Tag Archives: groups

an online group for potential donors for your nonprofit – possible? appropriate?

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Someone wrote on an online community I’m on:

I am interested in using Facebook to build a community of potential donors. Anyone have expertise in this area?

Here’s what I think:

image of a panel discussion

No one likes to be identified as a potential donor. They really don’t. You can think of me as a potential donor because I’m a volunteer, or because I’ve donated in the past, or because I came to your event, or because I’ve otherwise expressed some kind of interest in your nonprofit, NGO, charity, etc. But I won’t join a group called “potential donors,” because I don’t want to be thought of only as a financial donor, as someone that gives money, or should be targeted to give money.

People will join online groups that are focused on a cause they care about, or an online group that is going to educate them about that cause. They want to hear about the great work the program is doing. They want to know how to “live the cause” in their own lives: how they can recycle or how they can register voters or how they can explain the importance of vaccinations to their family or whatever. They will join online groups that discuss and debate topics related to the cause – how to advocate for accessible web design, how to rescue wildlife, how to run a youth soccer league, etc. And if those groups also, sometimes, solicit donations, that’s appropriate and will probably generate some donations – as long as no member feels that’s why the group exists (to ask for money). They are going to leave a group that just asks for money.

If you are going to call me a partner, by the way, that means I’m going to get to offer my advice, ask questions and disagree. If you don’t allow that on your online group, then I’m NOT a “partner.”

That said, in the 1990s I joined an online group for organizations that had received funding from one funder – the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation. It was wonderful: we learned so much from each other, and MEAF got to see the nonprofits it funded collaborate in real-time. It was one of the best online community experiences I’ve ever been a part of.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

For advice specifically on how to create and leverage an online community for your volunteers specificallly, have a look at The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. It’s available both as a traditional print publication and as a digital book. And if you buy it directly from me, the last two boxes in my closet will soon go away! And your copy will be signed with best wishes from me! I also get a bit more money than if you buy it from Amazon (and it’s slightly cheaper to buy from me as well).

Also see:

If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, 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. 

Connections & Partnerships Are Key to A Nonprofit or NGO’s Survival – & Online Tools Can Help

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Below are excerpts from THE SDG PARTNERSHIP GUIDEBOOK: A practical guide to building high-impact multi-stakeholder partnerships for the Sustainable Development Goals, Darian Stibbe and Dave Prescott, The Partnering Initiative and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), 2020. And, to me, it’s the heart of why approaching public online activities as community engagement, at a way to use technology to build community and grow an organization, makes sense, though it never mentions online tools:

Most of us work in operating environments that encourage a sense of competition and separation, rather than collaboration and cooperation. We are often told that there is a scarcity of resources, and that our job is to secure for ourselves, and for our own organisations, as much of the available resources as possible, and that if others lose out in the process then that’s too bad… for the most part it is a reductive way of thinking, because it limits the scope of what can be achieved together. It makes collaborative working difficult, especially if we have been told to work in partnership as a way to help an organisation to compete with others for funding opportunities.

Rather than starting from an assumption of competition and scarcity, what happens if we start with a different assumption:

All of the ideas, people, technologies, institutions and resources that are required to achieve the SDGs are already available, and the task is how do we engage them and combine them in new and transformational ways?…

What if we approached every single one of our encounters as opportunities to create new ideas, and what if the best and most interesting ideas emerged from the most unlikely sources? What new connections might emerge then?…

There are (at least) three levels at which to engage: You can think about how it relates to you as an individual and to your professional practice; you can think about how it relates to your organisation, and how your organisation collaborates; you can also think about how it relates to existing or new partnerships that you might be involved in. Effective partnering calls for great personal leadership: brave, risk- taking people able to operate in ambiguous situations while remaining outcome-focused.

In July and August, I have been teaching MGT 553 Using Technology to Build Community and Grow Your Organization, part of the MS in Nonprofit Management for Gratz College. I started designing the course in February, and I first blogged about the course May. My mantra, over and over, to these students who work, or want to work, in the nonprofits world has been that online tools are best used when their primary purpose is to build community, not just to market, not just to build awareness about an organization, and that such a focus enhances all other functions: program engagement, community participation, fundraising, volunteer engagement, partnership development and more.  

The students, in turn, reminded me of something that I’ve long known: the biggest challenges to this happening are those thrown up by their own organizations’ systems, processes and culture – something the United Nations publication also notes. Senior management or long-term staff who fear change are the far bigger obstacles to using online communications tools than budget or lack of tech knowledge. The reluctance and fear comes from knowing only the negative stories, the worst-case scenarios. I have a fantasy about making a list of all the in-person meetings I’ve been present for and people deciding they should never meet anyone ever again.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

I talk a lot about leveraging online networks to reach new volunteers and other supporters via The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, co-written with Susan J. Ellis. The book also talks about using online tools to build community among your volunteers, cultivating information-sharing and shared learning among that particular group of supporters, as well as the detailed guidance you need to use the Internet to involve and support ALL volunteers, whether most of their service to you is online or onsite. And purchasing the book is far, far cheaper than hiring me as a consultant or trainer (though you can still do that)!

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.

No fooling: advice for volunteers

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersMy consulting work is focused on helping nonprofits, NGOs, government programs, etc. But I monitor online sites like Quora, Reddit and YahooAnswers, as well having conversations with various people, and the result of that is that I have found many people are struggling with a whole host of issues related to their own volunteering – or attempts to volunteer.

So many corporate folks thought all potential volunteers needed was a web site to search for opportunities. But while such sites have proliferated, guidance on how to choose a volunteering assignment, the options available, things to consider before signing up, even how to complain about a volunteering experience, are severely lacking.

Because of this lack of guidance for volunteers and people that want to volunteer, I created a section on my web site focused on helping people who want to make a difference in some way, through volunteering or through a career. The pages also are meant to help people who are assigned community service by a court or by a school, not only to help them access opportunities but also to move beyond “I have to do this so I am.” Please note that the pages do have advertising – clicks on ads help me pay the costs of hosting my web site, including the blog you are reading now, and pay for Internet access. Please also note I receive no funding for the time I spend researching topics and creating materials for this blog or my web site. 

The resources also include:

Detailed information for teens that want or need to find community service or volunteering tasks.

Ways you can volunteer, no matter how young you are (a lot of folks are under 13 but really, really want to do something)

Advice for family volunteering – volunteering by families with children.

Advice for volunteering as a group / volunteering in a group and a special page of advice specifically regarding group volunteering for atheist and secular volunteers (how to find welcoming opportunities for groups of volunteers that are not religious-based/faith-based).

How to find or create volunteering opportunities to help seniors / elders / the elderly that moves well beyond the “go be nice to old people” advice on other pages. 

Advice for finding volunteer activities during the holidays (spoiler alert: start looking in as early as August – not even kidding).

Online Volunteering / Virtual Volunteering: finding volunteering tasks you can do from wherever you are in the world. While my book with Susan J. Ellis, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, is focused on helping organizations, this page is meant to help people that want to be online volunteers.

Volunteering to help after major disasters for those that have ever wanted to help people affected by a sudden event like an earthquake, flood, tornado, hurricane, fire or human-caused event, this resource details what you need to do NOW. 

Volunteering to address a volunteer’s own mental health, designed to help a person have realistic expectations for volunteering to address his or her own loneliness, depression, anxiety, etc., and to avoid an experience that will make the volunteer feel worse instead of better.

Volunteering with organizations that help animals and wildlife. This is one of the most sought-after types of volunteering, and many people think they should pay large amounts of money to go overseas and help wildlife (and that wildlife is, in fact, being exploited and endangered by these volunteers).

Volunteering on public lands in the USA. While national parks, national forests, national monuments, federally-managed historic sites, Bureau of Land Management land, state parks, wetlands, etc. have fairly decent and easy-to-find information for potential volunteers, there’s no one page that tells people what all of their options are – I’ve tried to address that.

Using your business skills for good – volunteering your business management skills, to help people start, expand or improve small businesses / micro enterprises, to help people building businesses in high-poverty areas, and to help people entering or re-entering the workforce.

Volunteering in pursuit of a medical, veterinary or social work degree / career – volunteering that will help build your skills and give you experience applying skills to work in these fields.

Ideas for Leadership Volunteering Activities. These are more than just do-it-yourself volunteering – these are ideas to create or lead a sustainable, lasting benefit to a community, recruiting others to help and to have a leadership role as a volunteer. These can also be activities for a Capstone project, the Girl Scouts Gold Award, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (U.K.), a mitzvah project, or even scholarship consideration. This is also a resource for any person that wants to create his or her own volunteering activity.

Fund raising for a cause or organization – how to raise money for a nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO), charity or program you care about.

Crowdfunding for a personal cause: raising money to help with health care costs for a sick family member, someone in a dire financial crisis, etc. (as opposed to raising money for a nonprofit)

Donating things instead of cash or time (in-kind contributions) – do people living in poverty, or people after a disaster, really want your used shoes, your used clothes, your used car, etc.?

Creating or holding a successful community event or fund raising event – before you throw a concert or marathon or comedy show or whatever to raise money, read this.

How to make a difference internationally / globally/ in another country Without going abroad. Yes, there really are ways you can help without moving or traveling.

Ideas for Funding Your Volunteering Abroad Trip. This resource includes suggestions of ethical programs and questions to ask any program that wants your money to give you your feel-good short-term volunteering experience in another country.

Tax credits for volunteering – advice for residents of the USA.

How you can advocate for an issue important to you. If there is something you want to tell people about, to prompt them to care, even to prompt them to action, this resource is for you.

Also see my blogs to discourage people from voluntourism and the dangers of “volunteering” to help wildlife abroad.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into developing material, researching information, preparing articles, updating pages, etc., here is how you can help.

Corporate volunteers can be a burden for nonprofits

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Back in 2011, I asked if group volunteering was really all its cracked up to be.

The sentiment has gone mainstream: the Boston Globe published this yesterday: Corporate volunteers can be a burden for nonprofits.

Corporate social responsibility folks, managers of employee volunteerism programs: are you listening?

No excuses for not having the word “volunteer” on your home page!

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersKudos to the Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana for having the words volunteer and volunteers on the home page of its web site, thereby showing immedately the value of volunteers in their efforts. The vast majority of programming that Girl Scouts receive in the USA is delivered by volunteers — unpaid staff — rather than paid staff from a council office or the national office, and Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana shows that it not only recognizes this, but that it welcomes volunteers – by putting those words permanently on its home page.

I wonder why so many Girl Scout council offices do not have those words on their web site. You might find those words on a pull down menu – maybe. But often on these and other web sites for nonprofit organizations or non-governmental organizations (NGOs), I do not see, immediately, that new volunteers are welcomed – and I would see that if it was obvious from glancing at the web site for just a few seconds how someone could get started as a volunteer.

Here is much more advice on the REQUIRED volunteer information on your web site. If your organization or department involves volunteers, or wants to, there are certain things your organization or department must have on its web site – no excuses! To not have this information says that your organization or department takes volunteers for granted, does not value volunteers beyond money saved in salaries, or is not really ready to involve volunteers.

Hackathons for good? That’s volunteering!

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I recently tweeted out this message to my Twitter followers, and a few other people retweeted it to their own followers as well.

4 good examples? Like those by , & ( Internet Rallies/AIR)?

(you can follow me on Twitter here)

My goal was to write a detailed blog about all these different hackathons for good, and maybe even develop a web page on how to organize these kinds of episodic volunteering events (group volunteering events that don’t require a long-term commitment, that require just one day, or just a few days, of participation) related to technology.

Unfortunately, I have not had any response yet… but I’ll go ahead and blog about the examples I know about, and hope it leads to more examples:

The first event I ever attended that brought lots of web designers into one room, or one site, at multiple computers, to do something to help others for a few hours, was a web-building event by the Metropolitan Austin  Interactive Network (MAIN) in Texas in the 1990s. These web-raisings don’t happen anymore, at least not by MAIN, but what’s replaced it in Austin is something even better: the Accessibility Internet Rally, or AIR Austin, by Knowbility. This competitive event not only helps nonprofits get web sites – it also helps educate web developers and nonprofits about web accessibility for people with disabilities. It’s my favorite volunteering event – the perfect combination of fun, food, volunteering and making a difference. It’s so successful that not only does it happen year after year (it started in the late 1990s), not only do many of the web designers come back year after year to volunteer for the event, but the event happens in other cities as well.

I think Knowbility’s AIR events are the perfect hackathons, because they not only get work done – they also educate the participants about a critical issue. That isn’t just awareness – it’s transformative. The experience affects the web designers in how they approach their work when they get back to their day jobs. They design differently, and they think of nonprofits differently.

Hackathons have been around since the 1990s, but just the practice, not the name; now with its new branding, this form of episodic volunteering seems to be becoming all the rage.

One of the most high-profile hackathon groups is the nonprofit Crisis Commons, which produces “hybrid barcamp/hackathon events which bring together people and communities who innovate crisis response and global development through technology tools, expertise and problem solving.” Crisis Commons co-hosted the Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) event with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, NASA and the World Bank in 2010, with events taking place in cities around the world including Nairobi, Jakarta, Sydney, Washington DC and San Paolo. Software developers, usability experts, emergency planners, technologists, “social media knowledge workers,” project managers, NGOs and university professors met in each of the cities to volunteer or, as Crisis Commons put it, to “crowdsource open source solutions to very real humanitarian problems. There are seven main projects ranging building SMS applications to report amputee needs, near real-time UAV imagery processing to creating a people finder application.” Geeks Without Bounds (GWOBorg) has been a part of several Crisis Commons activities.

Also new on the scene of hackathons for good is Code for America, which, among many activities, hosts or co-hosts hackathons where developers and designers come together in, say, 24 hours, to “build applications for social change” and, sometimes, compete for prizes. Code for America offers its own suggestions for ingredients for a successful hackathon, based on its own experiences.

Jumping on the hackathon bandwagon as of 2007 is GiveCamp, which “a weekend-long event where technology professionals from designers, developers and database administrators to marketers and web strategists donate their time to provide solutions for non-profit organizations.”

Also new on the scene is Data Without Borders, which hosts various kinds of hackathons, also called Data Dives, that provide nonprofits with data analysis (data collection, analysis, visualization, and decision support) by volunteer “data scientists.”

Also listen to this presentation from SXSW about a hackathon in San Francisco related to DonorsChoose.org.

One thing that is both amusing and sad to me about all these hackathon events is that these organizations rarely use the terms volunteers or volunteering. The people contributing their time and talent are teams or pro bono researchers or Data Heroes – anything but volunteers! Very strange… and sad.

Anyway…

If you know of other hackathons for good, hacks4good, hacks for good, onsite crowdsourcing – whatever you want to call these volunteering events – please note the names of such in the comments section of this blog. Web addresses would be particularly helpful!

Also see:

Short-term assignments for tech volunteers

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