Tag Archives: diversity

Volunteer turnover isn’t always a bad thing

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

High turnover of volunteers at a nonprofit, NGO, community program, etc., usually is not a good thing. But I hear nonprofits often talk about how they don’t want to lose any volunteers, or how they see a large number of volunteers leaving as an automatically negative thing.

No volunteer is forever. People’s lives change: they get married, get divorced, have babies, get new jobs, move, have a change in their health, have new caregiving responsibilities, develop new interests and on and on. Their interests also change: they may decide they want to do something that your organization doesn’t offer – work with animals, develop web sites, mentor young people, do outdoor service projects – and all of those changes are fine and normal.

Absolutely, you should do exit interviews when a volunteer formally quits, and surveys of former volunteers that stopped signing up to help, to find out if there is an issue you need to address. And if you see a problem – complaints about a toxic work environment, or volunteers being asked to do too much, or volunteer burnout – you need to address those.

But some volunteering turnover should not only be expected, it should often be welcomed. Volunteer cliques don’t welcome new members and exclude volunteers that are different than the clique’s status quo – so if you have a lot of long-term volunteers, is it really a sign that you do a great job of supporting and engaging volunteers or is it that you’ve created or enabled an unwelcoming clique of volunteers? How volunteers do what they do needs to evolve with the times: there are approaches that worked previously that don’t now, and new approaches that need to be considered and explored – is your lack of turnover really a sign of stagnation of ideas and methods?

I saw this message posted to social media from someone talking about an event that is staffed primarily by volunteers.

Longtime volunteers feel pride & ownership in what they do (which is generally great). But because they feel ownership, they dismiss any suggestion to change anything they do, even when that would help the event & the organization.

I’ve heard this complaint by managers of volunteers for many nonprofit initiatives, especially animal shelters, thrift stores and rural firehouses. Volunteer ownership is a blessing for the commitment and responsibility it can inspire, but it also can be a curse, for the inflexibility and unwelcomeness it can cultivate.

Maybe it’s not such a bad thing if you lose some volunteers because you introduced more thorough safety policies, or because the volunteers wanted to rally around a volunteer who was dismissed for sexually-harassing clients or other volunteers. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing if you lose some volunteers because you now require them to go through a training to better protect and serve clients. Maybe it’s not such a bad things to lose some volunteers who don’t like your new focus on inclusion and diversity. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing if you lose some volunteers who are opposed to all change and like to say, “But we’ve always done it THIS way…”

Do you think some annual turnover of volunteers at a nonprofit might actually be a good thing? Comment below.

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GirlGuiding Attempt at Inclusion Raises Ire of Many

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

Last week, I blogged about the controversy at the Art Institute of Chicago per their dismissing their entire volunteer docent membership and their plans to replace the volunteers with paid staff, in pursuit of a more diverse corps of museum guides to interact with the public.

GirlGuiding in the United Kingdom, the UK’s version of the Girl Scouts, has also incurred the wrath of many for one of its efforts at volunteer inclusion: on October 28th, the organization sent out a tweet that ended with, a shout-out to all of our asexual volunteers and members – thank you for everything you do in Girlguiding.

More than 2000 people liked the tweet. But the tweets-of-outrage were swift and many: the complaints focused on a belief that GirlGuiding was sexualising children with such messaging. One response that was representative of most of the negative responses: Why do your guides need to know whether your volunteers have a presence or absence of sexual desire? A nonprofit in the UK, Safe Schools Alliance UK, which has worked against allowing children to use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender with which they identify and works against bans on gay conversion therapy, is pushing back hard against the GirlGuide messaging. This group promotes its agenda as part of responsible safeguarding, the term used in the UK and Ireland regarding measures to protect the health, well-being and human rights of individuals, especially children and vulnerable adults, better ensuring they live free from abuse, harm and neglect.

I offer this info on this controversy for two reasons:

  1. Creating and launching efforts in support of the diversity of volunteers your organization has, or wants, and in support of accommodation of that diversity, will always attract complaints, immediately or eventually. There may be just a few, there may be many. Some of the complaints will be sincere and from individuals not a part of any “movement” or organization, and some of the complaints will be from volunteers and paid staff of very well-organized groups. Either way, your organization needs to have thought about how to answer questions and comments like why are you doing this and why is this necessary and this puts young people in danger.
  2. People asking the question or making the comment aren’t all obtuse or rigid. Don’t assume everyone complaining is so when you craft replies. Provide a response that comes from the point of view of this person just needs more and better information in order to support this statement or decision. Will such a response convince everyone? No. But your reply is being seen by people who aren’t entirely sure how they feel about the situation. Perceived arrogance on your part can drive those people who are on the fence into the arms of people and organizations who are only too happy to provide carefully word-smithed, detailed responses to frame their point of view.

My perspective: I adore GirlGuides and Girl Scouts of the USA. I deeply admire the commitment of both to ensuring all girls feel they can be a part of their activities. This isn’t the first time they’ve done something that’s lead to controversy. But no one – NO ONE – can say the GirlGuides and Girl Scouts don’t put safeguarding at the top of their list of priorities.

I also know that change can be painful – not just for others, but also for me. Work regarding inclusion and diversity is not easy, because many societal norms are deeply held, and cherished beliefs are challenged by conversations around inclusion and diversity – and that’s uncomfortable. It’s easy for a person to feel attacked during such conversations. I’ve seen diversity and inclusion experts be angered at the idea that they need for their own web sites to meet accessibility standards so that people with disabilities and using assistive technologies can access their online information – in their talks about inclusion, they were focused on ethnic and cultural groups, not people with disabilities, and the realization is embarrassing and painful.

I assure you that, eventually, even if you consider yourself an advocate for inclusion and diversity, you will have a moment where your own deeply held principles are challenged, and you will feel anger and you will be incredulous. Maybe you will decide to hold on to those principles – I’m not here to say you should or shouldn’t. But remember that feeling the next time you are facing it from someone else.

We’re all on a journey. That includes me.

One last thing: a chastisement to all of the organizations and consultants touting themselves as volunteer engagement experts and as the leaders of conversations on volunteerism who are silent on this and other controversies in volunteer engagement. I challenged you to comment on organizations that charge big money from volunteers, to comment on organizations that say if a person that has been assigned community service will pay a fee, the organization will give them a letter saying they did the hours required by the court which assigned that community service, to weigh in regarding governments wanting to require welfare recipients to volunteer in order to receive benefits and to comment about the situation at the Chicago museum – so far, you haven’t. In addition to having upbeat conversations about how managers of volunteers can build their brand or raise their profiles in their organizations or get a hug for International Volunteer Manager’s Day, we need to be having these very difficult conversations and controversial subjects. In fact, we should be leading the conversations.

And I love how the corporate world, which always has oh-so-much to say about how nonprofits should operate, are oh-so-silent during these conversations as well.

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Art Institute of Chicago docent program is no more – a painful change, but is it required for better inclusion?

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image of a panel discussion

The entire membership of the Art Institute of Chicago docent program, all volunteers, are being let go by the museum in an effort to entirely revamp how art education for museum visitors is staffed and to make such staffing much more diverse.

It is a move that has hurt long-time volunteers and outraged right-wing media, but many say it’s the only way to dismantle a system that, intentionally or not, is designed to exclude many people from participating.

On Sept. 3, Veronica Stein, the AIC’s executive director of learning and public engagement, emailed 82 active docents, telling them the program’s current iteration would be coming to an end. Stein told the Wall Street Journal that the museum must move “in a way that allows community members of all income levels to participate, responds to issues of class and income equity, and does not require financial flexibility.” In the letter, Stein said the museum “had a responsibility to rebuild the volunteer educator program in a way that allows community members of all income levels to participate, responds to issues of equity, and does not require financial flexibility to participate.” The AIC told USA TODAY that the pause is part of a “multi-year transition” to a “hybrid model that incorporates paid and volunteer educators.”

“Rather than refresh our current program, systems, and processes, we feel that now is the time to rebuild our program from the ground up,” Stein said in the letter, noting that current docents would be invited to apply for the paid positions.

While the elimination of docents struck many as sudden, it had actually been in the works for years, according to artnet news: the AIC stopped training new docents in 2012, and has been discussing internally how to restructure the program since 2019.

The institute’s docent council sent a letter Sept. 13 protesting the pause of the program. The letter described the docents’ expertise, noting that volunteers had trained twice a week for 18 months, done five years of research and writing, and participated in monthly and biweekly trainings. “For more than 60 years, volunteer docents enthusiastically have devoted countless hours and personal resources to facilitate audience engagement in knowledgeable, relevant, and sensitive ways,” the letter said.

Gigi Vaffis, president of the AIC’s docent council, told USA TODAY that she and other docents felt blindsided by the decision and weren’t included in the decision-making. Even now, she said there are few details about what the AIC’s multi-year plan will look like.

Docent programs have long been mainstays of major museums. Docents are all volunteers and are beloved by museum visitors. Becoming a docent can be quite competitive: not everyone who applies is accepted, and docents that get into the program stay for years, even decades. And involving volunteers is a sign a nonprofit wants the community to be a part of the organization – not just as donors or clients but also as people delivering services. But docent ranks at museums are often skewed toward a certain demographic: wealthy white women. The intention of the Chicago Institute is to dismantle this traditionally very rigid system that, intentionally or not, is designed to include/favor one, very privileged group and to exclude others.

Museum equity consultants have long advocated for transitioning volunteer positions at museums to paid roles, to encourage more diversity, allowing people who could never afford to give the time current docents give without pay. Monica Williams, executive producer of The Equity Project, a Colorado-based equity, inclusion and diversity consulting firm, who is NOT involved with the Art Institute, said this shift will open the doors for people who cannot afford to work on weekdays or do a significant amount of unpaid work. If docent programs switch to paid positions, she said it will help museums move away from “a particular demographic of mostly white and wealthy.”

Mike Murawski, a museum consultant and author of “Museums as Agents of Change,” said in the USA Today article that there has long been a tension between equity efforts and volunteer programs. When the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum ended its docent program in 2014 in favor of an initiative for younger volunteers who often work for college credit, Murawski said there was an uproar with many saying the museum might as well close. But now, he said. “they’re doing just fine.” Murawski is one of many museum consultants that says the way forward is not about making changes to programs, but to completely dismantle them and start over, and that docent programs often have “long-standing legacies of how things are supposed to be” that can make them difficult to adapt. 

A side note: the Chicago Tribune, a once-great newspaper which was recently bought by Alden Global Capital, a secretive hedge fund that gutted the staff at the newspaper, wrote an outrageous editorial that had this jaw-dropping and completely misleading statement:

Volunteers are out of fashion in progressive circles, where they tend to be dismissed as rich white people with time on their hands, outmoded ways of thinking and walking impediments to equity and inclusion. Meaningful change, it is often said, now demands they be replaced with paid employees.

This is just flatly not true and the Tribune should be ashamed of itself.

As for me and my opinion: I don’t think programs should always be overly-cautious and ever-fearful of upsetting current, long-term volunteers – quite frankly, I think some long-term volunteers can have an entitled attitude that can discourage, even kill, much-needed changes and innovations. But I also feel like there was a better way to handle this transition. Absolutely, there are MANY systems related to nonprofits, including volunteer engagement, that have been exclusionary. But couldn’t current volunteers, who have invested a great deal of time in their roles, have been involved in the decision-making process, and perhaps, even bought into it? Also, will there still be a way for people to volunteer for the Art Institute – will there still be a community engagement component that isn’t donating funds or attending events?

If you have an example of a museum that significantly revamped its volunteering program so that it was vastly more diverse, but without having to fire the entire volunteer corps, please note such in the comments. Also note if it continued to have a volunteer program of some kind.

With all that said – what do you think?

October 17 update: the Art Institute of Chicago is, apparently, STILL not involving volunteers at all. Below is a screen capture from its volunteer page that notes “the volunteer program is temporarily on pause, and we are not accepting applications at this time.”

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Decolonizing International Aid (including international volunteering)

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Discussions about unequal power dynamics in international humanitarian aid and development systems have entered the mainstream and become much more prevalent. Local people in communities that are the target of such international aid have become increasingly vocal about the ways in which power and resources in the system remain dominated by, and between, certain organizations and relationships largely based in the “Global North” or “the West” – meaning North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Aid flows between former colonial powers and former colonised regions often mirror their past colonial relationships, with decision-making power concentrated in the Global North.

Structural racism is so deeply embedded in the everyday culture and working practice of those in the sector that it has affected the way local staff regard their own communities and how they engage with INGOs.

In November 2020, Peace Direct, Adeso, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security held a three-day online consultation with 158 activists, decision-makers, academics, journalists and practitioners across the globe. Participants and guest contributors exchanged insights and local experiences on the current power dynamics and imbalances that exist within the humanitarian, development and peacebuilding sectors. They discussed how structural racism manifests itself in their work, and how they envision a decolonised system that is truly inclusive and responds to their needs. The consultation received more than 350 detailed comments across nine discussion threads. This report presents the findings and recommendations from that consultation:

Time to Decolonise Aid: Insights and Lessons from a Global Consultation.

There are many volunteering abroad programs focused on humanitarian, development and peacebuilding and, just like with paid staff, many of these programs also promote unequal power dynamics. If you want to better understand the backlash against international volunteering (not just voluntourism) and the “White Savoir” complex, this report is worth reading.

Also see:

My voluntourism-related & ethics-related blogs.

Teaching youth about poverty – teaching compassion or supremacy?

Systemic Exclusion in Volunteer Engagement.

Managers of volunteers & resistance to diversity.

accessibility, diversity & virtual volunteering.

You do not need to meet via video conference with every potential volunteer

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Most virtual volunteering assignments are text-based or designed-based: translating text from one language to another, transcribing podcasts, captioning videos, managing an online discussion group, designing a database, designing a graphic, and on and on. And one of the reasons I have really loved virtual volunteering is that, when it’s also limited to text-based communications with volunteers, potential volunteers can’t be judged regarding how they look or sound. Instead, volunteers in virtual volunteering, at least until recently, are judged by the quality of the character they show through their words and work. I don’t like to think of myself as prejudiced, but I have often wondered if I have been reluctant to involve a volunteer onsite because of unconscious bias on my part upon meeting a volunteer candidate face-to-face.

Virtual volunteering encounters in previous years have hidden the weight, ethnicity, hair color, age, accents, and other physical traits of online volunteers from the person onboarding that volunteer, and vice versa. But now, video conferencing is all the rage, and many programs are requiring that volunteer applicants participate in a live online meeting before they can volunteer online. As Susan Ellis and I note in our book, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook:

Today’s preference to actually see and hear each other online is a double-edged sword: it can make electronic communication more personal and personable, but it can also inject offline prejudices evoked by how someone looks.

As a result of this rush to online video, are online volunteering candidates being turned away from programs because of possible but unacknowledged biases on the part of the manager of volunteers or whoever is initially screening applicants?

Are people that want to volunteer online hesitating to apply because they do not like how they look on video, don’t feel confident regarding their speaking voice or presentation skills, or are uncomfortable with welcoming someone “into” their home, even virtually?

Do people that would be interested in volunteering with you online on a text-based assignment decide not to apply because their Internet access isn’t fast enough for live video conferencing?

Are there people that would be interested in volunteering with you online that aren’t in your same time zone or who work or have home care duties that prevent them from being available at all the times you want to have a live video chat?

Think carefully before you make a meeting by video with potential volunteers mandatory. Is such a video meeting really necessary for the assignment the volunteer will do? Absolutely, certain tasks and roles require you to know if the volunteer is well-spoken, understands how to present themselves in a reputable, credible, clear manner, etc. But if it’s not required, per the role the volunteer is applying for, then consider how to balance your need for something personal with the volunteer’s desire for privacy. Consider how freeing it can be for a volunteer to be judged by the excellent web site they build for you rather than the physical disability people see immediately upon meeting them (not that people with disabilities EVER want to hide!). Consider how good it can feel for a person who is uncomfortable with his or her weight to be valued because of the excellent moderation skills and dynamic personality they show on your online community (again, not that any person, regardless of their weight, should EVER want to hide!).

vvbooklittle

For a lot more about screening and orienting online volunteers, as well as designing tasks, providing support for volunteers using online tools, evaluating virtual volunteering, designing an online mentoring program and much more, check out The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, available for purchase as a traditional print book or as a digital book. 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.

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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. 

Systemic Exclusion in Volunteer Engagement

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

You would have to be living under a rock to have not heard the term systemic racism or institutional racism. It refers to how ideas of white superiority are embedded at a systemic or institutional level all over the USA (and, indeed, all over the world): the standards of beauty promoted in ads and magazines and movies almost always being a white woman. Black Americans incarcerated at greater rates than white Americans, despite there NOT being a difference in the level of crime committed. The combination of deep mistrust of banks and targeting black Americans by for-profit paycheck advance companies and rent-to-own companies that keep a disproportionate number of black Americans crushed under debt. A Harvard study found job candidates were more likely to get an interview when they “whitened” their name. It’s the tendency of people in stores – of a variety of ethnicities – to follow someone who is black or Hispanic around the shop, but not a white woman. It’s a white woman calling the police on a black man in a public park who is bird watching.

I was so impressed with the Audubon Society immediately commenting on that last infamous incident with a series of tweets that began with this one on May 26:

“Black Americans often face terrible daily dangers in outdoor spaces, where they are subjected to unwarranted suspicion, confrontation, and violence. The outdoors – and the joy of birds – should be safe and welcoming for all people.”

In cooperation with other groups, like Outdoor Afro, they also promoted #BlackBirdersWeek and #BlackInNature on Twitter, featuring wonderful photos of black people and black families enjoying nature and talking about their love of bird watching.

I am sure there are people who said, “The Audubon Society is about birds, not politics, and I don’t like this.” I am so glad the Audubon Society ignored them. If the society lost donors over it, I’m so sorry – I hope they gained far more.

I hope every nonprofit, no matter their focus, no matter the mission, will make a similar public statement, if they haven’t already, about racism and exclusion. This is a cross-cutting issue. Animal shelters, environmental groups, nonprofit theaters, dance companies, museums, historical societies, and on and on – they all need to make a statement, right now, about what is happening and how it relates to their work and their communities.

Which brings me to you. And to me. People focused on recruiting and supporting volunteers, creating assignments for volunteers, consulting about aspects of volunteer engagement, and on and on. What are we doing about systemic racism in nonprofits, particularly volunteer engagement, particularly among managers of volunteers? I am sure that the vast majority of managers of volunteers absolutely abhor deliberate acts of racism and that they want to be more inclusive. And since they don’t engage in deliberate acts of racism, they often shut down at the term “systemic racism.” So, if they can’t say that volunteer engagement at most nonprofits is embedded with systemic racism, can we AT LEAST admit to systemic exclusion?

Take an organization that has decided to exclude anyone as a volunteer who has ever been convicted of a crime, no matter what the crime is, no matter how long ago that crime occurred. That policy automatically excludes a disproportionate number of black Americans as volunteers, because African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites. In public schools in particular, the “no convictions” prohibition has the consequence of excluding black people, particularly black men, as volunteers – and schools that have a low number of parental vounteers have students that, overall, don’t do nearly as well academically as in schools where the number is high. Is the policy REALLY about safety, or is it laziness? Let’s just exclude everyone with a conviction rather than to have to think about it too much.

When I read an article about service clubs – nonprofit organizations where members meet regularly to volunteer for charitable works either by direct hands-on efforts or by raising money for other organizations – the list is almost always the same: Lions, Rotary International, Civitan International, Kiwanis, Optimist International, the Junior League, etc. What gets left out? Service clubs specifically representing black residents, Latino residents or Asian residents. Yes, all of the usual clubs are supposed to be open to everyone, and there are some chapters that are wonderfully diverse – but most chapters aren’t diverse, and to focus just on them leaves oh-so-many out – and leaves specific communities out. When I read about an organization’s volunteer recruitment outreach to “communities of faith”, I see a listing of churches with, primarily, white congregations – and all Christian.

When I lived in Austin, Texas, I was charged with increasing the number of people attending a local associations meeting. I emailed groups this association had never contacted before, and at our next meeting, for the first time, attendees represented a variety of ethnicities, neighborhoods, ages and economic backgrounds – but the presentation, on recognizing volunteer contributions, was so white-centric, so middle-class centric, and so women-centric, most of those new attendees never returned.

Those are three examples of systemic racism in volunteer engagement. I don’t think most of the people involved in those three examples are racists, by definition, and had any intention to exclude people of a particular race. But that’s what has happened, and we are perpetuating the practices that perpetuate it.

And then there are organizations that proudly tout their work in digital inclusion, addressing digital redlining, digital literacy, economic factors that keep communities in poverty and out of digital access, many of whom are focused specifically on black communities, but then balk at the idea that their online spaces should be accessible for people with disabilities. That’s systemic exclusion, and it’s something people with disabilities experience regularly from groups that are oh-so-proud of their diversity.

Can systemic racism show up in virtual volunteering engagement? Absolutely. As soon as online volunteer roles cross into the realm of warranting the knowing full names, hearing voices, seeing the faces of volunteers, implicit bias can creep into how those volunteers are (or are not) engaged.

I have tried to have conversations about diversity over the years at organizations where I’ve worked, in my workshops and in various consultancies. It is, by far, the most contentious topic I try to address as a consultant, and not just regarding race: I still get a shiver down my spine when I think of the angry, hostile people that made up the majority of an audience at a Corporation for National Service conference where I talked about recruiting the “new” seniors – Baby Boomers – in SeniorCorps programs. I get a bit of that hostility, though not nearly as overt, when I talk to groups about how to recruit specifically to increase diversity among volunteers. It’s not easy and I know I’ve lost some consulting gigs because I have asked some tough questions, but I’m going to keep doing so, of others – and myself.

I’m on an ongoing journey to look for ways I exclude without intending to, in my consulting, in my volunteer engagement, in my communications strategies, in my language, and on and on. I would like for you to do so as well.

United Nations site for people with disabilities is inaccessible

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The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) created a web site for the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) initiative called the UNDP-UNV Talent Programme for Young Professionals with Disabilities. It’s a program to recruit people with disabilities to serve as UN Volunteers. Its web site opens with this: 

UNDP and UNV commit to leaving no one behind. As part of this commitment, the Talent Programme promotes the inclusion of persons with disabilities into our workplace. The Talent Programme also aims to build a talent pipeline of highly qualified professionals with disabilities who can contribute to the development sector, and to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at national and global levels.

In addition to the grammar problem in the first sentence, the UNDP web site for this initiative leaves lots of people behind: the web site is not accessible for people with disabilities.
The web site does not meet even basic accessibility standards as outlined by numerous organizations, including the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The UN General Assembly has designated the Department of Global Communications as the focal point for web accessibility in the United Nations, and this UN web site talks about the UN’s commitment to online accessibility – which, unfortunately, UNV and UNDP haven’t followed for their initiative specifically focused on people with disabilities.  How can an initiative that says it promotes the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the workplace exclude those same persons online? As someone who has worked for the UN, I know the answer to this question, but shall save that for another time…

Highly qualified professionals with disabilities absolutely can contribute to the development sector and to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at national and international levels. In fact, they do already – if you don’t know that, you truly are not paying attention.

I have worked with highly-skilled people with a variety of disabilities – as employees, consultants and volunteers, online and face-to-face serving as web masters, editors, researchers, designers and more. It’s not unusual for me to find out someone I’ve been working with for weeks or months is, in fact, legally blind, or deaf, or is a person with limited mobility. We meet regarding what they CAN do, not what they cannot, and I’ve benefitted greatly, personally and professionally, from their expertise and talent.

I emailed representatives of UNV and UNDP in early December, saying pretty much the same thing I’ve just blogged, and I tweeted to UNDP and UNV as well. In my post, I also recommend to UNV and UNDP the nonprofit organization Knowbility to help their web designers and developers to fix this dire accessibility issue on the web site. 

I got a reply via email on December 11th from “Erik on behalf of the UNDP-UNV Talent Programme for Young Professionals with Disabilities”:

Thank you very much for your feedback. We are aware of the limitations of the websites and currently have teams working on projects that are focused on making them user-friendly and compliant with accessibility standards. Since we launched this initiative, we have been able to reach a wide range of persons with disabilities as evidenced by increased numbers of candidates registered and of applications. We also provide the option to reach out to us in person in case specific assistance or concerns are needed in the application process. As we are a continuously learning organization, our goal is to strive for a fully inclusive working environment and take every opportunity to improve. We appreciate your patience and understanding. Please let us know if we can further assist you in navigating the site.

So, in other words, they mean to say: the site is working just fine, people are applying for this program, people who can’t navigate our website can just email us and we’ll help them with the process, and being a “continuously learning organization”, we can’t be faulted for not having an accessible web site for people with disabilities for a program designed especially for people with disabilities at the get-go. Don’t bother us.

I really hope that UNV and UNDP will realize how bad this makes the agency and this program look, and choose to RAPIDLY remedy this situation regarding the accessibility of their web site for a program meant to increase inclusion of professionals with disabilities. They made a mistake – no excuses. Let’s hope UNV and UNDP not only fix this web site, but make a future commitment to digital inclusion in all of their web sites – especially those that are supposed to cater specifically to people with disabilities.

If you would like to let UNV and UNDP know what you think of the site and their response, I urge you to email these four addresses:

  • Talent Programme <talent.programme@unv.org>
  • Anant Sharma <anant.sharma@undp.org>
  • Anjali Kwatra <anjali.kwatra@undp.org>
  • UNV Media <unv.media@unv.org>

Also see:

The Impact of In-Person Usability Demos on Web Designers

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“During (Knowbility’s John Slatin) AccessU, I had the opportunity to sit in on a series of assistive technology demos and witness firsthand how people with disabilities use the internet. That experience completely changed the way I looked at building a website… There is nothing like seeing the ‘a-ha’ moment from people’s faces the first time they see someone use assistive technology.”

The power of an in-person demo regarding usability of a web site from the point of view of a person with a disability is explained in this Knowbility blog by Christi Barker.

An example of the reaction of one of Barker’s students to a demo she later arranged:

“For example, as a designer, we care a lot about how things like buttons are put on websites. However, for vision-impaired people, the aesthetic or the structure of the layout does not mean the same thing to them. Sometimes, it only decreases the ability for them to stay connected with the world. That was the first time I perceived the many inconveniences in their life. Their stories are inspiring and have made me start thinking about what can I do to make a difference in their lives.”

Knowbility is a nonprofit organization with a mission is to create a more inclusive digital world for all abilities.

And remember: accessibility is a human rights issue. And if your organization claims to work towards inclusion of any kind, that should include accessibility for people with disabilities to your web site.

Accessibility: a human rights & a digital divide issue too many ignore

Pioneering in “hacks for good”: Knowbility

Knowbility’s AccessU 2019: Call for Papers

An incredible volunteer recruitment success story in Texas

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersI have been training regarding volunteer management topics since the late 1990s. A frequently asked question I have gotten in my trainings is, “How do I get more black American men to sign up as volunteers with our program?” This question has come from a variety of nonprofits and schools. When I started training in the 1990s, I had zero ideas – I could not answer this question. I have had a lot of black American women in my audiences, but not men, especially when I was based in Texas, so I decided to ask some of them what their thoughts were in answer to the question. Two said the same thing to me on two different occasions: “I have no idea. When you find out, let me know.” I gathered ideas over the years, but never had the opportunity to put my own ideas into practice.

I did not, and I do not, for a second, believe any particular ethnic group is less inclined to volunteer. I do believe that different groups help their communities in different ways, and a lot of unpaid help to communities isn’t called volunteering – black men in the USA are giving back, but the ways they volunteer often go unrecognized. I also believe different groups face various obstacles to traditional, time-intensive volunteering: conflicting work schedules, family care needs, lack of transportation, lack of information about volunteering and language barriers. When I say lack of information, what I mean is that the volunteer recruitment message via one particular channel often does not reach everyone you want to reach. For instance, if I put volunteer recruitment messages only in the local newspaper, the majority of the community, which does NOT read the local paper, will never see it. If I put the messages only on Facebook, it’s unlikely teenagers will ever see it. When I say language barriers, I don’t always mean people for whom English is not their first language; I mean that certain words don’t mean the same to absolutely everyone. Volunteer doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. Community service doesn’t mean the same to everyone. Mentor doesn’t always mean the same thing to everyone. So in constructing a message, you have to think about who you are talking to and what words might appeal to them.

With all of that in mind, the recent success of a middle school in Dallas, Texas in recruiting black American men to be mentors in their school has been inspiring and enlightening to me:

According to this web site, 68.4% of the student population at Billy Earl Dade Middle in Dallas identify as African-American – drastically different from that of a “typical: school in Texas which is made up of 12.6% African-American students on average. To qualify for free lunch, children’s family income must be under $15,171 in 2015 (below 130% of the poverty line), and 85.5% of students at Dade Middle School receive free lunch. To qualify for reduced lunch, children’s family income must be below $21,590 annual income in 2015 (185% of the poverty line). 3% of students at Billy Earl Dade Middle receive reduced lunch. As of 2016, the percent of students at this school who pass the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) across all subjects was significantly lower than average for Texas. In short, the student body at Billy Earl Dade Middle School was largely “at risk.”

Parent involvement in a child’s early education is consistently found to be positively associated with a child’s academic performance (Hara & Burke, 1998; Hill & Craft, 2003; Marcon, 1999; Stevenson & Baker, 1987). A 2002 report from the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, A New Wave of Evidence, found that students with parents involved in their schools and their school work, no matter their income or background, are more likely to:

  • Earn higher grades and test scores, and enroll in higher-level programs
  • Be promoted, pass their classes and earn credits
  • Attend school regularly
  • Have better social skills, show improved behavior and adapt well to school
  • Graduate and go on to post-secondary education

In December 2017, Billy Earl Dade Middle School ran into some difficulty when planning its annual “Breakfast with Dads” event. The school’s community liaison, Ellyn Favors, told the school’s Site Based Decision Making Team that student participation had been low in the past due to young men not having a father/father-figure available to attend the event. Kristina Dove, a community member on the team, decided to post a call for volunteers on Facebook in the hope of finding 50 male mentors to accompany the middle schoolers at the event:

This post was shared by several of her friends, including Stephanie Drenka, a popular blogger and photographer. The post was shared and reshared over and over, more than 125 times by the day of the event. They needed 150 men to sign up. More than 600 men showed up for the event. The event had to be moved from the cafeteria into the gymnasium because of the response. The event was so successful, so powerful, that it was covered by national media and online stories were shared over and over on social media. 

Why was this volunteer recruitment so successful? Based on all that I’ve read:

  • It was a simple way to get involved: just one hour of commitment at the school, with no requirement for anything else.
  • Why their attendance was so important was boiled down to simple, inspiring wording – easy to understand and oh-so-inviting to be a part of.
  • It was so simple to sign up.
  • It was oh-so-simple to share this message, and apparently, everyone on the team did so, to start.
  • The team had strong, trusting connections with key members of the community, so when they shared that message on social media, it reached those key members – who amplified it even more.

Had any one of those bullet points been missing from this equation, I’m not sure the recruitment would have been as successful.

What will happen now?

  • I hope the names and contact info of everyone who signed up is in an excel spreadsheet or database program, for easy reference.
  • I hope a variety of volunteering opportunities are created to entice these men to continue to be involved and accommodate their schedules, opportunities that range from more just-show-up episodic volunteering to more one-on-one, higher responsibility opportunities (and these will, of course, require more training and screening).
  • I hope the school is revisiting its safety policies and ensuring those are being followed.
  • I hope things are being put into place right now so that, in six months and a year from now, all of these activities can be evaluated, and successes can be bragged about and attract much-needed funding for the school so those successes can be amplified.

Congrats to Dade Middle School for getting it right. I’ll aspire to do the same.

Also see:

How do I get to you without a car?

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If I want to come to come to your nonprofit organization, your NGO, your government office, etc. for a training or a workshop or a special event or for your services, and I will not be driving, will your web site tell me how to get there?

Will your web site tell me what buses stop nearest to your organization and how far the walk from a bus stop is to your office? Will it tell me where to park my bicycle? Is there a photo of the exterior of your agency, so I’ll recognize it easily?

I’m in a one-car family. I use mass transit and my bicycle to get around. In the greater metropolitan Portland, Oregon area, that’s not an easy thing (it’s fascinating to hear Portlandiers brag about their mass transit system, but start to stutter when I ask, “Do you yourself take it every day, or even every week? Do you rely on it to get to and from work?”). Looking at various nonprofit web sites when I’m supposed to have a meeting, I often can’t find the street address, and even then, there’s no information about mass transit options or bike parking. Yes, I’ve used the Portland mass transit trip planner, but it often doesn’t suggest the quickest route, or tell you that while there is a bus stop a block away, there’s a light rail stop just five blocks away. When you are actually on a Portland bus, routes usually are not announced, bus drivers aren’t happy about trying to help you find the right stop, and there are lots of challenges that would have been much more navigable has someone simply warned you about such.

There are people who cannot afford to buy a car, people who don’t have a driver’s license, and young people, too young to drive, who want to volunteer at your organization, attend an event, or access your services. If you don’t have information to help these people – and that includes me — you are telling these audiences, We don’t want you to come to our organization. Is that really what you want to say?

And, indeed, there are events, trainings and more I have wanted to attend, but cannot, because I either can’t figure out how to get to the organization by mass transit or the organization is having the meeting in a place not easily reached by mass transit. One organization had a meeting at a library branch that would have taken more than two hours for me to get to – but had they had the meeting just 3.5 miles away, at another library branch, it would take just 40 minutes – the difference was that one site is served by a bus that comes only every 30 minutes, while the other is on an express, frequent service bus line.

Your organization’s web site needs to have the following information – and it needs to be oh-so-easy to find:

  • a text-based rendering of your organization’s physical address (not just in a graphic)
  • a map that shows your organization’s location AND the nearest bus stops (including express/frequent service buses) and nearest light rail stops; there are online volunteers who would be happy to prepare this graphic for you
  • written advice that would be helpful to a bus rider (is there a landmark you should be looking for when riding the bus to know when your stop is coming? how long of a walk is it from the stop to your office? is there only one place to cross a particularly busy street that wouldn’t be obvious to someone unfamiliar with the area (as I recently encountered for an evening training, in the dark, at a nonprofit’s office)? Ask your current volunteers and clients about this – or create an investigative project for your volunteers to tease out this information
  • a photo of the exterior of your offices
  • information on where a bicycle rider would park. If you don’t have a rack outside, either get one or allow people to bring their bikes inside (an addition note about this is at the end of this blog)
  • tips specifically for bicyclists, like advice on routes (perhaps a bike rider would be more comfortable riding on a parallel street rather than a main one – another great investigative project for your volunteers)

There is no excuse to not have this information on your web site, unless your organization needs to keep its location private (a domestic violence shelter, for instance).   Not We don’t have the time or We don’t have the funding or All of our clients/volunteers drive. This information is just as important as parking information and your hours of operation!

Volunteers can help you gather this information. If none of your current volunteers are interested, post it as an opportunity on VolunteerMatch (or your country’s equivalent) and with your local volunteer center.

In addition, remember that in most cities, buses stop running after a certain hour. If your training goes past that time, you are excluding people who would be stranded after the training. If there is no way to change the hours, talk about ways to set up participant car pools.

Encourage volunteers to carpool as well. And brag about all these green living efforts to the board and on your blog!

On the subject of bike parking racks: Cyclists prefer to park very close to their destinations and will lock a bicycle to anything available unless a rack is nearby. They do NOT want racks that hold the bike by the wheel, nor racks with which they can’t use a U-Lock. Racks should be in public view with high visibility and good lighting. One that is filmed by a security camera is particularly great. Work with your city to get a rack installed for your building; they will have rules regarding where racks can go. Bike racks are great projects to fundraise around: identify exactly how much it will cost to buy and install such and involve your volunteers on creating a fundraising campaign to raise the funds needed for installation (what a great sponsorship opportunity!); when you install your new bike rack, take photos, make an announcement – maybe even throw a party! In short – make it a big deal.