Tag Archives: COVID-19

A senior neighbor with intellectual disabilities gets an iPad

Leave a reply

I live two doors down from a home for adults with intellectual disabilities, most of them over 40 years old. Some residents are on the autism spectrum, some have Down’s Syndrome, and some have brain damage from birth. They are terrific neighbors: kind, observant and friendly. And a couple of them are my friends: we sit together on the low wall around my front yard and interact with my dog and the various neighborhood dogs and cats that pass by – and the people, but always from a safe distance, as this is a group of people who are particularly vulnerable to the novel coronavirus.

Because of the danger of COVID-19, most of the residents can’t do the daily things that have brought them joy: one that had a job has now lost it because there isn’t enough work. They can’t go to church. They can’t go to the bottle drop center to recycle bottles and cans, something they enjoyed as much for the social aspect as the money. They can’t walk through Goodwill or Walmart. They can’t take mass transit. There are no public festivals. There are few garage sales. And their favorite shows, Live PD and Cops, have been canceled.

A month ago, a sister of one of the residents I’m particularly close to decided to buy him an iPad, so he could watch the church services he’s dearly missing because of the global pandemic, as well as watch videos like the dog videos I regularly record and share on YouTube. I volunteered to try to set it up in such a way that her brother could more easily navigate it. My goal was that, once someone logged into the iPad for him, he could watch the videos he wanted to without someone having to load a video each time. What I imagined was that there’s a particular time of day – let’s say 10 a.m. – when a staff person would log on to the device for him and, from there, he would have just a few clicks to watch and re-watch the videos pre-selected for him, and he could do that for, say, an hour on his own. It was tough to set up: he cannot read, so everything has to be done by easy-to-recognize icons. I don’t think he can remember more than two steps on a device. There can’t be too many things to click on – it will just be a sea of confusing symbols. He’s over 70 and has no experience using any device other than turning a device on or off or changing TV channels manually (he can’t use a remote and a phone is much too complicated for him to operate, even to call someone).

I spent hours looking at the Internet trying to find apps he would enjoy as well, but all seemed too advanced for him. Everything I read about online about apps that people with intellectual disabilities can use required a level of remembering and understanding and reading he just doesn’t have. There are lots of resources for parents to find apps to help their children with intellectual disabilities use an iPad or Android, and there are lots of resources to help people help elderly people use these devices, but resources to help seniors with intellectual disabilities use these devices? THAT has been a fruitless quest.

Here’s how I set it up:

  • I made three web pages, which are on my own web site, so that I can change them from my own home, without having to take his device back. I have a shortcut to the home page for these pages on the iPad, in the top left corner of the main screen. I wish I could have made the icon a cat or a dog, two images he easily recognizes, but I never could figure out how. The icon also has his name on it, which he does recognize.
  • I made the icons on the iPad as large as I could (and even then I wish I could have made them larger).
  • I moved all the icons off the first screen that I don’t want him to use. I left the icon to the web page that I created as his main interface, as well as the shortcuts to YouTube, kids’ YouTube, FaceTime, Zoom, his contacts and the camera button.
  • I created accounts for him on Google (for YouTube and gmail) and Facebook, and automatic logins for such. He will not use email, but he needed an email account in order to have accounts on things like video-conferencing software his sister might want to use to communicate with him.
  • After someone signs him in, he clicks on the icon with his name on it and he will come to a web page with three photos on it. One is of his church, one is of his pastor and one is of me. If he clicks on the church photo, he goes to a long list of links that go to church videos on Facebook. If he clicks on the photo of his pastor, he goes to a long list of links to videos his pastor has made, some on Facebook and some on YouTube (singing, puppet ministry, etc.). And if he clicks on the photo of me, he goes to a long list of my animal videos and silly videos on YouTube. He clicks on a link and pushes the play icon, and can watch the video.

Here’s the problem: after the video is done, he doesn’t have the capacity to navigate Facebook or YouTube and go to the next video. Instead, he has to remember to push the home button at the bottom of the device. Then he starts all over: clicking on “his” icon, coming to the web page with the three photos, choosing which “channel” of videos he wants to view, and then choosing a video to watch.

So, how is it going? I can’t observe him using it, and I wasn’t able to train him myself on using it. But in the evenings, I have been sitting out on my wall, talking with the pastor’s wife sitting eight feet away, and my neighbor has come walking over to say, “I saw you on that box thing!” He then recounts seeing her or her daughters singing or her husband preaching. I don’t know how often he watches videos on it, but it seems to be enough to delight him a few times a week. And as we all stay home day after day, being delighted a few times a week is the best we can hope for.

I hope it continues to work out for him. But either no one is thinking about people like him in the development of apps and interfaces, or they are but they’ve made those tools extremely hard to find.

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

Free training in virtual volunteering (involving & supporting volunteers using online tools)

Leave a reply
Jayne ponders a point
Me pondering a point I make in one of my webinars.

I have a series of free, short videos on my YouTube channel that, altogether, in less than one hour, create a basic training regarding virtual volunteering – in using the Internet to involve and support volunteers. The videos are focused on staff – employees or volunteers – who are responsible for recruiting and supporting volunteers at nonprofits, NGOs, charities, government programs and other mission-based initiatives.

Here is the order I recommend you watch my videos in if you want a full, basic orientation in virtual volunteering:

Altogether, these videos cover developing initial online roles and activities for volunteers, how to rapidly engage online volunteers, how to expand virtual volunteering, how to adjust policies, how to address safety and confidentiality, the importance of keeping a human touch in interactions, addressing the most common questions and resistance to virtual volunteering and much, much more.

You have my permission to show any one of these videos, or some or all these videos, at any gathering or event of your own – a volunteer management workshop or conference, for instance – however, you must show any video you choose to show in its entirety.

(October 14, 2020 update: there’s a new, additional video, especially for corporations and businesses: Virtual Volunteering: Guidance for Corporate Employee Volunteering Programs. It’s 7 minutes long).

Does this mean there is no need to hire me as a consultant or as a trainer regarding virtual volunteering? I hope that’s not what it means! Rather, I hope It means there’s no need to hire me or anyone else for a basic virtual volunteering workshop. In fact, I would like to see basic virtual volunteering workshops go away entirely, because I think any workshop on, say, the basics of volunteer management, should fully integrate using the Internet to involve and support volunteers. A workshop on retaining volunteers should fully integrate using the internet to support and manage volunteers. A workshop on better recognizing and valuing volunteers should fully integrate using the internet to recognize and valuing volunteers. In short, virtual volunteering shouldn’t be regulated/segregated into a separate topic. It’s long overdue to FULLY integrate using the internet into involving ALL volunteers, even those you don’t think of as “online volunteers.”

What I’m much more interested in doing as a professional consultant is creating workshops or advising, as a paid consultant, on specific aspects of higher-level virtual volunteering, like:

  • online mentoring – considerations for such a program’s setup, setting goals for a program, evaluating such a program, etc.
  • online volunteers with particular skills or expertise training others remotely in something not virtual volunteering related, like public health messaging, teaching online media literacy to elderly people, helping public information officers prevent and respond to misinformation, etc.
  • online communities where people who previously participated in an onsite program advise people currently participating in an onsite program
vvbooklittle

Are my series of free videos a substitute for purchasing my book, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook? I don’t think so. While my videos will, I hope, win over in last holdouts regarding virtual volunteering (few that they are), and will help programs rapidly, almost immediately, create and expand online activities and roles for online volunteers (something that became essential during the COVID-19 pandemic), the book is an oh-so-much-cheaper way to get intense consulting regarding every aspect virtual volunteering, including more high-impact digital engagement schemes, than to hire me. 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 available both as a traditional paperback and as an online book. I also think it would be a great resource for anyone doing research regarding virtual volunteering as well. The book is co-written by myself and Susan Ellis.

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

What we will need for live theater to continue

Leave a reply

I’d like to see a nationwide flourishing of the regional theater movement, with local theaters considering how best to earn the title of an essential service in their particular community, while being supported and valued by that community and the government. A WPA Federal Theatre Project for a new century, perhaps. — Statement by Michael Cerveris, Tony-winning actor of Fun Home., in this L A Times Article article.

Some of the most exciting, fulfilling times of my life were working far off stage, working to promote live theatre, live performance, not just marketing a show but promoting the value of all arts to our communities, to social cohesion, to education, to mental health and on and on.

Artists, being artists, are talking about what artistic ventures they want to pursue when performance spaces open again, once the risk of COVID-19 has been drastically reduced, and that’s GREAT… but I’ve been looking for something that makes me say, Okay, there it is, this is what we need to ensure theater emerges from this pandemic with a real, solid future.

I finally read the statement that makes me give something to support and advocate for. Cerveris words stopped me in my tracks. To me, they are what every theater in the USA, and every person that loves theater, needs to work towards. And it has to be more than government support; we have to build relationships with and pressure on the cash-flush corporations all around us to give substantial monetary support to ensure live theater continues.

More about the USA Work Progress Administration Federal Theatre Project.

Also see highlights and resources from the research for my final paper for my Master’s Degree, regarding the non-artistic elements necessary for success in “Theater as a Tool for Development” initiatives.

Bill before US Congress: Pandemic Response & Opportunity Through National Service

Leave a reply

A bill in the USA Congress, the Pandemic Response & Opportunity Through National Service Act, would expand AmeriCorps and SeniorCorps to aid in COVID-19 recovery efforts, including growing AmeriCorps to 750,000 positions over a three-year period; boost the AmeriCorps living stipend so that individuals regardless of financial situation can participate; increase the education award to cover up to two years of public university tuition; ramp up Senior Corps teleworking technology, and more. These programs are a part of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

More about the bill, from a group advocating support for such at this link: Support the Pandemic Response and Opportunity Through National Service Act.

Full disclosure: I have signed. I absolutely support this bill.

Also see:

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

your nonprofit is still relevant during COVID19 – SHOW HOW

1 Reply

If you are a nonprofit focused on helping the homeless, addressing hunger or nutrition, helping people with a chronic illness or children or seniors, helping people with addiction issues, your services are still hugely in demand and it’s easy for people to see how your nonprofit is relevant during COVID19 and all that it’s bringing to individuals and the community-at-large, like unemployment, social isolation and being homebound without onsite visits. I’ve noticed many nonprofits trying to address domestic violence have done an excellent job at messaging these days, noting that the requirements to stay at home have created a very dangerous scenario for those they try to serve and what they are trying to do to address that. If you represent such a nonprofit, you may even have seen a spike in donations as a result.

But if you are a nonprofit focused on live theater, artwork, dance, history, recycling or some other thing that isn’t directly, obviously related to the consequences of COVID19, it can feel like you are being lost amid all the calls for continuing to support nonprofits and addressing this pandemic.

ALL NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS MATTER to SOMEONE, at the very least. If a nonprofit doesn’t matter, it shouldn’t exist.

This is not the time to pause your nonprofit’s communications, wait for things to get better and hope people will remember your nonprofit when we’re through this, or to think that relaunching your public activities once public gatherings can happen again will immediately bring people back to engaging with your program and supporting it financially. Instead, your nonprofit, no matter its focus, needs to be thinking about what messages it can send out on its blog and social media channels, linked from its web site, about its work that will be relevant in these times. It needs to strategize about how to get those messages out and how to invite digital engagement on them as well.

Here are some ideas:

  • Historical societies and history museums need to be posting about what the culture or community they are focused on did in the past regarding an epidemic, a pandemic or other widespread hardship, with photos, any first-person stories they have on file or accounts by others. Did your city experience the so-called Spanish Flu and, if so, what happened in that time? Share stories of hope, courage, sorry, and with each message, remind people what your organization does to preserve local culture. This doesn’t have to be one major online publication – you can publish just one thing once a week, even twice a week. Always invite feedback on such – some people may have photos and diaries they would like to share with you from that time.
  • Historical societies should be finding free broadcasts of history-related topics (such as on public television) and encouraging home-based live-watch parties, and for everyone in their own community that’s watching to share thoughts as they watch on a Facebook thread or Tweet chat designed for them to share such. At least some of these quotes will demonstrate the power of learning about history and be great in a grant proposal.
  • History societies and groups focused on specific ethnic cultures should be sharing how people can get started on their own family history and ancestry projects: how to ask for info from family members, how to record that information (scanning, how to use a smart phone to record, etc.,), options for sharing that information with just family, or with the public, etc.
  • Community theaters should be posting stories about places and pieces related to any discussion of disease, or noting the ways past epidemics or pandemics have affected live theater in the past. Share these stories with the intent to say, “And live theater SURVIVED!” A group of online volunteers, recruited from your current home-bound volunteers or newly recruited, could help you compile enough information to share something every week – even twice a week. Maybe even every day.
  • There are art museums that are having a field day with social media during this crisis, such as the Getty, which has asked people to recreate famous painting scenes using whatever they can find in their own house. Check out a few of the Getty’s picks on its Instagram, and don’t forget to take a peek this hashtag. It’s a campaign that’s not only gone viral, it’s reminded people of just how images from art influence our lives and kept that museum relevant.
  • Operas could post people performing songs in operas, like La Traviata or La bohème, where a character is singing while dying and talk about how the performing arts have never flinched from portraying human suffering, and how that art can help people handle the horrors around them.
  • All performing arts groups – theaters, operas, dance companies, choirs, etc. – should be finding free broadcasts of performances by ANY group related to whatever art they themselves produce and encouraging home-based live-watch parties, and for everyone in their own community that’s watching to share thoughts as they watch on a Facebook thread or Tweet chat designed for them to share such. At least some of these quotes will demonstrate the power of performing art and be great in a grant proposal.
  • All arts groups should be posting messages regularly now about the links between producing art and experiencing art and the positive effects on such regarding mental health.
  • A nonprofit that produces a farmer’s market or artisan market should ask its clients to make short videos about what they are doing now – both challenges they are facing and what they are still producing and ways people might be able to order it online or pay for it in a safe exchange that involves a lot of physical distancing and no close contact whatsoever.
  • Many animal shelters and rescue agencies have done a brilliant job promoting now as a great time to foster an animal from the shelter, since families and individuals are homebound anyway, and it’s resulted in a windfall of great foster families for many shelters.
  • If your nonprofit promotes sports, the outdoors or an outdoor activity, this is a time to be interviewing people online who have benefited from your programs over the years, and sharing those stories online, to say, “This is why sports / this activity matters. This is how we have impact.” If you don’t need to do fundraising for activities, you could fundraise for equipment you will use once your operations resume. You could also be sharing with people how to clean and repair whatever equipment is associated with the sport or outdoor activity, or an at-home exercise that could help build strength or balance to help in engaging in that sport or outdoor activity.

Your volunteers would love to come up with their own ideas about what your nonprofit should be saying and doing to stay relevant now. You can bring them all together in a conference call or put one volunteer in charge of gathering their ideas, calling and emailing each one. Emailing is great – but calling someone is even better, in most scenarios. This doesn’t have to be a one-time ask: they should be given multiple opportunities to share their ideas with you, and opportunities to help bring those ideas to fruition.

Always invite feedback on what you are sharing, and track this feedback. You can use this to show the impact of your COVID19-related activities to potential funders.

And a reminder that there has never been a better time for your organization to launch activities and roles for online volunteers. How they could help you with the aforementioned activities should be obvious. Here are even more ideas, from my last blog.

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

How to Immediately Introduce Virtual Volunteering at Your Program (How to Involve Online Volunteers Right Away)

7 Replies

(Original title: “NEVER a better time to explore Virtual Volunteering than NOW”)

The precautions being taken in communities around the world may feel like we are becoming more isolated from each other. Virtual volunteering is a fantastic way to bring us all closer together and fill our home-based time with meaningful activities that make a difference.

In this time of home quarantine and in-person social physical distancing because of COVID19, there has NEVER been a better time for your program to quickly create online tasks and roles for your volunteers – you need the volunteers and they need you! There are so many things volunteers could be doing for you, right now, to help your program and clients, without any investment in new systems or equipment.

The longest list you will find anywhere of online tasks and roles for online volunteers is here on the list of examples at the Virtual Volunteering Wiki, which is updated regularly.

In particular, it’s a great time for your volunteers to get busy right away and:

  • caption your videos on YouTube so that people with hearing impairments and people who are in an environment where they cannot listen to them can experience them.
  • transcribe your program podcasts so people can read them (many people prefer reading to listening, and it also improves search engine optimization).
  • edit a video or podcast one of your staff has recorded from their home office, adding titles, intro music, etc.
  • beta test your new online orientation for new volunteers that will, eventually, work onsite (which you have been working on all this time so that volunteers don’t have to come onsite for that orientation – RIGHT?!?).
  • put appropriate keyword tags on your photos on Flickr or some other online photo archive.
  • brainstorm social media messages for a variety of platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) based on your program’s messaging goals.
  • create new pages for your web site.
  • put appropriate alt text on all of your photos and graphics on your web site, making the site more accessible for people with sight impairments.
  • get rid of all “read more” and “click here” links on a web site, replacing them with descriptive links, so that the web site is more accessible for people with disabilities.
  • make sure every page on your web site has an appropriate title in the title tag (this helps with SEO and the title automatically appears in many sites whenever someone types in the URL).
  • monitor the news to look for specific subjects your program needs to be aware of.
  • monitor Quora, Reddit or other popular online communities, to answer questions on a particular subject or about a particular organization, to refer people to a web site that will answer their questions, to counter fake news/misinformation on a particular subject, etc.
  • translate documents (and proofreading the translations by others).
  • November 19, 2020 updates:
  • look at Reddit and make a list of subreddits – online communities – where you should post information about volunteering, events, or educational/awareness messages. See if the volunteers that undertake this task come up with the same list.
  • interview the person who answers the main email and phone the most, and the person he or she transfers the most calls to or forwards the most emails to, and find out what the program’s Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers) are, then recruit a volunteer to prepare such as a new web page for your web site.
  • transcribe text you have in PDFs on your web site to text, for new web pages or to add to current web pages (this makes the content accessible for people with disabilities and improves your search engine optimization).
  • add titles, or make appropriate titles on every page of your web site (in between the <title> and </title> tags in the HTML). This helps with their accessibility for people with disabilities.
  • fill out your YouTube video descriptions completely with the full name of your organization, the content of the video, keywords and a link to your web site.
  • create lists on Twitter.
  • compile and prepare information for your organization’s web site that shows your organization’s credibility and accountability.
  • evaluate your web site in terms of the information about and for volunteers that is and isn’t there.

You don’t need any special training to have your current volunteers, already-vetted volunteers engage in these aforementioned virtual volunteering activities – just send them the list of possibilities and ask them if they know how to do any of them!

This is also great time for you to start strategizing to be even more ambitious regarding virtual volunteering at your nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO), charity, government program or school. What about:

  • Having a lead volunteer organize a survey of other volunteers to find out how they view success and challenges at your organization in volunteering so far? The data gathered could reveal successes and problems with your volunteer engagement you didn’t know you had and provide critical data to make improvements and to include in grant proposals.
  • Asking volunteers to take selfie videos describing what they like about volunteering with you, and then recruiting an online volunteer to edit these together into a celebration video of your volunteers? The result would be a fantastic volunteer recruitment and recognition tool – and create a tradition you should do annually, even without a pandemic lockdown.
  • Exploring tutoring or mentoring students regarding homework, writing assignments, online safety, professional development? If your program serves young people in some way, this could be a terrific extension of your services.
  • Ask volunteers to look through Wikipedia and make a list of pages that you think should mention or cite your organization, or that your organization could improve. If you are a historical society, are all the pages regarding your local area as detailed as they could be regarding local history? If you are an environmental group serving a region, do pages regarding local geography note information about flora, fauna and environmental issues? After volunteers and staff compile pages you think should be updated, create a work plan with volunteers on how this will happen.
  • Is there a way that a single employee or volunteer could be onsite inside your facility, isolated from everyone else, to scan photos and other documents you have on file? The resulting scans could be shared online, on Flickr, for instance, and your online volunteers could then properly describe and tag them. This can help better document your program’s history, which further establishes your institutional credibility and better celebrates past employees, volunteers and donors.
  • Revisit your staff policies. Do you need to expand policies regarding online safety, use of social media or confidentiality? Many of your volunteers would love to re-read policies, research those of other organizations, and then meet together online to make recommendations.
cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

An easy, affordable way for you to take a deep dive into expanding virtual volunteering at your organization and exploring how to use the Internet to support ALL of your volunteers, including your traditional, onsite volunteers, is via The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, which I wrote with Susan Ellis. It is the most comprehensive, detailed resource available regarding virtual volunteering, and a copy of my book is far cheaper than hiring me to do a workshop! There are just 120 print copies left and I would love for you to have one – or more! You can buy the book directly from me. Virtual volunteering is a practice that’s more than 30 years old, and the suggestions in this book are time tested – and were just tested recently in an intense project involving more than 150 online volunteers!

Are you someone that wants to engage in volunteering from home? If you don’t already have a relationship with a program that you can contact about doing the aforementioned activities, check out this list of sources for virtual volunteering – the most comprehensive you will find anywhere.

April 8, 2020 Update: I have a new video making an urgent plea regarding a mistake many reporters, bloggers, nonprofits and others are making in talking about virtual volunteering. The video is about four-minutes long.

April 13, 2020 Update: Another new video! I lead virtual volunteering workshops in the 1990s & got big pushback from nonprofits asserting that an online program could never be safe. Now, many programs are launching brand new virtual volunteering programs, bringing online volunteers together with people in senior living homes, or with teens, and on and on. And that change is great, however, these programs need to think about safety! My newest video has more info and is about five-minutes long.

August 11, 2020 Update: I added more ideas under “strategizing to be even more ambitious regarding virtual volunteering.”

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.