Tag Archives: inclusion

Your biases in screening volunteers

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Years ago, I got a job out of the blue – an employee at a nonprofit had to be dismissed quickly and a replacement was needed immediately. There was no time for a usual recruitment process that included interviewing of several people – someone said I would be a good candidate and could start immediately, I got a call asking if I was interested, I got interviewed, I got the job and I began working – all within the span of maybe a week.

Months later, I found out that the Executive Director had not been happy at first when I was hired because she didn’t like how I dressed and, therefore, thought I wasn’t good at my job – which involved IT, and not any in-person interaction with the public or the high-profile Silicon Valley partners she collaborated with regularly. The office was very corporate: men in suits, women in business dress. I, on the other hand, was Silicon Valley casual long before it was the norm: I was neat, clean and quite presentable, but in comfortable clothes (I was very fond of flowy dresses and skirts in those days) and comfy shoes (never sandals, but also, never heels). She also didn’t like my hair: it’s clean, but it’s kind of all over the place a lot of time – unless I wear a head covering or cake it in product, that’s just how it is. However, she was very pleased with me once she saw my work and heard from my colleagues about my job performance. She ended up being a very enthusiastic professional reference for me for many years. But she said at one point to a colleague later, “I need to work on my assumptions about people based on how they dress.”

After hearing about that comment and spending a few days of feeling like I didn’t look very nice (I got over it), I ended up really appreciating that remark, because it meant I was being judged by the content of my work and my character, that she was learning that people who weren’t completely corporate could be more than competent and that she was willing to change her mind, something I always admire in people. But I’ve taken her comment to heart in my own interviews of candidates, not just with employees, but with volunteers as well. And not just about how people dress.

I know a lot of people who talk about the importance of “trusting your gut” when screening volunteers. But what if your gut is prejudiced? Let’s face it: we ALL have unconscious biases, at the very least, and if we aren’t constantly looking for those, and looking for ways to eliminate the possibility of them creeping into our decision-making, we’re going to miss out on some great volunteering candidates.

Unconscious bias can show up when we see and judge someone’s weight, or a certain brand of clothing they are wearing, or a hairstyle or hair color they are sporting. Or perhaps we’re judging them negatively because of hair loss. Or because of wrinkles on their face. Or perceived age. Or physical features. Or a regional accent.

It’s important to always be thinking about why you are saying no to a candidate for employment or volunteering, and having reasons that you feel confident in writing down on an evaluation sheet – and, potentially, having such read aloud in a civil suit.

Remember that just because someone doesn’t look like you or doesn’t look like someone you would socialize with, it shouldn’t exclude them from being a volunteer.

And on a side note: your program can certainly let applicants know, in your role description, that you have a dress code. But remember that there needs to be a rational basis for each dress code requirement, it must be applied in a consistent fashion, it should not obviously discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion and ethnicity and it should not overburden a particular group. For instance, requiring clean hands, faces and hair, and prohibiting shirts or pants with any words or graphics, prohibiting clothing that exposes legs above the knee or even the ankle, prohibiting torn clothes, prohibiting sandals, etc., can all be justified regarding safety and maintaining a neutral, positive image and culture in the workplace. Requiring people’s hair to be off the shoulders or even covered altogether for safety reasons can be appropriate, but having one rule for men and another for women can get you into legal trouble. And note the many reasons that the US Army had to change its hair policies for women.

If your reaction to all this is “I have no unconscious biases regarding people,” I would like to remind you that denial is not just a river in Egypt.

Today is Martin Luther Kind, Jr. Day in the USA – an excellent day to own up to the reality that we all have unconscious biases that we should all work on, as well as that there are profound social inequities in the world that are long overdue to be addressed.

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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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Making volunteering more accessible for people with disabilities makes it better for EVERYONE.

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It’s happened again.

graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

I’m reading materials about making volunteering more accessible for people with disabilities and my repeated thought as I read is These are great suggestions for ALL volunteers! There’s no reason to do this JUST with people you think might have disabilities!

Below are excerpts from various publications I’ve been reading that show what I mean: Some have been slightly edited for clarity (substituting one word, for instance). Don’t just do these with people who have disabilities – do them for ALL OF YOUR VOLUNTEERS:

Make sure that anyone who works with volunteers with disabilities always asks if there is anything that can be done to accommodate their needs. (Me: do this with ALL volunteers, not just those with disabilities).

Regularly ask volunteers is they are having any challenges carrying out a task and ask if some accommodation or different task would make the volunteer’s involvement easier.

Encourage a culture of watching out for volunteers while they carry out their assignments and making sure that their needs are met.

Regularly ask volunteers if they are having any challenges carrying out a task and ask if some accommodation or different task would make the volunteer’s involvement easier.

Formally adopt a policy that states that it is the right of your volunteers to ask for and receive alternative tasks or accommodations. Make all volunteers aware of this policy.

Adopt a formal policy that states that your organization will do a regular review of its volunteer recruitment and management procedures and practices to ensure that the organization’s needs are being met and that no group of people is being excluded.

Review the time commitments and schedules attached to your volunteer positions to see if there is a solid rationale for them.

Make it part of your volunteer management approach to adapt roles to volunteers and not volunteers to roles.

Regularly talk with volunteers to get an idea of what it is actually like to volunteer for your organization. If some volunteers have fixed time commitments, ask them if there is a better way to organize their work than the way you do it now. That is, ask if they would prefer a more flexible schedule.

Formally state in a written volunteer policy that volunteers will be assigned tasks based on their capacities and abilities and will be accommodated reasonably to carry them out.

When assigning tasks that are done every year (e.g. duties in an annual fundraising campaign), look at the health status and other
factors of each volunteer before automatically assigning them the same tasks that they have “always” done. Consider alternative assignments where necessary.

Ensure that volunteer managers speak with volunteers before organizing an annual work plan and verify the volunteers’ ability and availability to do the same jobs as in previous years.

Ask volunteers what barriers they have encountered with your organization and how they have overcome such (if they have).

If you do interviews with candidates for volunteering, send the candidates the questions you are going to ask BEFORE that interview.

During an interview with a candidate for volunteering, plenty of time should be given for the volunteer to answer the questions, as
some people might need more time to think about what has been
asked.

During the interview, you may want to ask the candidate what support, if any, they feel they might need when volunteering. This is beneficial to both the organization and the volunteer so that any support needed can be planned and arranged before the
volunteer begins the assignment.

It is very important that those that will support the volunteer meet with the volunteer before any volunteering begins. This will allow both people to decide if they are happy to work together and it is also a chance to get to know each other.

People have said they would prefer a trial period of 2 months. After the first month, at their supervision meeting, you should ask the volunteer if they are happy to go on to the next month.

You should feel comfortable in being able to say honestly what is working well and what, if anything, could be better.

Again – these tips were written to help staff work better with volunteers with disabilities, but the reality is that these are great tips for supporting and managing ALL volunteers.

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. 

The delicate challenge of warning volunteers & others going abroad about racism or sexism they may experience.

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I have been uncomfortable for many years with the lack of guidance about the specific discrimination black volunteers and black professional humanitarian workers face when they go abroad. I’ve seen the discrimination, firsthand: at airports, in restaurants, in shops and even on the streets in countries all over the world without many black residents – including Germany and Afghanistan. And I’ve heard so many first-hand horror stories from humanitarian colleagues about what they’ve experienced. Yet, when I’ve tried to find guidance on how to be an ally or guidance for people experiencing discrimination, I’ve found nothing.

So I was impressed that the Peace Corps starkly and specifically acknowledged this situation and was frank about just how much harder it can be for black volunteers – specifically for Ukraine, but the reality is that this warning would be valid for a variety of countries where the Peace Corps has, or used to, place members, including Russia. The Peace Corps recommends that the Black volunteers react to racism in various ways depending on the situation, choosing to “remove themselves” from the situation for their own safety, get help from other volunteers or staff, or practice and explore self-care or coping strategies. It’s similar to the recommendations for women humanitarian workers – or women travelers: when you are in a country where you may not be respected, you’ve got to be prepared to deal with ugly comments and ugly situations and you won’t have the resources you have in the USA (not that law enforcement in my country always takes a woman’s safety concerns seriously, but I digress).

This article in the Atlanta Black Star says “Some have rebuked the Peace Corps for not doing more to protect Black volunteers.” One person tweeted that the Peace Corps shouldn’t send black Americans “to a place like this where you know they’ll be racially abused” and claimed that the Peace Corps was placing “the burden of educating racists” on the shoulders of Black members.

I think it would be a terrible shame if the Peace Corps didn’t send black Americans to Ukraine or anywhere in Eastern Europe or Asia or anywhere else where there is not a large black population, or if the United Nations didn’t send black African professional humanitarians to Afghanistan or elsewhere in Asia and on and on. Absolutely, people need to be safe, and there has to be a consideration for what specific challenges an African, a woman, a trans person, a person of a particular nationality, and others may face in various countries – and it may mean not sending a great candidate somewhere because the security situation is just too tenuous for the person, specifically. But while the Peace Corps’ primary mission is to empower communities in underserved parts of the work, the corps is also intended to promote mutual understanding between citizens of the USA and foreign peoples. Black Americans are a part of the rich fabric that makes up the USA. You cannot understand this country without experiencing its very specific forms of black culture.

I’m going to continue to do all I can, including abroad, to be an ally. I stumble, sometimes I flounder, often I misstep, but I’m going to keep trying. And I hope everyone else will too, not only for Black Americans but for any person who might be targeted for insults, harassment, abuse or violence.

I’m also going to continue to try to encourage people, especially women, to travel abroad, while also offering realistic safety recommendations (and I’ve been criticized for my recommendations by women travelers who say they have never experienced any problems and I’m being alarmist. Sigh.).

When your perceived race, sexual identity, religion or nationality can put you in danger in a region, you have every right to know of the specific dangers you might face, and you have every right to reconsider going to that region. And when you feel insulted anywhere, you have every right to choose how you are going to react, based on what you think is the appropriate thing to do.

I know if I made a list of everything that has been said to me by local people where I’m living or working, targeting me as a woman or as an American, I would scare a lot of folks from traveling abroad. Sometimes, I have pushed back: I’ve sometimes expressed anger, I’ve sometimes expressed hurt feelings, and I’ve sometimes just walked away – it depends on how safe I feel and what I think the consequences might be. It’s all my choice to make. I hope that my reactions have sometimes helped to change some local people’s minds – but I can only do so much.

What do you think of its advisory to applicants about racism they may face? Share your thoughts in the comments.

For those who think the Peace Corps, or any other volunteering abroad or humanitarian agency, should “do more” to “protect” black volunteers & humanitarian workers, what would that look like? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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.

9 tips to improve your DEI in communications

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The Communications Initiative is a resource I rely on regularly. I cannot say enough fantastic things about it. Over the last several months, I have been unsubscribing from a lot of email newsletters and unfollowing a lot of pages on Facebook, trying to declutter my online life, but I continue to make time to read the Communications Initiative updates. If you work in any capacity regarding communicating with clients or the general public regarding your nonprofit, NGO or government agency, this is a must-use resource.

The Communications Network created an online resource to change norms and practices in communications for social good, with an eye towards greater inclusion and diversity. The resource was developed in partnership with M+R and We-Collab. The introduction says:

Your outreach seeks to educate, involve, and engage your organization’s stakeholders. Outreach that honors diversity, equity, and inclusion is no different, other than the intentionality of your decisions. It requires you to understand who your audience is beyond the data points. It requires you to know what their priorities are, and then to craft messages and engagements that are inclusive to them. DEI outreach goes beyond reaching out, it requires them to bring people in.

We’ve created these nine tips with the communicator in mind. It’s flexible, so use it as a checklist, a launching point for a discussion, or even an assessment survey to improve your DEI communications.

It’s fantastic.

Also see these related blogs from me:

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. 

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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Encouraging the Moldovan IT sector to prioritize online accessibility

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screen capture of the webinar with Jayne Cravens and the event host interacting on the screen

I spent 15 minutes early one morning last week talking to IT professionals in Moldova about how accessibility online makes the world a better place for everyone. The opportunity came about thanks to a colleague I worked with at the United Nations who now works for the Swedish Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Moldova. It was part of an initiative her government, and USAID, supported in Moldova regarding Diversitate, Echitate și Incluziune în comunitatea IT (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the IT community), an initiative of Tekwill, organized by Startup Moldova and in partnership with Izarra, TechWomen Moldova and the Moldovan Association of Information and Communications Technology Companies.

Evenimentul reunește antreprenori locali pentru a încuraja și abilita participanții să-și împărtășească ideile fără limite sau frica de a fi judecați dar și să manifeste mai multă atenție privind respectarea normelor și etichetei culturale din regiune – credințe, convingeri, ținută sau obiceiuri.

The event brings together local entrepreneurs to encourage and empower participants to share their ideas without limits or fear of being judged but also to pay more attention to respecting the rules and cultural etiquette of the region – beliefs, beliefs, dress or customs.

Located in the heart of the Technical University of Moldova (UTM), “Tekwill is a 4,000m² hub that has everything one would ever need for ongoing growth, from co-working spaces, tech labs (IoT, 3D printing) and community events.”

Tekwill is built on the belief that to be competitive economically in the years to come, Moldovan startups and innovators must begin adopting and creating industry-disrupting technology today. Therefore, this message was coded into our name; “Tek” – for technology and “will” – for our future. The organization regularly gathers local and international tech leaders to empower the development of Moldova’s startup ecosystem by facilitating results-oriented innovation and collaboration.

You can view my portion of the event, in English, on YouTube at around the 26:05 mark or via this Facebook page, at about the 26:10 mark. Introduction in Romanian.

I’m very partial to Moldova, having met some wonderful young Moldavians in 2019 hosted by World Oregon (I did a workshop on countering misinformation online). I have always found a very electrifying entrepreneurial, optimistic spirit among young Eastern Europeans, particularly from Moldova, Ukraine and Poland – people ready to innovate, to include, to explore and to create. I so long for the days when we can travel again so we call meet up face-to-face again!

One of the many things I’m proud of in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, is that it features an entire chapter on accessibility and diversity. I’ve been advocating for accessibility online since 1994 – and I’m going to keep doing it!

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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. 

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!).

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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. 

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.

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