!

On Tuesday, Oct. 2, from 1-2 p.m. New York City time (10 a.m. Oregon time), I’ll be leading the tweetchat on Twitter.

The tweetchat is focused on building and sustaining online communities for nonprofits, charities, schools, government programs and other mission-based initiatives, though some corporate folks frequently show up and share.

The focus of the chat tomorrow will be on dealing with conflict among members of an online community.

This is a subject near and dear to my heart. I addressed it in this web page, Handling Online Criticism, which recently got quite a few mentions on Twitter. Just as criticism of an organization is inevitable on an online community, so is conflict among members. There’s no way to avoid it, but there are ways to address conflict that can help an organization maintain a reputation for being transparent and responsive, but without allowing someone to dominate a conversation and drown out others. How an organization handles online conflict speaks volumes about that organization, for weeks, months, and maybe even years to come.

Participating in the tweetchat is simple: you log into Twitter, and then you click on the link or do a search on the term #commbuild on Twitter. All messages with the #commbuild tag will appear. Keep reloading the tweets and you will see all new messages. To respond, just choose a message and click on “Reply”. Be sure to put the tag #commbuild in your message, however, so everyone else can see it too!

The questions I’m going to be asking on this Tweetchat (subject to change!):

Q1: Is conflict in an online community avoidable?
Q2: Is conflict on an online community ever healthy? Examples?
Q3: Have YOU ever been an instigator or participant in a lively conflict on an online community?
Q4: Do you include info about conflicts that happen on your community in staff meetings, or to your supervisor? Why/why not?
Q5: Do you have written rules on how to deal with conflict on your online community?
Q6: How long do you let conflict/debate go on on your online community?
Q7: Have you ever said no to calls by others to ban a member? Why?
Q8: When is it time to ask for a debate to stop?
Q9: Other tips for dealing with conflict online?

And regarding Q3: yes, I have been a participant in MANY lively conflicts in various online communities. Some of the experiences have actually been really gratifying: a problem that several people were experiencing got resolved, or minds got changed (this happened a few times in debates regarding virtual volunteering back in the 1990s). Some experiences have not been positive: I’ve lost respect for organizations and individuals who I felt were wanting to shut down debates because they didn’t like the opinions being expressed.

In addition to this being a terrific learning experience regarding how to handle conflict on an online community, it’s also a great learning experience if you are new to Twitter or to tweetchats.

More about the #commbuild tweetchat events.

POSTSCRIPT: Archive of this tweetchat.

theater as a community development/education tool – it takes more than artists

It’s been a few years now since, for my Master’s degree, I embarked on a year-long investigation of the non-artistic elements necessary for success in “Theater as a Tool for Development” initiatives. It’s a subject that remains a very big interest for me. I wish I had the time and resources to research it further!

There are numerous organizations using theater techniques as part of their community development / education activities all over the world – for instance, to educate children about a health issue – and there are also numerous initiatives, publications, web sites and individuals that promote and chronicle successes regarding live, in-person performance as an effective tool for development. Even in our current age saturated with multi-media, live, in-person performance/TfD is a popular and effective tool for education, outreach and capacity-building regarding a variety of development issues, such as HIV/AIDS prevention, domestic violence, evolving gender roles, or good sanitation practices

However, there is little information on what has to be in place before these techniques are used, excluding performer training, to better ensure that these techniques will be well-received by an audience/participants, and to better ensure that the desired outcomes will be generated. My research was meant to fill in a bit of that gap. And my conclusion? Without deliberate, thoughtful cultivation of support for and trust in such an initiative among staff at the lead agency, among partner organizations, and among those for whom the theater-for-development techniques will be used, and without clear definitions of what everyone expects from TfD activities, such efforts will fail, no matter how experienced or enthusiastic your artistic staff is. In fact, in one case I studied, not doing this groundwork before hand turned out to be deadly.

My project included a review of key literature on TfD, and semi-structured interviews with 12 TfD practitioners. You can read online:

If you have undertaken similar research – not about theater as a tool for development, but specifically what needs to happen before such activities take place in order for them to be successful, give me a shout.

Tourism as a tool for economic & community development

I’m an aid and development worker.

I’m also an avid traveler.

And in engaging in both of those activities, I’ve seen firsthand how tourism is a major driver of economic growth and sustainable development.

Tourism as a tool for economic and community development has been of interest to me for several years, and something I’ve researched on my own, as my time and resources allow. I’m particularly interested in

  • how local people and small businesses learn to attract both domestic and international tourists,
  • how they learn to attract and cater to non-luxury travelers: budget travelers, backpackers, motorcycle tourists, etc., and
  • how they learn to attract and cater to women.

I’ve compiled a web page of both my own resources related to tourism for development and links to some of my favorite resources. Have a look and, if you would like to contribute info, by all means, do!

Also, I use social media as a traveler:

Jayne A Broad Facebook page
This Facebook fan page is where I follow USA state parks, national parks, national forests, and organizations focused on sustainable tourism, getting children, women and under-represented groups outdoors, and related international organizations and sites. My travel-related tweets from the my jayne_a_broad twitter feed (see below) get posted here automatically. It’s about learning and sharing regarding tourism as a tool for economic and community development – and the importance of travel for our personal and educational growth.

@jayne_a_broad Twitter feed
This Twitter feed is focused on my own experiences traveling, camping, riding my motorcycle or my bicycle, taking mass transit (buses and trains), commuting by walking or bicycling, and various other mostly-personal interests, including politics. If you are a woman motorcyclist, a non-spandex-wearing bicycle commuter or slow girlie-bike rider, an international adventure or budget traveler, a motorcycle traveler, a mass transit advocate, a writer or researcher regarding any of these subjects – or someone that wants to cater to such travelers – you might enjoy following this Twitter feed. Note that it’s completely separate from my professional Twitter feed.

Have you ever changed your mind?

Have you ever changed your mind? Have you ever decided to let go of a long-held opinion and embrace one you had long opposed? Particularly regarding issues that affect your approach in your professional or volunteering work?

I have. A few examples:

  • I thought instant messaging was a useless distraction. A colleague changed my mind.
  • I thought Twitter was a useless distraction. Actually using it, and following people like Howard Sherman and Rob Jackson and Skepchicks, convinced me otherwise.
  • I used to think it was ethically unacceptable, under any and all circumstances, for a for-profit company to involve volunteers. I had railed against it more than once. It took Triumph Motorcycles to change my mind.
  • I don’t like certificates in return for volunteering. I don’t value them. And I thought most other people did too. But a member of my staff was passionate in her conviction to try it. So we tried it. They turned out to be one of the most popular features of the UN’s Online Volunteering service.

I’m open to being wrong, or to admitting I haven’t been fully-informed, or to new facts. I’m open to having my mind changed – through solid facts and examples. I like working to change minds – you have to like it if you are going to work in communications / outreach – but I also have to be as open as I want others to be.

But beware: if you want to change my mind, I need facts, and lots of them!

Okay, now you: share in the comments how you have had your mind changed with regard to your work or volunteering.

Nonprofits & volunteers – time to brag on Techsoup!

There are a LOT of opportunities right now on TechSoup for nonprofit employees and volunteers to share experiences and offer advice. Here are some recent questions and topics oh-so-ripe for your comment:

Nonprofit looking for Best Practices for Gathering Emails, other Info from New Donors.

Nonprofits, libraries, universities, others using Moodle? There’s someone looking for advice from you!

How does your nonprofit, library, other mission-based organization deal with “bad” tech etiquette?

What’s your experience with ICTs for rural economic development?

A small nonprofit maritime museum books sailing trips – & needs software advice for reservations

Are you a nonprofit or volunteer using Ubuntu Linux?

Nonprofit that collects veterinary medical supplies seeks inventory management software for Mac.

Firing a volunteer over insulting musings on Facebook re: a nonprofit or library?

Software for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Treatment?

Nonprofits & libraries: are employees, #volunteers using Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, other cloud apps? Share!

Nonprofit with network question: Some entries in NPS logs are in Hex others in plain text. Help?

SMS Engagement for civil society, the humanitarian sector, nonprofits, government programs – your experience?

mama jane.

I get a lot of emails from people who are not native English speakers, or have not had a lot of education in terms of written English.

That means I can’t immediately delete emails that are full of misspellings, ARE WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS, or that don’t make for easy reading – all of the criteria that most people use to screen out scammers and spammers. Instead, I have to read such emails carefully and make sure they aren’t really from a small NGO in a remote country. And even after reading such emails, I’m not always certain.

Here’s an example of the kind of emails I get:

hello
mama jane,
my name is youssuph 18,living in somaliland aka northern somalia .
iam highly interesred in your work n want to be like u in the future,but for now i want u to be our organisation advicer which we have accomoplish the legality of our organisation-we are waiting approval from the ministry
i ,could like to share your 2 decade experience ,
i LOVE your work mama jane.
it is sooooooooooo wonderful
i also could say WELCOME to somaliland .
mwaa jane craven

I’m guessing this person is at least somewhat for real – he got my name mostly right. I have no idea what he really wants – which is often the case when I get these kinds of emails.

But I write back, and see if I can’t direct the person to a local organization or online resource that could help them. And very often, it turns out that it’s a real person, writing from a real NGO.

I always appreciate it when the person doesn’t call me “Sir”. I much prefer mama jane.

And the world keeps getting smaller…

Fear of Wrestling

You probably won’t hear any well-known social media guru talking about it, you probably won’t hear about it in any social media workshop (except mine, of course), but do you know who is getting the MOST out of social media when it comes to community engagement?

Wrestlers.

Check out 110 Trending Topics in 5 Hours: How WWE Wrestlemania Body-Slammed Social Media:

Behind strong pushes on Twitter and YouTube, WWE Wrestlemania XXVIII laid the smack down on social media last weekend, teaching a digital engagement lesson to the sports entertainment world.

Heck, Wrestlemania taught a digital engagement lesson to the nonprofit world, to ANY world, if those sectors will listen. Also see: How the WWE Is Making WrestleMania More Social Than Ever.

But will you click on those links? Or are you already lifting up your nose at the mere mention of the word wrestling?

Professional wrestling – or, as my people like to call it, rasslin’ – is unbelievably popular world wide. I’ve been stunned at how many wrestling shirts I’ve seen all over the world, including in Kabul, Afghanistan. In Kabul, there are (or, at least, in 2007, there were) gyms in the city that had the images of wrestlers from Wrestlemania in front of their businesses to draw people in (don’t sue, Wrestlemania, just don’t). I couldn’t understand why USAID wasn’t employing stars from Wrestlemania to create public service announcements for Afghans about whatever it is we’re trying to get Afghans to do (support women in microenterprises, support girls going to school, grow wheat instead of poppies, drive on the right side of the road, employ proper water sanitation practices, etc.). I’m totally serious, USAID!

But we cringe at the thought of… sniff… wrestlers being involved in anything noble or high-minded or community-focused like that.

I worked with People Magazine once upon a time to do a pilot online mentoring program with kids in Washington, D.C. – and the People folks wanted celebrities to be the online mentors. At a classroom we visited in the basement of a school (where it was easily over 100 degrees on that stifling hot day), there were probably five kids wearing Wrestlemania t-shirts. I talked to the kids while the rest of our visiting party stood across the room, as far away from the students as possible, and when I asked the students what kind of celebrities they admired, they didn’t name rap stars – they named wrestlers. I was thinking, hey great, we’re getting wrestlers for these kids as online mentors! Later that afternoon, in our followup planning meeting in an air-conditioned room of a then dominant Internet provider in Virginia, a room so cold I needed a sweater, People Magazine staff balked at the idea of wrestlers. They said they were thinking of celebrities such as Martha Stewart and Charleton Heston as possible mentors for these teens. I kid you not – that’s the two people they named in that meeting as examples of proper online mentors for inner-city teens.

It’s worth noting that the first virtual volunteering by a celebrity I have been able to find has been by…  A RETIRED WRESTLER. Mick Foley is a an online volunteer with RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), the largest anti-sexual assault organization in the USA. He talked about his experience as an online volunteer on a November 2010 episode of The Daily Show with John Stewart. In a RAINN web video, Foley says, “I cannot think of a better way to spend a few hours a week than helping someone who needs RAINN’s services.” Learn more about volunteering for RAINN’s Online Hotline.

(Yes, I just burned a bridge with People Magazine. So much for my bid to be one of their most beautiful people. Ah, well.)

Let’s be clear: I actually don’t watch wrestling. Well, now, anyway – when I was 8, I loved watching Bill “Superstar” Dundee on TV. I also loved roller derby in those days. But, indeed, I have moved on. I could not name a modern-day wrestler. I’m not as hip as you might think.

But I haven’t become too sophisticated to say, way to go, Wrestlemania. I’ll happily learn from Wrestlemania and wrestlers when it comes to virtual volunteering, online mentoring, and online community engagement, I’d love to invite your participation in any community engagement activity I’m a part of, and I’ll even use examples of your online activities in my workshops – even while other social media experts and nonprofit management trainers rolls their eyes and cringe.

But I still might call it rasslin’.

Consulting services by Jayne Cravens.

 

My Twitter Lists

One of the things I really like about Twitter is that I don’t have to follow absolutely everyone whose tweets I might be interested in reading at some point; I can put people and organizations on various lists, by subject matter, geography, whatever, and then check in with those lists as I like. I pick one or two of my lists a day, and then spend a few minutes going through the tweets of that list.

I make my Twitter lists public – anyone can see them. I’m also sharing them below – I thought you might like to see what they are, either to find someone you should be following, to subscribe to any of these lists or maybe to finally get you on Twitter at long last.

Afghanistan
People and organizations that tweet about Afghanistan. I’ll always care about Afghanistan…

Aid work & Dev
Organizations working development, aid and humanitarian response in developing/transitional countries.

CSR
Corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship, including pro bono help

Colleagues
My professional and volunteering colleagues (if you aren’t on this list, and we’ve worked together at some point in some way, and you are on Twitter, please let me know!)

español
Info & orgs in Spain & Latin America, or any site I follow that tweets in español, all related to some subject I follow (aid work and development, tech4good/ICT4D, tourism for good, CSR, FOSS, etc.)

FOSS
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) – vendors, distributors, volunteers and advocates.

International NGOs
Major international non-governmental organizations I’m particularly interested in.

Nonprofit associations
City, state & regional nonprofit associations in the USA.

PNW
Portland, Oregon & Pacifc Northwest Tweeters I follow.

Tech4Good ICT4D
Also #nptech, apps for good. Organizations and individuals engaged in activities that use computer, software and Internet technology to help individuals, communities and the environment.

tourism4good
Organizations promoting tourism for good, or tourism for development.

Women & Girls Empowerment
Orgs & tweeters re women & girls empowerment/rights

Vol Research
Research regarding volunteerism and/or community engagement

Volunteerism non-English
Volunteer info & orgs that do not tweet English (but tweet in Spanish, French, Portuguese, or anything I can sorta kinda figure out)

For Volunteers
If you want to / are a volunteer. If you tweet about your volunteering activities, the things you do as a volunteer, contact me and let me know. If you are an organization focused primarily on volunteers (you have developed a web site or app to help people find volunteering opportunities, for instance), let me know.

Volunteer recruit/manage
For those that work with volunteers – for managers of volunteers, and for organizations that regularly tweet regarding their volunteers.

Volunteerism
Promoting or researching the concept of volunteers/community help.

If you want to be on any of these lists, please contact me. And if you are interested in the subjects I am, or want to know what I’m up to, I hope you will follow me on Twitter!