Tag Archives: nonprofit

Basic Fund-Raising for Small NGOs/Civil Society in the Developing World

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Some of the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) to online forums for community-based organizations (CBOs) in developing countries, whatever the subject, are regarding funding.

In addition, the first impulse of many small non-governmental organizations (NGOs) seeking funding is to request the contact information for possible funders, and once they find the name of any company they think gives grants to NGOs, these NGOs often write immediately to the company with a desperate please for funds. This approach often harms the NGO, rather than garnering any support at all. Not only do these please rarely attract funding, they can turn funding sources against the NGO altogether.

After seeing these questions and messages again and again over several years (I’ve been on the Internet since about 1994) I drafted a list of basic tips for fund-raising for small NGOs – it was 15 pages long. Now, years later, it has evolved into 31 pages. It is a PDF file.

The document is meant to provide very basic guidelines for small NGOs in the developing world regarding fund-raising and adhering to the basic principles of good governance, and to point to other resources. By small NGOs, I mean organizations that may have only one paid staff member, or are run entirely by volunteers; and may or may not have official recognition by the government. These organizations are extremely limited in their resources, and are often in unstable environments and/or serving profoundly poor populations. Certainly medium-sized NGOs could use it as well – organizations that may have two or three paid staff members.

Please note that this document is NOT written for nonprofits serving the “developed” world — organizations serving communities in North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand or Japan would probably not find this document particularly helpful, as it has been prepared to make recommendations relevant for nonprofits serving in a developing country.

This document is also not for organizations that send volunteers into developing countries to work. This document will not help you fund the trips of such volunteers. If you are such a volunteer-sending organization, see funding your volunteering trip abroad and fund raising for a cause or organization for more helpful information.

THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT A LIST OF FUNDERS/DONORS.

Let me repeat that: THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT A LIST OF FUNDERS/DONORS.

It is, instead, a set of guidelines on how to prepare an organization in a developing country to be attractive to donors, how to search for potential donors and how to approach such potential donors.

The document includes:

  • A list of activities an NGO should NEVER do regarding fund-raising
    (& how I know if an NGO has actually read this document!)
  • How to network among various sectors in your country and establish credibility to insure fund-raising success
  • The absolute essential preparations to solicit donations, both locally and from international NGOs working in your geographic area
  • Establishing credibility and a reputation of integrity, transparency and accountability
  • How to find donors that would be interested in your NGO and how to make contact with them
  • A warning about fund-raising scams
  • Online resources for detailed tips on writing funding proposals
  • Suggestions regarding volunteers in other countries fund-raising on your NGO’s behalf (new chapter added October 2011)
  • Online resources for further information

Once you have received this document, please do NOT distribute the document via a web site or on an online discussion group without my written permission. I frequently update the document, and want to ensure people are getting the most recent version.

Here is the web page for more regarding: Basic Fund-Raising for Small NGOs/Civil Societ in the Developing World, including how to access the document.

CNN Recognizes Virtual Volunteering; Do You?

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Virtual volunteering in all its forms – long-term service, online mentoring, online microvolunteering, crowdsourcing, etc. – has been around for more than 30 years, as long as the Internet has been around, and there are several thousand organizations that have been engaging with online volunteers since at least the late 1990s. While directing the Virtual Volunteering Project, I gave up trying to track every organization involving online volunteers in 1999, because there were just too many!

Virtual volunteering – people donating their time and expertise via a computer or smart phone to nonprofit causes and programs – has been talked about in major media, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, the Associated Press, Deutche Welle, the BBC, even the Daily Show, for more than 15 years (I know because I’ve been quoted in a lot of those stories!).

But virtual volunteering has remained thought of as a fringe movement, or something brand new, by many, despite it being so well-established. Virtual volunteering still isn’t included in national volunteerism reports by any national or international body, such as the Points of Light Foundation, the Corporation for National Service or the Pew Research Center, Volunteering England, or Volunteer Australia.

Perhaps the last holdouts regarding virtual volunteering will finally give in and accept it as mainstream, now that an online mentoring program representative has been nominated as a CNN Hero.

I was introduced to Infinite Family in 2010, and was immediately impressed with its commitment to the fundamentals of a successful online mentoring program in its administration of the program, including the importance it places on site manager-involvement in its program. This is an online mentoring program absolutely committed to quality, to the children its been set up to support, and its online volunteer screening process is no cake walk – as it should be, as the children it supports deserve nothing less! Mentoring cannot be done whenever you might have some time, in between flights at an airport: it takes real time and real commitment, even when its online. Infinite Family gets that.

While all of the CNN Hero projects are worthy of attention and support, I am throwing my support to Infinite Family as the top CNN Hero for 2011.

If you want to volunteer online, here is a long list of where to find virtual volunteering opportunities, including long-term service, online mentoring, online microvolunteering, and crowdsourcing.

Also see the archived Virtual Volunteering Project web site, and resources on my web site regarding volunteer engagement and support.

Best volunteer thank you gift ever!

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Jayne & her thank you gift from BPEACE Jayne & her thank you gift from BPEACE

I’m an online volunteer with BPEACE, and out of the blue, they sent me this soccer ball, hand-stitched by Afghan women. Afghan women have been renowned for centuries for deft needlework. Now the women of DOSTI, meaning “friendship” in Dari, have harnessed that heritage to handcraft club-quality soccer balls – with the help of BPEACE. Read the DOSTI soccer ball story for yourself (and learn how to get one for yourself!).

BEST VOLUNTEER THANK YOU GIFT EVER!

On a related note, see this page on how to thank online volunteers (also covers how to use the Internet to thank ALL volunteers)

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.

Answering tough volunteer involvement questions

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Here are two questions regarding volunteer engagement I am seeing a lot through various channels… but not seeing many answers to:

Where can young children – children under 13, even as young as 6 – volunteer? What kinds of activities can they do and exactly where can they do these?

and

Where can people with diminishing mental abilities, or with mental disabilities, volunteer? What kinds of activities can they do and exactly where can they do these?

The first set of questions come from parents, as well as children under 13, on various online discussion groups, like YahooAnswers.

The second set of questions come primarily from volunteer managers – from those in charge of recruiting and involving volunteers at an organization – and are often the result of a long-time, beloved volunteer becoming less and less capable of helping, and requiring so much supervision and assistance that the organization feels the benefits of involving the volunteer are far below the costs. Or, that volunteer becoming verbally abusive, or saying inappropriate things to other volunteers, as a result of their diminished mental capabilities. But I’ve also seen the question asked by siblings, parents and other caretakers of people with mental disabilities.

I’m very disappointed not to see organizations that are supposed to have the promotion of volunteerism as the central focus of their mandate jumping in to answer these questions. Where are you, Points of Light Foundation? Hands On Network? Why aren’t you out there on various online fora, such as YahooAnswers, addressing these tough questions about volunteering?

Anyway…

I’m not at equating children and people with diminished mental capacities. These are two VERY different groups. But they do have one thing in common: they require much more planning, support and staff time to involve than adult volunteers. Hence why I’m discussing these two groups at once here in this blog.

The reality is that it’s more efficient, economical and immediately beneficial for most nonprofit organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and charities to involve adult individual volunteers who can successfully complete a project, from start to finish, with minimum supervision. Also, most organizations do not have the money, staff, time and other resources to create volunteering opportunities focused primarily on fulfilling the needs of various types of volunteers, rather than creating volunteering activities that are focused primarily on fulfilling the needs of an organization (I’ve said this about microvolunteering as well!). For most organizations, volunteer engagement is primarily about fulfilling the organization’s mission, not fulfilling the wishes of volunteers.

If you think nonprofits, NGOs, charities and others should involve everyone who wants to volunteer, no matter the volunteers’ ages or abilities, then consider this: no matter what your job is, no matter what sector you work in (for-profit, government, nonprofit, whatever), could YOU come up with a safe, fun, meaningful hour-long activity for a 10 year old child to do in your office twice a week, or a two-hour weekly activity for a dozen 10 year olds to do in your office, and do you have time to supervise that child or those children during that activity? What about creating similar activities for someone who has severe short-term memory loss? If you could not do it in your own job at such-and-such corporation, why do you expect nonprofit organizations to do so?

Just as creating one-time, short-term group volunteering activities for adults is difficult, creating volunteering opportunities for children, or for people with diminished or diminishing mental abilities, is also difficult. Should a nonprofit, NGO or charity be spending time and resources to involve these groups? In some circumstances, yes.

First, think carefully about what is in it for you, the organization or program, to create opportunities for either of these groups. What benefit are you looking for?:

  • measurable results regarding participant or community awareness of a particular issue, program or your organization. Could the volunteering activity help children understand a particular issue? Could the activity help parents or family issues understand the issue more fully?
  • cultivation of donors who would be interested in funding this part of your organization’s program. The staff time to create opportunities and support these volunteers, the materials needed by volunteers, etc. all need funding. Are there foundations, corporate philanthropy programs, government agencies or individual donors who would be attracted to funding the resources required?
  • activities that fulfill your organization’s mission. The volunteering experience results in activities that reach part of your organization’s mission. For instance, if you work with seniors, particularly those with diminished mental faculties, then involving these seniors as volunteers would be a part of your mission. If your organization is focused on children under 13, then involving those children as volunteers would be a part of your mission.

I wrote a page on creating one-time, short-term group volunteering activities, and it includes a long list of activity suggestions. Some of those could be adapted as volunteering activities for children, or for people with very limited mental capacities – but not all of them. And to be honest, I’m stumped on creating voluntering activities for either of these groups.

Not every organization is going to be able to address any of those three bullet points – and, therefore, is not going to be in a position to create volunteering opportunities for either of these special needs groups. What I advise those organizations to do:

  • For those that are getting called by parents who want their children to volunteer, have a list of other organizations in your area to refer their child to. For instance, for girls, I recommend the Girl Scouts of the USA (or, in other countries, Girl Guides). I also have a web page of recommendations for family volunteering – specifically families that include children under 16 – note that many activities are home-based.
  • For those that ask about volunteers with diminished mental capacities – for instance, an organization that finds a long-term volunteer can no longer undertake any of the volunteering opportunities at the organization, could a placement be found elsewhere?  Is there a community theater that could involve him or her to hand out programs before a performance? Could the volunteer help serve refreshments at an event – just putting cups filled with a liquid, not doing any of the fillings of the cups him or herself? And does the family of this person understand that a family member will have to be with the volunteer at all times? Or is there an organization in your community that helps people with diminishing mental capacities that you could introduce the volunteer to, that could give that person meaningful activities to engage in – like going to community events in a group? Does this volunteer attend events by a community of faith (a church, temple, mosque, etc.), and could that community be called on to help in this situation?

What other advice do you have for parents seeking volunteering activities for young children, or nonprofit organizations that are going to have to let a volunteer go because of diminished mental capabilities? Leave your answers in the comments. What I’m particularly interested in: how did you go about letting a long-time volunteer go that you had to let go because of his or her diminished mental capabilties, and what did you learn from that expereince that you would like to share with others?

Also see:

Creating one-time, short-term group volunteering activities

Recommendations for family volunteering – specifically families that include children under 16

 

Microvolunteer Idea: Review a Nonprofit

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There is something you can do right now, right this moment, to help increase the awareness about a nonprofit organization you have volunteered with, or been a part of: write a review of such at Yelp.com.

Links from other web sites increase awareness about a nonprofit, and can increase traffic to the nonprofits web site. This higher online profile may lead to more volunteers and more financial support. In addition, nonprofits can use such comments from clients, volunteers, donors and others in funding proposals, internal reports, memos, even brochures and web sites. Your comments may help justify a grant or donation, the continuation of a program, or a request for additional staff.

Here’s an example: a review I wrote for Knowbility in Austin, Texas.

Be honest, and note in your review your relationship with the organization (if you were a volunteer, say so!). After you submit your review, post about it to your social networking sites: your Facebook profile, your MySpace profile, your Twitter feed, your blog, etc. Heck, use old-fashioned email and let people in your address book know about your review as well!

If you have a negative comment about a nonprofit, be fair and share it with the nonprofit first, directly, and give them a chance to respond. Don’t use Yelp or any other review web site to write a negative comment you haven’t already discussed with a nonprofit, and think very carefully about what point you want to make in posting a negative comment.

And nonprofits, if you are worried about people posting criticism of your organization, learn how to handle online criticism – your response can lead to an even better reputation!

Stop multi-tasking; FOCUS instead!

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Back in August 2009, I blogged that Stanford University had published a study that the AP called “surprising”: people who multitask are more easily distracted and less able to ignore irrelevant information than people who do less multitasking. Chronic digital multitaskers were found to be not as good at switching between tasks, compared with people who weren’t chronic multitaskers. In other words, multitaskers cannot concentrate on a single task and do it well; instead, they do a lot of things not very well. They get LESS done than single-taskers.

“The huge finding is, the more media people use the worse they are at using any media. We were totally shocked,” Clifford Nass, a professor at Stanford’s communications department, said in the AP article.

As I said at the time:

Huh? Shocked? Really? Are Stanford researchers THAT out of touch and naive?

I wasn’t AT ALL shocked. It was confirmation of something I’ve known for a long, long time: multi-tasking muddles minds.

In this article in Time from November 2010, Turning Your Phone Off as a Technological Gesture of Affection, the Stanford study is explored further, with this observation:

Multitaskers overestimated their abilities. So, for instance, when your brother insists he’s listening to your story, even as he texts his girlfriend, he really does believe that he’s hearing you. But chances are, he got only every other word.

It’s the same in the workplace: you are not listening to that phone conference while you are checking your email. YA colleague calls on the phone to discuss something or deliver information and he or she knows you are not really listening, as you are trying to IM or fill out a form at the same time – meaning he or she will have to repeat it all later when you realize you don’t know something you should. At a meeting, people ask questions that are fully answered in the two page document they claimed to have scanned on the plane.

At conferences, it’s impossible to strike up conversations with people around you — something essential to make a conference valuable — as they all have their heads buried in their lap tops or PDAs, talking to people elsewhere instead of the people right there next to them, eager to connect.

So why not embrace true digital efficiency and give one slice of attention to each task, even just a few minutes, so that you do all tasks well? It’s amazing how much more work you get done when you single focus! Close your laptop in meetings and workshops. Put the phone or PDA away. Listen, look, make eye contact. Do it just a few times a day, and you will be amazed how much more information you discover and retain, how many MORE connections you make!

I now have a rule during my presentations: if you are going to have your lap top open, you have to be in the back rows; the front and middle rows are reserved for participants; my workshops are interactive, and I’m tired of asking a question to a room full of people or having people break into groups to work on a quesiton and having those at their lap tops look up and say, “Huh? What? Huh?”, or updating their Facebook screens while people behind them watch their screens instead of me. I put a lot of work into my presentations; if you aren’t there to participate, I’d actually rather you not attend at all.

The ability to concentrate on a single task, to get it done properly and completely, or to concentrate on a single content source, reading or listening thoroughly to the information provided, is rapidly becoming a lost skill, and the workplace, public discourse and even every day community life is suffering for it. We’re not becoming more efficient and productive: we’re becoming more distracted, less inclined to complete tasks on time, less likely to do a quality job, and less likely to really, substantially connect with new people. It also affects our quality of life: there are generations who seem to not know how to become engrossed in a movie, how to sit and people-watch, how to just be in the moment, and that means they aren’t really satisfied with anything.

But it’s more than just being ignored while I’m putting my heart and soul into a workshop or watcing co-workers founder in meetings: People are crashing their cars while texting. And even worse: people are making up their minds about world events, government policies, candidates running for office and proposed activities by various organizations based on snippets they’ve glanced at online or on comments heard by a pundit on the radio or TV as they are doing two or three other things at the same time. Debates have become easy for me to win these days because I actually still READ and have more than sound bites to refer to.

My tag line on Yahoo for a few years now has been “Read More Books.” The world would be a better place if more people did, not only because knowledge is a wonderful, empowering, enlightening thing, but also because it would teach people the power of “single-tasking“, or the power of concentration, of focus.

Take just 10 minutes every other hour to read something, in silence, related to your work — memos from colleagues, abstracts from journal articles, an executive summary — without doing anything else. Don’t answer your phone while a colleague is in your office. Turn away from your computer when you are on the phone. Sit and listen intently to a presenter for even just the first 10 minutes, without doing anything else. Introduce yourself to two people sitting near you at a workshop. Never ever write emails while trying to listen to a phone call, a presenter or a colleague. These are little things. And if you do them, you will LOVE the results!

Okay, after that lecture here’s some levity re: Facebook. Enjoy – and don’t do anything else while you watch it, because then you will actually enjoy it!

 

When to Monetize a Web Page

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Monetizing a web page means putting advertising for a company or product not your own on a web page of your own, and being paid in some way for posting that advertising. That can be in the form of a display ad or an in-text link. Some advertising works this way: every time someone clicks on an ad, the web site owner is paid a fee, often as little as a penny. If you raise even $10 a month with such web ads, you are considered doing very well in terms of revenue. The most popular source for these is Google Adsense. Some organizations also join a program like Amazon Associates and link to books on their web sites as well. Ads can also be done in the old-fashioned way: a business pays you a fee up front to display the ad for a set period of time.

Many nonprofits and NGOs are tempted put ads on their web pages as a way to generate much-needed revenue. But is it appropriate for a nonprofit or NGO to put ads on a web page? After all, many nonprofits put advertising in their print materials. For instance, there is nothing unusual about seeing advertising in a printed program for a nonprofit theater performance. Or a flier or brochure for a nonprofit event (“Sponsored by….”). But there is no question when you look at those printed materials – at least the ones that are well-designed, that the focus of the material is the content, not the advertising. In addition, note that you probably won’t see advertising on a brochure that lists an organization’s health services or an organization’s annual report.

As a nonprofit organization, the purpose of your web site is to reach out to potential and current clients/customers/program participants, volunteers and donors, as well as to educate the press, elected officials, other organizations, the general public – even the surrounding neighborhood. Your web site isn’t just to get new clients or donors; it’s also supposed to build your organization’s credibility. As a nonprofit organzation, an NGO, even a government or public sector agency, you are a mission-based organization. Advertising on your nonprofit or NGO web site easily takes away from that web site purpose, as well as your mission. It also encourages people to leave your web site!

Online ads can negatively affect your nonprofit organization’s credibility: one Pro-Choice site I visited had monetized its blog with Google Adsense, and all the ads were for anti-choice organizations, making it difficult to tell what the blogger actually stood for. I have visited web site for NGOs that are supposed to be helping poor women in a developing country and was greeted with ads for mail order brides.

I think most of the material on a nonprofit or an NGO web site – and a government web site, for that matter – is far too precious for advertising, and I don’t allowed such on nonprofit organization’s web sites I have managed. When would I bend my no-advertising rule? In these narrow circumstances:

  • A nonprofit animal shelter creating a web page on its site to list dog trainers, pet sitters, pet groomers and kennels in the area; any business that wanted to be listed would have to pay, and on the page, it would be made clear on the page that companies paid to be listed. There would also be a strong disclaimer saying the shelter in no way endorses any of these companies.
  • A nonprofit theater or dance company creating a web page on its site to list restaurants or other local businesses that want its patrons to visit before or after a performance. Again, on the page, it would be made clear that companies paid to be listed. There would also be a strong disclaimer saying the organization in no way endorses any of these companies.
  • A public high school that creates a page on its web site to list karate schools, dance schools, gymnastic schools, and other businesses that cater to youth. Again, on the page, it would be made clear that companies paid to be listed. There would also be a strong disclaimer saying the school in no way endorses any of these companies.
  • An NGO in a developing country creating a page on its site to list restaurants, guest houses, tour companies, even security agencies that could be utilized in the area. Again, on the page, it would be made clear that companies paid to be listed. There would also be a strong disclaimer saying the NGO in no way endorses any of these companies.
  • When a company or series of companies sponsor an event by a nonprofit organization, with cash (not just an in-kind gift). Even then, the sponsor’s logo is small and in no way dominates the one or two pages its listed on and, in addition, clicking on the logo doesn’t take you to the company; instead, it takes you to a page explaining that this company (or these companies) is/are sponsoring the event, why sponsorship is so critical, etc; on that explanation page, only then, am I willing to link to the sponsor’s own web site.

In all of these cases, advertisers are vetted, and its clear to anyone visiting the page that the listings are there because the businesses paid a fee. Such online advertising should never be open-ended; it should be up for renewal in three, six, nine or 12 months.

Even if you are not a nonprofit company, NGO or government agency – you’re a for-profit business and you are focused on making money – remember that advertising on your web site should never draw the reader’s focus away from the content so much that the advertising dominates the page. Ads need to be placed carefully on a web site, without interfering with the content. You don’t want your web site confused with those sites that masquerade as produced by some helpful individual or organization but are, in fact, online ad farms; they are set up only to generate advertising revenue, with rather general text that is rarely updated.

My consulting business is not a nonprofit. Even so, I’ve been careful about online advertising, because I don’t want my web site to ever be confused with an ad farm, or to give a visitor a reason to click off the site after looking at just one page. The primary purpose of most of my web pages is to promote me, as a consultant and an expert, and in many cases, online advertising would take away from that. That’s why I don’t monetize my blog at all either. That said, I do use Google Adsense and Amazon Associates on a set of pages on my site targeted specifically at volunteers and potential volunteers, rather than my primary target audience: nonprofits, NGOs, and government/public sector agencies, as well as corporations that want to engage in community-betterment programs. I set up these monetized pages because I got tired of responding to the same messages from volunteers and potential volunteers again and again: how do I volunteer, how do I find community service to fulfill a court order, how can I find funding for volunteering overseas, how can I volunteer in Japan/Haiti/latest disaster site, etc. I could have simply stopped responding to those questions, but decided I’d continue to offer the help and make money from such as well. It’s a gamble, but so far, it’s paid off. I update my Adsense settings constantly in an effort to keep the advertising appropriate – something an ad farm doesn’t do. Note just how different these pages look from the rest of my web site – also an effort to distinguish these money-making pages from the rest of my site, which have a completely different purpose.

Also see: Web policies and security for nonprofit organizations

Nonprofits: Use the Car Mechanic Business Model

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I’m in Budapest, Hungary where, yesterday, I presented an all-day intensive onsite workshop for education advising centers throughout Eastern and Western Europe affiliated with EducationUSA, a global network supported by the U.S. Department of State. My workshop was regarding business planning and creating revenue streams/fee-based services. I’ve certainly done business planning and managed fee-based services at nonprofits, and I’ve consulted on this subject before with nonprofits, but I have never trained on it.

It was a fascinating challenge for me to develop a hands-on workshop that would be relevant to an audience representing so many different countries, and, therefore, very different rules, different cultures, etc. (countries included Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Lithuania, Russia, Portugal, Ukraine, the UK, Germany, Slovenia and Spain). To get everyone on the same page regarding what I meant by business planning, fees, customer service, and financial sustainability, I used a car mechanic as a model — a car mechanic, it seems to me, is a rather universal concept, someone we are all familiar with, even if we don’t have a car.

To be provocative, I ofcourse used an image of a FEMALE car mechanic.

And then I talked about what makes a car mechanic successful:

  • Her prices are reasonable (at least understandable – why she charges for what for a particular task or material).
  • She helps you to understand what she will do.
  • She can give you an immediate, realistic estimate for how long a job will take and when she can do that job.
  • She does the job she says she will do, on time.
  • She exudes quality.

In short, her customers TRUST her, because of the above activities and approach.

And then we related that back to nonprofit businesses – how, really, we have to do all those same things regarding our organizations, even if we have just one funder who gives us a mega-grant to pay everything.

I think it worked really well at setting the stage for all the rest of the workshop, if I do say so myself. I’m sure that most car mechanics don’t use the forms and exercises I used with these centers, like a SWOT analysis, to develop their business plans. But the car mechanic approach seemed to help my oh-so-multi-cultural group understand how to use those tools.

One of the biggest takeaways that attendees seemed to really seize on: clients who are expected to pay for something anticipate gaining significantly more from an organization than those who get the service for free. That slide got referred back to again and again.

And, finally, I have to thank Michael Keizer for posting the infographic shouldiworkforfree.com in the comments section of a recent previous blog of mine – I ended up using it in the workshop, after being reminded of it by my colleague Ann Merrill, and the group not only laughed, they said it actually helped them in thinking about what to charge for!

Added bonus: you can see my photos from this amazing trip.

More about my consulting services and my training services.

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

A reminder: The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook provides detailed advice on creating assignments for online volunteers, for working with online volunteers, for using the Internet to support and involve ALL volunteers, including volunteers that provide service onsite, for ensuring success in virtual volunteering, and for using the Internet to build awareness and support for all volunteering at your program. Tech tools come and go, but certain community engagement principles never change, and those principles are detailed in this comprehensive guide. 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 as a digital book or as a traditional paperback. It’s co-written by myself and Susan Ellis.

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