Tag Archives: online

How TechSoup Helped Keep My Skills Sharp

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Among the various topics I train on is volunteer engagement – how to create opportunities for a variety of different kinds of volunteers (short-term, long-term, teens, university students, highly-skilled professionals donating their work pro bono, onsite, online, etc.), how to recruit different kinds of volunteers, how to measure success in a volunteer program, virtual volunteering, how to build the capacity of staff to involve volunteers, etc.

How do I keep my volunteer management skills and knowledge up-to-date so I know what the heck to say in a training or a blog? In addition to reading, reading, reading – not just materials specific to volunteer engagement, but also materials regarding telecommuting / work shifting, team-building, project management, human resources management, conflict resolution – I also volunteer frequently volunteer myself, and I try to have regular experiences as a manager of volunteers.

For five months – ending this week – I’ve been the interim online forum community manager for TechSoup. I approach online community management as volunteer management, and the TechSoup Community Forum is a perfect example of that: online community members are volunteers. They contribute time and expertise, and they aren’t paid for it. It’s the community manager’s role to:

  • encourage their participation,
  • create opportunities for their participation,
  • acknowledge their contributions and their feedback in a meaningful way, and
  • promote their accomplishments and feedback within the organization, making sure their contributions are valued within the organization, across departments and staff hierarchies.

It’s easier said than done, particularly when in an interim, part-time role: I don’t want to create any systems that the permanent person will inherit and hate. I don’t want to start a bunch of processes that the permanent person will decide aren’t what he or she really wants, and when done away with, leave people feeling like their time has been wasted. In an interim, part-time role, sometimes the best thing you can do is identify what the permanent, full-time person will need to focus on – although that can feel like, “Hi, here’s all the problems I found, good luck!”

These kinds of experiences provide the kind of reality check I need in order to stay sharp regarding volunteer management training. How can I blog, or get up in front of a room full of people in charge of volunteer engagement at nonprofits, NGOs, government agencies, schools and other mission-based organizations, and make lots of recommendations about volunteer engagement that I haven’t tested myself – and tested relatively recently?

This experience has challenged me on a lot of levels, as all these experiences do. It’s sent me running to re-read materials about working with highly-skilled, high-responsibility volunteers and how to deal with conflict online. But the experience has also confirmed a lot of what I’ve been writing about and training on, particularly about the importance of

  • written task descriptions for ALL volunteers, and ensuring expectations are understood
  • having an end date for EVERY volunteer role / assignment, and giving volunteers that are approaching that end date the opportunity to renew their role for a set amount of time (creating a new end date) or to withdraw from the role altogether
  • having various staff people work with/listen to volunteers, not just the volunteer manager
  • involving volunteers in the organization’s decision-making in some meaningful way (even if final decisions are not in their hands)
  • continuously cultivating new volunteers for leadership roles
  • encouraging long-term volunteers to change roles, even temporarily
  • encouraging long-term, high-responsibility volunteers to take breaks from their roles every few years
  • lots and lots of communication – including telling volunteers in high-responsibility roles what YOU are doing every week!

I could go on and on as well about what I’ve learned in this experience about remote staffing, remote management, workshifting/telecommuting, virtual teams, time management, staff time budgeting and project management! You can never know-it-all on those subjects…

As I review my experience over the last five months, a lot is on my mind:

  • what I would have done differently had I known I would be in the role for five months instead of three months, or had I been full-time instead of part-time, had I known a bit more about the overall mood and outlook of the volunteers when I started.
  • what I did that worked, and what didn’t.

It’s important to review that for yourself, even if you are in a permanent volunteer management position – do you do that for yourself after ever major project, or at least twice a year? You should! You can’t improve without that kind of assessment.

I’ve been involved with TechSoup since the early 1990s, when it was called CompuMentor and was focused on matching IT volunteers with nonprofits – I started off as a client, and most of my experience has been as a volunteer. It’s been fascinating to see the organization from this different point-of-view, as a paid consultant. In fact, this experience has renewed my desire to continuing volunteering to moderate one of the TechSoup Community Forum branches! Thanks, TechSoup, not just for the paycheck, but for the incredible learning experience!

On a related note, here’s a profile of Exhale’s new strategy of turning over more decision-making and responsibilities to its leadership volunteers. Volunteers are capable of leadership roles, and this is a good example of that. It’s not always appropriate in every situation, it’s not always best for every organization, and I’m not at all commenting on my experience with TechSoup by posting this – rather, I’m trying to counter some comments I’ve seen online lately along the lines of, “But that role is too important for just a volunteer!.” I share this as a great example of an organization making a conscious choice to put volunteers in charge because the organization has realized it’s what’s best for the organization. If anything, this link is a comment for GIRL SCOUTS OF THE USA. And that’s another blog some other time…

Also see: Knowledge transfer – it’s more than a buzz phrase

Tags: project, program, programme, volunteer, volunteers, volunteering, engagement, involvement, management, community, stakeholders, charities, charity, NGOs, non-governmental, organizations, nonprofit, civil, society

latest moment of volunteer management madness

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Many of my blogs and web pages are inspired by first-hand experience as a volunteer or as a volunteer manager. And, sadly, it’s often bad experiences, usually as a volunteer myself, that lead to new blogs and web pages.

Of course I don’t name the organizations that inspire these blogs, and I try to put a very positive spin on these, to help other nonprofits, NGOs, libraries, schools, public sector agencies and other mission-based organizations to not make the same mistakes I’ve experienced. I consider them learning experiences, and I want others to learn from them as well.

Here’s some of these blogs and web pages that were inspired by my own experiences as a volunteer:

Here’s the latest moment-of-volunteer-management-madness inspired by a real organization:

This particular multi-state organization has leadership volunteering roles, on the local level, to handle the organization’s project management, including the management of local volunteers, in individual communities. But often, some of these local leadership roles are not filled, because no one is interested or no one has the time to do all of the tasks a particular role requires. Therefore, the lead volunteer for all other leadership volunteers in that community gets saddled with all the roles that aren’t filled, in addition to all of his or her other volunteer responsibilities.

One group of leadership volunteers in one community had a brilliant, oh-so-logical idea for lessening the burden on the lead volunteer and getting necessary tasks done: allow volunteers to commit to completing individual tasks, rather than the entire, hard-to-fill, leadership roles. For instance, allow one volunteer to be in charge of the online community for local volunteers, another volunteer to be in charge of updating the web site, and another volunteer to help with designing paper fliers – which, altogether, are most of the duties of the communications manager volunteer.

There were people ready to assume these much less-intensive volunteer roles. That means all the tasks of that role get done, the local lead volunteer manager – a volunteer herself – wouldn’t be overburdened trying to do these tasks as well as her other responsibilities, and maybe, after a few months, one of these task-based volunteers would decide, hey, I think I could do the entire job myself – I’m ready to commit to the entire leadership role! It’s a fantastic opportunity to cultivate new leadership volunteers – people who might get a taste of the experience and decide they would love to take on a more substantial role.

So, great idea, right? Well, not according to the organization. An employee representative who attended the local meeting where this idea was introduced quashed the idea. She said that the entire role has to be filled by one person and absolutely cannot be divided among several volunteers. Since no one is going to take that role in its entirety, all those tasks are going to be assumed by the already over-burdened team leader.

What a mistake! What a missed opportunity to cultivate new volunteers and new leaders!

Well, at least I got a new blog out of it…

 

Online Fan Communities Work to Save the World

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Even back in the 1990s, there were thousands of online communities for people who wanted to to share information and excitement about a particular television show, movie, sports team, celebrity, hobby or literary genre. Back then, instead of via Facebook or a YahooGroup, it was via USENET or American Online. Just as offline communities and groups will often “pass the hat” at their gatherings for a good cause, or participate in the occasional one-day group volunteering event, Internet-based fan groups came together online or in person back in the 1990s to improve their communities, promote a cause or generate funds for a nonprofit organization. Often, these fans engaged in philanthropy with no prompting from any charity or formal organization. I highlighted some of those fan-based online volunteering efforts. while at the Virtual Volunteering Project in 1999.

I’m not at all surprised that the practice is continuing: the recent National Conference on Media Reform in Boston, organized by the non-profit organization Free Press, featured the panel “Pop Culture Warriors: How Online Fan Communities Are Organizing to Save the World.” This blog details one effort:

The Harry Potter Alliance is a group of devotees worldwide who have hocus-pocused their shared love of the Potter books and movies into genuine social activism. As their website declares, they use the power of the Internet to “work with partner NGOs [non-profit, non-governmental organizations] in alerting the world to the dangers of global warming, poverty, and genocide. Work with our partners for equal rights regardless of race, gender, and sexuality. Encourage our members to hone the magic of their creativity in endeavoring to make the world a better place.”

The Alliance mobilized its fanbase to win a $250,000 grant from Chase Community Giving, beating out more than 10,000 other charities in a Facebook competition. They’ve donated more than 55,000 books to school libraries around the world, including the Mississippi Delta and Rwanda, and are helping to build a school library in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Five planeloads of supplies were sent to Haiti after last year’s earthquake. They’ve registered first-time voters and even petitioned Time Warner to make Harry Potter chocolates Fair Trade: that is, chocolate not made — or cocoa beans harvested — under inhumane conditions, such as starvation wages or child slavery.

The audio of the conference session on online fan communities is here.

If you are a nonprofit organization looking to increase diversity among your volunteering / supporter ranks, find out if there are fan groups in your area. Find them by searching on YahooGroups, GoogleGroups and Meetup.com. Also ask your current volunteers – and ask them to, in turn, ask their friends and family members – if they are a part of an online fan-based community and if that community would be receptive to message about volunteering at your organization. Create a written pitch just for the particular group you want to approach, inviting them to learn more about volunteering with your organization, or inviting them to attend a particular event or activity. Food banks, for instance, could put out word that those hosting viewing parties of a particular TV show could encourage attendees to bring food donations for the food bank. Or an environmental group hosting a trail or beach cleanup could get the word out about the event to fan-based groups. Or a school-based mentoring program could let a local chapter of a fan-based group know about the need for mentors, how easy it is to be involved, the difference mentors make, etc.

As noted in the article I wrote originally about online volunteering by fan-based groups,

  • For annual events: “People should keep in mind that these kind of events start off slow. You shouldn’t try to start huge. Let support build. Let the word get out. It will get bigger every year.”
  • Have a lead person or official chairperson who is well-recognized within the online community to lead communication activities with the group on your behalf. They want to hear from one of their own, not an outsider.
  • Talk to the group before the event about the recognition it may receive. If they are going to show up in their Star Trek uniforms for your one-day volunteering event, get their permission before you have local news reporters come out to film them – no one wants to be made fun of for their passions!

If you are a fan-based group looking for a nonprofit or NGO to support, engage in a conversation with your membership about what that organization should be: some members may already be affiliated with an organization and others may want to join them. Or they may know that a person affiliated with whatever you are following – a TV show, a book, a movie, a sports team, a singer, etc. – is already affiliated with a charity your membership like to add their support to.

And remember: this group will talk after the event or volunteering activity, online, in the online community, about their experience. Work with the group’s leadership to ensure that you hear feedback that can help you improve activities in the future, that might look great on your web site, or that simply might energize your organization to engage with this community again.

Also see Finding Community Service and Volunteering for Groups.

Microvolunteering is virtual volunteering

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Imagine if I announced that a one-day beach clean up, or a one-day walk-a-thon, that brought hundreds or thousands of people together for one-off service in support of a nonprofit organization or cause, wasn’t really volunteering. Imagine if I said it isn’t volunteering because most of the participants who are donating their time and service aren’t screened, aren’t interviewed, aren’t background-checked, and aren’t trained beyond maybe a 10 minute speech about things to keep in mind during the experience. Imagine if I also said it was because most participants may never volunteer again with that organization or for the cause.

Imagine if I claimed that people who sewed or knitted items from their home, in their spare time, for some nonprofit group helping kids in hospitals or people suffering from a particular disease, weren’t really volunteers. They also aren’t screened the way most other volunteers are, aren’t background-checked, and usually have no deadline for their work – they get it done when they get it done, if at all.

I would look ridiculous to make such claims. The volunteer management community would laugh me out of the workshop or conference (or the conference hotel bar, as the case may be). Or off the Intertubes.

Of course all of these activities are volunteering. In fact, they are all MICROvolunteering, without a computer! (most volunteer managers call such episodic volunteering, but the new name is much snazzier)

The folks behind the microvolunteering movement The Extraordinaries (though their web site is now called Sparked.com) continue to try to say microvolunteering isn’t virtual volunteering. Which is as preposterous as me claiming those other one-off volunteering gigs like one-day beach clean ups aren’t really volunteering. Of course microvolunteering is virtual volunteering: it’s unpaid, donated service in support of nonprofit organizations, provided via a computer or handheld device. How much time it may or may not take, and how volunteers are or aren’t screened or supported, is immaterial.

I’ve had an ongoing battle with the people behind the Extraordinaires for a while now. They burst online a few years ago, claiming that there was no need for traditional volunteering, or traditional volunteer management, because everything nonprofits need by online volunteers can be done through what they were calling microvolunteering: people who volunteered for just a few minutes at a time whenever they might get an inclination to help, from wherever they were. Web sites would be built. Topics would be researched. Logos would be designed. Marketing plans would be written. Children would be mentored. All by people waiting for a plane or during time outs at sporting events. No need to make time to volunteer — just volunteer whenever you have some spare time, even if that’s just for a minute or two.

I challenged them on various blogs and the ARNOVA discussion group, pointing out that, indeed, microvolunteering can work for some tasks – and I had been saying so since the late 1990s, when I called the practice byte-sized volunteering – but most certainly not for mentoring a child (online or face-to-face, mentoring is effective only if its a long-term, ongoing commitment that builds trust – something I learned when working with the National Mentoring Partnership in launching their standards for online mentoring) and many other activities undertaken by community-serving organizations. I pointed out that microvolunteering most definitely can work for something like logo design — which, in fact, I wrote about back in 2006, per the first NetSquared conference that highlighted several examples of such. But I also pointed out that successful volunteer engagement isn’t about just getting work done; it is, in fact, about relationship-building — recruiting people who could turn into donors, for instance, or raising awareness and changing behaviors — and it’s also about reserving certain tasks for volunteers specifically, because some tasks are actually best done by volunteers.

This recent blog shows that some of those arguments are starting to seep into their thinking – Hurrah! – but they still need to evolve their concept. They are right to point out that microvolunteering doesn’t employ some volunteer management techniques in the same way as other volunteering, but they just can’t get their mind around the fact that LOTS of volunteering doesn’t, like a one-day beach clean up doesn’t. But that doesn’t somehow negate microvolunteering as volunteering, or as virtual volunteering.

Volunteer management and support must be adjusted for a wide variety of volunteering scenarios, online and off; while there are certain fundamentals of volunteer management that are always the same for all volunteering, online or offline, microvolunteering or longer-term, such as capturing volunteer contact info, ensuring volunteers are invited to future opportunities, thanking volunteers for their contributions and showing volunteers how their service has been of value, other aspects of volunteer management have to be tailored to the unique situation, and that does, indeed, mean not recruiting micro-volunteers the same way as long-term volunteers, on or offline. 

In addition to their continued refusal to accept that, indeed, microvolunteering is virtual volunteering, they also continue to make some other misguided statements, such as:

With microvolunteering, ‘You hire EVERY volunteer.’ The end result gets better as more people work on and peer-review your project. You turn no-one away.

You do NOT hire every volunteer in a microvolunteering or crowd-sourcing project. In fact, you reject MOST of them — for a logo design, for instance, most people’s ideas are rejected – most ideas are not used. For open source software design that allows anyone to contribute to the code, not every submission gets included in the released version. It doesn’t mean those volunteering efforts aren’t appreciated and that you shouldn’t thank them and celebrate such, but the reality is that you are not going to use most of the work submitted for such a crowd-sourcing endeavor.

And as for their comment that The end result gets better as more people work on and peer-review your project, I could point to dozens of pages on Wikipedia that have gotten worse as more people have worked on them. The idea that more volunteers automatically means better is something that only someone who does not work with volunteers regularly — particularly online volunteers — would say.

If they want to claim that microvolunteering is the coolest form of virtual volunteering, or even the coolest form of volunteering, I wouldn’t be quite so passionate in my arguments – what’s coolest is, ofcourse, entirely subjective. Of course, I’d still argue that it wasn’t — I’d be speaking as a person who has been both a long-term online volunteer and a micro-volunteer, and has recruited and managed both kinds of online volunteers. To me, mircrovolunteering is like a one-night stand: interesting/fun in the moment, but then quickly forgotten. Um, not that I know what a one-night stand is… Such might lead to something more substantial, but usually, it won’t – and that means it’s not for everyone.

But this fact Ben and Jacob will have to eventually accept: microvolunteering, online, is virtual volunteering. And it’s been going on long before the Extraordinaires showed up. Proposing that it isn’t creates only confusion, segregates them from terrific conversations and resources and networks, and holds them back from the full success they could have with their efforts; accepting that they are part of virtual volunteering would open many more opportunities for their endeavor and ensure their long-term success.

Also see:

Micro-Volunteering and Crowd-Sourcing: Not-So-New Trends in Virtual Volunteering/Online Volunteering

But virtual volunteering means it takes no time, right?

What online community service is – and is not

Rapid Development Plan to get you using networking tech with your communities

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Too many nonprofits, NGOs, government community programs, etc. are still not using the Internet beyond email and looking up a phone number on a web site. Many managers of volunteers in particular still avoid the use of networking tech. I wish this wasn’t true, but I even hear the foot-dragging from seasoned volunteer management consultants: I really need to start using this stuff, I guess…

If you or your organization still hasn’t fully embraced the Internet to support and involve the community, including your volunteers, here is what volunteers — and perhaps other potential supporters, such as donors, and maybe even city officials, the press, etc. — may be thinking about your organization:

  • This organization must not be very well-run or be very well-organized.
  • This organization may be trying to hide something.
  • This organization doesn’t have anything to offer teens, 20-somethings, young professionals, etc.
  • The important decisions that happen at this organization happen behind closed doors with just the senior staff and the board. The community, including volunteers and clients, aren’t involved in decision-making.
  • This organization is stuck in the past. I want to be involved in an organization that’s very much aware of the present and is ready for the future.

I’ve been beating the use-the-Internet-in-your-work drum since 1994, and find myself frustrated that, 17 years later, there are still so many nonprofit staff people, including coordinator of volunteers, who won’t really use the Internet — and even have other staff members and volunteers reading and responding to their email!

It’s by no means the entire nonprofit sector that is holding out: I think most nonprofits DO get it. There are thousands and thousands of nonprofit organizations and others doing fantastic work, even pioneering work, in using a range of online tools, including so-called online social networking, to engage a variety of people. These organizations are seen by volunteers as responsive, as really listening and acknowledging that they have heard what volunteers are saying. And volunteers love to talk about their experience with such organizations to their friends, family and colleagues — online and face-to-face.

How can you get to get on the other side of the digital divide, if you aren’t already? How can you get your entire organization there, especially those hardcore holdouts? 

I’ve developed a “Rapid Development Plan” to get any org – & the coordinator of volunteers – using the most essential online tools ASAP. It’s the featured training for Jan. on e-volunteerism. It is a day-by-day plan, doling out tiny learning activities every day that will rapidly build up anyone’s skills regarding getting the most out of networking tech. It’s my last effort to reach the tech holdouts!

Subscribe to e-volunteerism to access the training ($45), or you can pay for 48-hour access ($10).

Also see these free resources:

What online community service is – and is not

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There is a for-profit company based in Florida, Community Service Help, Inc., that claims it can match people have been assigned court-ordered community service “with a charity that is currently accepting online volunteers” – for a fee, payable by the person in need of community service. There is no list on the company’s web site about what people do as online volunteers through the company, and no list of “charity partners” that use this service – at least not as of the day I’m posting this blog. There is a list of testimonials from people who have supposedly used the service — testimonials which all sound amazingly the same, as though they were all written by the same person. There is also no listing of the names of the staff people and their credentials to show their experience regarding online volunteering or community service.

I found out about this company because someone was posting about it on YahooAnswers > Community Service in response to anyone who was seeking community service per court order.

I was alarmed for a number of reasons, most of which I’ve noted in the opening paragraph, in bold, and also because online volunteering opportunities are plentiful – so plentiful that it’s nothing short of exploitative to charge people to find them. Here’s just a FEW of the many, many places to find online volunteering (Aug. 14, 2015 clarification: note that this is a list of examples of legitimate virtual volunteering with legitimate nonprofits, and it’s offered to show what online volunteering really looks like; not all of these nonprofits meet the standards required by courts or probation officers for community service):

Distributed Proofreaders. These online volunteers turn public domain books into online books, mostly for Project Gutenberg.

Electronic Emissary, one of the best known and most respected online tutoring programs, where adult volunteers help students in a variety of complex academic-based projects.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Volunteer Monitoring Program
This is a mix of online and remote volunteering. Volunteers collect data from the environments around them and submit the information online to the EPA.

Idealist/Action Without Borders has many of the volunteer tasks listed on its site that are online. To find them, do keyword search using online and virtual. You will have to read each assignment carefully to ensure they are actually virtual.

Extraordinaries, hosts a database of micro-volunteering assignments (tasks that can be completed in around an hour or two) in support of different nonprofit organizations.

Infinite Family, an online mentoring program matching adults and families in the USA with at-risk, impoverished children in South Africa.

LibriVox, a nonprofit that coordinates online volunteers to record audio versions of public domain books.

Nabuur, which recruits online volunteers to support organizations working in or for the developing world.

TestPrepPractice Math Tutors

United Nations Online Volunteering Service lists at least a few hundred online volunteering opportunities at any given time, at organizations working in or for the developing world (not just UN agencies). This is the largest database anywhere of online volunteering opportunities.

VolunteerMatch has many of the volunteer tasks listed on its site tagged as virtual volunteering.

That’s not only a short, not-at-all comprehensive list of organizations that are focused specifically on online volunteers: there are thousands of traditional organizations that involve online volunteers as translators, web page developers, researchers, writers, subject-matter experts (SMEs), pro bono consultants, and on and on (I volunteer with the Girl Scouts, and my service is 90% online; I help with communications issues). And there’s also dozens of organizations that allow volunteers to engage in home-based volunteering, knitting blankets for babies who are HIV positive, or organizing food drives for local free food pantries or local animal shelters, and on and on. (Aug. 14, 2015 clarification: note that the aforementioned is a list of examples of legitimate virtual volunteering with legitimate nonprofits, and it’s offered to show what online volunteering really looks like; not all of these nonprofits meet the standards required by courts or probation officers for community service. You can find a comprehensive listing of where to find legitimate online volunteering here, but note that not all nonprofits, online or onsite with traditional volunteer engagement, can accommodate court-ordered community service folks)

So, of course, I was alarmed to find a for-profit company charging people for access to online volunteering opportunities when such opportunities are so freely and easily accessible. In addition, there is no guarantee that an agent of the court will accept online service as fulfillment of community service; I have been approached by dozens of people who want to volunteer online for community service fulfillment, and when I’ve told them to get permission from the court first, they call or email back to say the judge or probation officer refused, because the judge or probation officer felt there was not enough monitoring/supervision. Even so, many courts have been open to the idea, so long as the nonprofit or government agency that will involve the online volunteer can provide proof that the person really did the hours needed.

(I’ve been lucky enough to have involved some court-ordered folks as online volunteers – and I have to say that all of them have ended up volunteering for more hours than they were required to do.)

I started investigating this company immediately. I contacted several associations of nonprofits, including the Florida Association of Nonprofit Organizations (FANO), a couple of DOVIAs (directors of volunteers in agencies) in Florida and various colleagues that research volunteering, including online volunteering. Not one had ever heard of this organization. So I filed a notice with the Florida State Attorney General’s cyberfraud division. The Consumer Services Department of Miami-Dade County began its investigation in December.

Today, the owner of Community Service Help, Inc. called me because of the investigation. He wanted to explain what his company does. And what does his company do? A person pays him $30, and he gives you access to online videos that are supposed to help you be a better person. You do not perform any community service at all; you watch videos. The company’s representative was adamant that watching videos is community service — and that watching them online makes it online community service. The people who use his service do no activities other than watching videos as their “community service.” Through a nonprofit organization in Michigan, he arranges for paperwork to be sent to the court or probation officer that says the paying customer has completed the “community service” and how many hours they spent doing such.

Of course, watching videos is not community service. Court-ordered community service offline looks like this. Or this. Community service involves activity, it involves engagement, it involves an action to do something that needs to be done and that actually helps the community or a cause. Note that there’s no mention at all on these real community service pages regarding watching videos to fulfill court-ordered community service.

Online community service activities look just like online volunteering activities – and also don’t involve watching videos, outside of a person training to be, say, an online volunteer mentor or, perhaps, judging videos that have been submitted to a nonprofit or government agency for some kind of contest. Or maybe watching videos to find information an organization is looking for as part of the person’s online research assignment.

One can only imagine what the paperwork that Community Service Help, Inc. submits to the court or a probation office, or that is submitted by its mysterious “charity partners,” says that the person actually did to complete his or her community service hours (good luck finding an example of such online). I’m sure the judges or probation officers have no idea that all the person did to complete his or her hours was to pay a fee and watch videos on his lap top or smart phone (or, at least, someone watched those videos — who knows who!), that there was no completion of an actual activity that helps a nonprofit, a government agency or those such agencies serve.

The further shock is that, as I’ve researched, there seems to be many of these organizations charging people who have been assigned court-ordered service for freely-available information and resources! Another one is Community Service 101, which charges a monthly fee for users to track and report their hours – something they could do for free on a shared GoogleDoc spreadsheet. There’s also this nonprofit, Facing the Future With Hope, which also offers to find online community service, for a fee. Note that neither web site offers any examples of what online volunteers actually do, what nonprofits actually involve these online volunteers, etc.

While I have no issue with a nonprofit organization, or even a government agency, charging a volunteer — a person who is helping on his or her own, or because a court or school is requiring such — to cover expenses (materials, training, staff time to supervise and support the volunteer, criminal background check, etc.), I have a real problem with companies charging people for freely-available information, and for judges and probation officers accepting online community service that consists of a person watching videos.

If it’s a for-profit company, you should be able to find on their web site:

  • A list of courts, by name, city and state, that have accepted community service arranged through this company (not just “courts in Florida”, but “the circuit court of Harpo County, Florida”
  • A list about specific activities that people do as volunteers through the company
  • A list of “charity partners” or nonprofit partners or government agency partners that use this service
  • The names of staff and their credentials to show their experience regarding online volunteering or community service.
  • A list of all fees – specific dollar amounts
  • A scan of a letter they have provided to a court, a probation officer, a school, a university, etc. (with the contact name for the person blocked out, ofcourse), so you know exactly what the organization says to confirm community service.
  • A list of every court, school and university that has accepted the community service hours this company has ever arranged for anyone.

If it’s a non-profit company, you should be able to find on their web site:

  • Their most recent annual report that notes their income and expenditures for their last fiscal year
  • The names of the board of directors
  • The names of staff and their credentials to show their experience regarding online volunteering or community service.
  • A list of courts, by name, city and state, that have accepted community service arranged through this company (not just “courts in Florida”, but “the circuit court of Harpo County, Florida”
  • A list about specific activities that people do as volunteers through the nonprofit organization
  • A list of “charity partners” or nonprofit partners or government agency partners that use this service
  • A list of all fees – specific dollar amounts
  • A scan of a letter they have provided to a court, a probation officer, a school, a university, etc. (with the contact name for the person blocked out, ofcourse), so you know exactly what the organization says to confirm community service.
  • A list of every court, school and university that has accepted the community service hours this company has ever arranged for anyone.

Good look trying to find this information on the pay-a-fee-for-community-service sites named on this blog.

Will organizations that claim to represent the community service sector such as the Corporation for National Service or AL!VE, investigate? And take a stand? Stay tuned…

November 6, 2012 update: I just got got email from a TV reporter in Atlanta, Georgia who used my blogs about this scam to create this excellent video about this scam and the people behind it. Thanks Atlanta Fox 5!

February 2013 update: Here’s the latest on what’s going on with this company.

2014 update: The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook offers detailed advice that would help any court understand how to evaluate the legitimacy of an online volunteering program. It’s geared towards nonprofits who want to involve volunteers, but any court or probation officer would find it helpful, as more and more people assigned community service need legitimate, credible online volunteering options.

August 14, 2015 update: this company continues to try to lure people with false promises about online community service. I have info on how they attempt to harass me online, and the blog links to all of the blogs I’ve written about this and other countries to date, including accounts of people whose community service through this company was rejected by the court.

July 6, 2016 update: the web site of the company Community Service Help went away sometime in January 2016, and all posts to its Facebook page are now GONE. More info at this July 2016 blog: Selling community service leads to arrest, conviction

Also see:

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

This blog is one of the most popular I have ever written. However, all of the time and effort that has gone into researching this topic and sharing what I’ve learned here has been entirely unfunded – I’ve done it entirely as a volunteer. f 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.

Needed: Online Volunteering Research

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On the Volunteers & Technology forum at TechSoup, someone asked me what I thought the top five potential research areas are regarding online volunteering.

My answer is there, but I’ll put it here as well, with some additional info.

First, I should note that no institution is doing online research regarding online volunteering, and no one person is consistently doing it, including me — I do it when I can, as I have no funding to do such (and, actually, I haven’t been seeking any). I’ve done more in the last two years, for the revision of the Virtual Volunteering Guidebook (to be released early next year), than I’ve done in the 10 years before — but I was stunned at the lack of research by other people I could reference.

Studies regarding volunteering don’t include anything about online volunteering, despite the practice being more than 30 years old. I get an email about twice a year from some graduate student wanting to do a study about online volunteering, and I’m happy to help them, but their topic is always the same, and not at all what’s needed by the field: the motivation of online volunteers. Snooze.

For practitioners — as in nonprofit and government staff that want to be successful in engaging online volunteers — I think the priority research needs regarding online volunteering are the following, but not in any order of priority — any of them would be hugely welcomed by practitioners:

    • What are the factors for success in an online volunteering completing a volunteering assignment.
  • What are the factors that keep an online volunteer supporting an organization for at least a year.

For those first two, practitioners have been talking about this, and I’ve been talking to them about it, but I haven’t been researching it in a consistent way that would meet rigorous academic standards. For those who have been involving online volunteers themselves: we know the answers, for the most part, but the only actual academic research is from back in the 1990s. There really needs to be current research, and not by me. Such research would be an affirmation that’s really needed by practitioners in mobilizing resources to involve volunteers and, as there are a few people running around claiming loudly that no screening, no orientation, no prepping of online volunteers is needed at all, that online volunteers will magically complete their assignments without organizations being so “bureaucratic”, it means a lot of volunteer managers can get push back from senior management when asking for critically-needed resources to properly screen and support online volunteers.

Other research priorities, IMO:

    • Are there management needs that are different for online volunteers representing different groups (by age, by geographic region, by profession, by education level, etc.) to complete assignments and to be inspired to continue supporting an organization over months rather than just days or weeks.
    • How much does involving online volunteers cost – a comparison of at least 20 organizations in the USA (or any one country, for that matter).
    • What differences are there in the success of involving online volunteers in non-English-speaking countries in Europe in comparison with North America?
  • What differences are there in the success of involving online volunteers in developing or transitional countries where Internet access is available to large portions of the population (India, Nigeria, South Africa, Pakistan, Poland, etc.) in comparison with North America?

Okay, that was six instead of five. Those last two are needed hugely. Online volunteering is happening in other countries, whether the NGOs there admit it or not. I’ll never forget doing a training in Germany for about a dozen folks, and once I explained what online volunteering was, it turned out four organizations there were involving online volunteers — they hadn’t realized it, however.  Spain is doing a LOT regarding online volunteering — but no one is tracking it/researching it (I’d say they are ahead of even the UK in terms of online volunteer engagement — they were as of 2001, anyway).

Now, what I didn’t say on the TechSoup forum: why aren’t academics, organizations and institutions including online volunteering in their studies regarding volunteering? Why do they continue to ignore a practice that’s more than 30 years old, and has been talked about widely — in newspapers, at conferences, in online discussion groups — since the late 1990s? Here is why I think that’s the case:

    • Intellectual laziness on the part of of the organizations — and, in some cases, on the part of individual researchers.
    • These organizations and institutions, and many academics, are simply not in touch with what is happening on the front lines of volunteer engagement. They don’t participate in online discussion groups about nonprofits, with practitioners, for instance. Their silence is deafening.
    • They do not listen to others outside their immediate circle — and they let funders, even from the corporate world, define their research topics. Try writing, say, the Corporation for National Service or the Pew Research Center about online volunteering and the need for research or the need for it to be consistently included in volunteerism research, and see if they respond. Yes, I’ve tried, more than once. No, they never wrote back. I gave up.

Your thoughts?

Online volunteers essential to Wikimedia fundraising

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This is my new blog home. Welcome! The more than 600 entries at my blog home for the last five years will move in the coming weeks, I hope (Posterous is working on it). If not, let’s hope they stay at my old blog home indefinitely!

Wikimedia logoInstead of hiring a consultant to lead its annual fall fundraising campaign, as it has in the past, the Wikimedia Foundation is involving online volunteers to design this year’s annual fundraising efforts. About 900 online volunteers have participated in online planning sessions over the past five months, designing and submitting online banners, and testing banners and other fundraising messages. Campaign communications that got the best test results are being adopted. The campaign is already outpacing last year’s in terms of money raised.

Wikipedia is the highest profile activity of Wikimedia, with around 17 million entries in more than 270 languages, but its not the only project of this foundation. Have a look at all the Wikimedia projects to learn more about their various initiatives — all involving online volunteers.

What’s great about this campaign is that the volunteers aren’t being involved because of old-paradigm reasons like “We can’t afford a consultant so we’ll get volunteers to do this activity” or “Online volunteers are free! so we’re going to save money!” No, volunteers are being involved because Wikimedia has realized that volunteers — some of their most dedicated stakeholders — are the BEST people to lead this activity!

In an interview with the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Philippe Beaudette, a former volunteer who is now a Wikimedia Foundation staff member, said volunteers have been essential in making sure this year’s campaign messages are relevant in dozens of different countries where Wikipedia has avid readers. “I wouldn’t know how to ask for money in Zimbabwe, but now I know where to find the volunteers who can ask for money in Zimbabwe,” he says. “The cultural influence and diversity that have come together to support this fund raiser are overwhelming.”

It was assumed that a message from Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, would do better than a solicitation from another spokesperson. But, says Mr. Beaudette, “we tested another banner from a young woman in Jakarta, Indonesia, and her banner did almost as well. She had one memorable line, ‘If you have knowledge, you must share it,’” which proved to be compelling to donors.

Mr. Beaudette says the foundation set out clear rules for participation from the start – something that is essential in effective online volunteering/virtual volunteering. Planning and discussion sessions with online volunteers began weekly and are now daily.

This is at least the second time the Wikimedia Foundation has involved online volunteers in the decision-making processes at the organization: more than a year ago, online volunteers, drawn mostly from the ranks of online volunteer editors of Wikipedia, engaged in a year-long process to develop a strategic plan for the Wikimedia movement. Wikimedia wanted their help in understanding what its initiatives should be in five years, and how Wikimedia could get there from here. I was a volunteer in that process; I started by adding myself to the Wikimedia expert database. I was later asked to join a Wikimedia task force – specifically, the Community Health Task Force. I was able to contribute probably eight hours total, over two weeks. I summarized my own recommendations here, and many of these became a part of the final proposal regarding volunteer recognition at Wikimedia.

As I said in my blog last year spotlighting Wikimedia’s activities, I love it when an organization invites volunteers to contribute to strategic plans, and I love it when they provide an online way to do so. It’s always a good thing to do. No matter what happens, Wikimedia can at least say, “Wow, we have a LOT of community members/volunteers who REALLY care about our future!” Can YOUR nonprofit say that?

But note that this online volunteering effort still requires paid staff to support the volunteers and coordinate their efforts. By the logic of many people, because Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation initiatives involve thousands of online volunteers, the organization should have no budget — because volunteers are FREE, right? Wrong… Even at Wikimedia, online volunteers are not free, and here’s why.