Tag Archives: research

It’s time for a new assessment of virtual volunteering in Europe (& elsewhere) – who will do it?

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Back in 2012 and 2013, I was one of many researchers in the ICT4EMPL Future Work project, focused on the countries of the European Union and funded by the European Commission. The overall project aimed to inform policy regarding “new forms of work” and pathways to employability that involved online technologies. For this project, I researched and mapped the prevalence of virtual volunteering in Europe and explored how virtual volunteering could support people’s employability. Here my complete final paper. And here is the Wiki I created for the project.

It is time for a new effort to research and map the prevalence of virtual volunteering in Europe. Because now, more than 10 years later, I’m sure the conclusions I found about virtual volunteering in Europe have changed, and it would be great to see what’s the same, what’s evolved, what’s reversed and what new insights have emerged – and see how this compares with past research.

Some of those conclusions from 10 years ago about virtual volunteering in Europe:

  • Organizations using the Internet to support volunteers, or that had roles and tasks for online volunteers, usually never used the term virtual volunteering. For instance, Germany hosted the FIFA World Cup in 2006 and recruited, trained and supported hundreds of volunteers all across Germany to help with the event; no doubt the Internet played an important role in the screening, training and support for volunteers, however, I could find no reference to activities related to Internet-mediated volunteering for the World Cup (and they also never responded to my emails).
  • Services where charities could recruit traditional volunteers might have talked about virtual volunteering 10 years ago, yet often did not allow for searches of just online roles and tasks opportunities on their platforms.
  • Online volunteering schemes come and go; for instance, while Samaritans was profiled for its involvement of online volunteers in the 1990s, as of the time of this paper’s writing, the web site did not note this past involvement, and a page on the site said that such an online program was “coming in the future.” Virtual volunteering activities were cited at a dozen European organizations in the paper – are they still happening?
  • 10 years ago, there was no organization tracking the practice in Europe – or in any country outside of Europe, for that matter. Has that changed?
  • The research 10 years ago found at least 60 specific examples of organizations in the EU involving online volunteers, or involving online volunteers in the EU. The number of online volunteering opportunities, using a search of the services, was more than 1000, in total. And the research noted that Wikipedia already had contributors from every European country at that time. Excluding Wikipedia, a conclusion can be drawn from the research cited in this paper that there are at least a few thousand online volunteering opportunities available from organisations in Europe.
  • Spain was, by far, the country with the most virtual volunteering roles and tasks for volunteers, across a few hundred NGOs, and had a deeper history regarding digital volunteering than any other European country, by far. The UK, which was in the EU at the time, came in a distant second.
  • Far in the distance in terms of virtual volunteering, and well behind rates in Eastern European countries, was France – in fact, the lack of virtual volunteering materials in French was particularly shocking to me. I could find NO such materials in Europe – the few I found were in Canada. I so hope that’s changed in 10 years!

If you are looking for a research project idea, I highly recommend you take a stab at researching and mapping the prevalence of virtual volunteering in Europe – or even just one country in Europe. Or break entirely new ground: India? Certain countries in Africa? I will be happy to turn over all of my materials to you to help you in your research. I’m also happy to write a letter of endorsement if you want to shop this project around for funding. Contact me and let me know your full name, share your LinkedIn profile or another online profile where I can see your professional connections and research to date, let me know the kind of research you have in mind, etc.

Why am I not interested in doing this research myself? Both because I lack any funding to do this and also, I would really like to read someone else’s research!

If you are doing any research regarding virtual volunteering, or if your agency or organization is considering virtual volunteering as a path to helping people become more employable, check out the Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service Into Volunteer Involvement. This is the most comprehensive resource anywhere on working with online volunteers, and on using the Internet to support ALL volunteers, including those you might not think of as “online” volunteers.

Also see:

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. 

Online volunteers help with database of fugitive slave ads

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The Freedom on the Move (FOTM) public database project at Cornell University is a major digital database effort to bring together North American fugitive slave advertisements in newspapers from regional, state, and other collections – and online volunteers will be invited to add data tags to the screened entries and to transcribe the ads. This online public engagement by FOTM will allow database users to examine spatial patterns and compare trends over time.

“Ironically, in trying to retrieve their property — the people they claimed as things — enslavers left us mounds of evidence about the humanity of the people they bought and sold,” said Dr. Mary Niall Mitchell, professor of early American history at the University of New Orleans and one of the three lead historians on FOTM.

Mitchell explained. “At what time of year were enslaved people most likely to run? What places did they frequent? What skills did they have? How many could read and write? Or were likely to ‘pass’ for white, or claim to be free? What did they wear? Where were they suspected to be hiding and with whom? Under what circumstances did women run away?”

FOTM received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) digital humanities grants.

Here is an excellent article on about the database, from which I took Dr. Mitchell’s quotes.

Anyway, I gave it a try. I transcribed one ad. I would have liked to have done more, but I kept getting an error message on final submission, so I wasn’t sure if my attempt was even received. I’m wondering if I’m going to receive any sort of update or email from the project, if there is going to be any effort to keep me in the loop about the project and encourage me to transcribe more ads, if there will be any effort to survey me about my experience, or if there will be any solicitations for funding.

I’m also still thinking about that young woman I read about, who had fled someone in South Carolina and was suspected of being harbored by her enslaved mother somewhere… she’s a real person to me now. I hope she was never captured. I hope she got away. I hope she got to reach some dreams. I hope she was happy. Are other volunteers similarly connecting with the information the are transcribing on a human level?

vvbooklittleA shame organizers aren’t calling this a virtual volunteering initiative – because it is! Instead, they use the term “crowdsourcing.” It’s also a micro-volunteering initiative. I hope at least the organizers of this initiative will consider reading The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. The book, which I co-wrote with Susan Ellis, has lots of detailed suggestions and specifics about virtual volunteering, including task and role development, suggestions on support and supervision of online volunteers, guidelines for evaluating virtual volunteering activities, suggestions for risk management, online safety, ensuring client and volunteer confidentiality and setting boundaries for relationships in virtual volunteering, and much more. The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is available both as a traditional printed book and as a digital book.

List of my books, papers, citations in other publications

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I have no idea why I haven’t done this before: I’ve made a list of my own publications (many available for purchase, as well as books, white papers, academic papers, etc. that quote me or cite my work, going back to 1999.

vvbooklittleMy most well-known traditional publication is The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. This book, which I co-wrote with Susan J. Ellis, is our attempt to document all of the best practices for using the Internet to support and involve volunteers from the more than three decades that this has been happening. Whether the volunteers are working in groups onsite, in traditional face-to-face roles, in remote locations, or any other way, anyone working with volunteers will find The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook helpful. The book is available both in traditional print form and in a digital version.

 

Research Explaining How Websites Encourage Volunteering & Philanthropy

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersMost practitioners in volunteer management and community engagement don’t have time to review academic literature to see if there might be information that’s helpful in their work – and even if they do have time, academic language can be inaccessible for non-academics. I try to read as much as I can and then summarize and pass on the information that can help practitioners in their work, or even just give them ammunition for a project or funding proposal.

Below are links to two academic papers that are worth at least a skim by anyone trying to use web sites to encourage philanthropy, including volunteering. The reference lists at the end of each papers are gold mines of research for further reading:

Persuasion in Prosocial Domains: Explaining the Persuasive Affordances of Volunteering
by Peter Slattery, Patrick Finnegan and Lesley Land, all three of the Australian School of Business, UNSW Australia, and Richard Vidgen of Hull University Business School, University of Hull, UK. Presented at the Twenty Second European Conference on Information Systems, Tel Aviv, 2014.

Abstract: As technology becomes increasingly pervasive and invasive, it increasingly facilitates and instigates behaviour. Prosocial behaviours, such as volunteering, activism and philanthropy, are activities that are considered to be particularly beneficial to others. Prosocial behaviours are important within IS as: (i) they are encouraged by IS stakeholders including volunteering organisations and charities, and; (ii) they contribute to tackling social issues. However, while information technology is poised to become increasingly important for facilitating prosocial behaviour, little is known about how digital artefacts can encourage it. To address this research gap, this study seeks to explain how website features persuade in prosocial online contexts. The study uses the Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) to examine individuals’ experiences of persuasion on live volunteering websites. The analysis reveals that ease of use, trust, and creating positive emotion are important factors in persuading users to volunteer.

Examining How Perceptions of Websites Encourage Prosocial Behaviour
by Peter Slattery, Patrick Finnegan and Richard Vidgen of Australian School of Business, UNSW Australia. Presented at the Thirty Seventh International Conference on Information Systems, Dublin 2016.

Abstract: Organisations are increasingly reliant on information and communications technology (ICT) to encourage prosocial behaviour (i.e., volunteering, philanthropy and activism). However, little is known about how to use ICT to encourage prosocial behaviour. Given this research gap, the objective of this study is to outline and test a research model that assesses the role of specific perceptions of websites in encouraging prosocial behaviour. To do this, we review the literature to derive a theoretical model of relevant perceptions. We then test the extent to which this model can predict participants’ volunteering and philanthropic behaviour subsequent to their usage of a website that encourages prosocial behaviour. The findings are expected to contribute by (i) giving insights into how perceptions of websites encourage prosocial behaviour, (ii) explaining the roles of negative and positive affect in ICT domains, and (iii) developing a “persuasiveness of website scale” to help IS researchers to measure this construct.

In addition, Mr. Slattery’s 2016 PhD thesis is Explaining How Websites Are Used to Encourage Volunteering and Philanthropy. The thesis restricted from public access until March 2018, but some of its research is repeated in the aforementioned papers.

Also see this list of research and evaluations of virtual volunteering, as a practice in general or focused on specific projects, on the Virtual Volunteering wiki.

Research needs re: virtual volunteering

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I get contacted regularly by university students doing a Master’s degree research project that relates to virtual volunteering and, unfortunately, their research subject is almost always the same: the motivations of people to be online volunteers.

I’m blunt in my response to them: please don’t. This subject is not one that nonprofits or NGOs are asking for. In fact, it has become a joke among managers of volunteers: oh, look, *another* paper about people’s motivations for volunteering… ARGH!

This article by Susan Ellis and Rob Jackson well explains why the idea of yet another survey project about volunteer motivations is not something most nonprofits or NGOs are interested in. Read in particular the part called “A Preoccupation with the Motivations to Volunteer.”

What would NGOs and nonprofits love to know about virtual volunteering? What would be great, even ground-breaking research regarding virtual volunteering? Here are some digital volunteering research topics in dire need of exploration (and that really need to be undertaken by people that are NOT me):

  • factors for success in keeping online volunteers productive and engaged long-term at an organization or within a program
  • how online volunteers and/or those that involve them define a successful virtual volunteering experience, and exploring if these are in conflict
  • if online microvolunteering really does lead to longer-term virtual volunteering/higher responsibility roles at an organization, and/or if it leads to greater numbers of donors
  • expectations of people that sign up for online volunteer assignments before they begin versus the reality of the assignments/relationships/benefits
  • are the advantages that are promoted regarding virtual volunteering – that it allows for people to be more involved in an organization they already volunteer with onsite, that it allows for the participation of people as volunteers who might not be able to otherwise, that it can be a form of accommodation for people who have disabilities, that it frees up staff to undertake other activities, etc. – realized most of the time? some of the time? what factors are necessary for those benefits to be realized – or preventing them from becoming realities?
  • what causes people to quit volunteering online, and are the reasons similar or different than what causes people to quit traditional, onsite volunteering?
  • comparative case studies of online volunteer engagement and support for such at a variety of organizations, looking at factors for successful management, budgets for such, number of people working directly with the online volunteers, etc.
  • comparative case studies of screening of people that want to volunteer online at a variety of organizations, looking for factors that may lead to greater completion of tasks and longer-term commitments by online volunteers or may lead to greater drop out rates of accepted volunteers that receive assignments.
  • comparative case studies of organizations involving online volunteers, regarding what percentage of volunteers are using a laptop or desktop computer for completing assignments, versus those using smart phones and tablets. And is there a difference in the kinds of assignments being done on laptops and desktops versus smart phones and tablets? Is there a difference in the kinds of volunteers using laptops and desktops versus smart phones and tablets?
  • comparative case studies of online mentoring programs that involve online volunteers as mentors, regarding why some last more than two years and why others end early, or immediately after the pilot phase
  • comparative case of online mentoring programs that involve online volunteers as mentors, regarding their meeting of stated education, self-esteem, career exploration or other goals
  • comparative case of online mentoring programsthat involve online volunteers as mentors, on mentors or on participants five years after participation
  • how much does involving online volunteers cost for the host organization – a comparison of at least 20 organizations in the USA (or any one country, for that matter)
  • 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
  • what differences are there in the success of involving online volunteers in non-English-speaking countries in Europe or elsewhere 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?
  • how does satisfaction with volunteering among online volunteers compare to satisfaction with volunteering undertaking onsite administrative roles that do NOT involve interactions with clients (onsite volunteers that help with mailings, help with inventory, help prepare a room for an event later, file papers, provide IT support to staff, etc.). Do these two groups of volunteers feel similar isolation? Do any feelings of isolation or support relate to being online or is it because of lack of regular staff interaction, online or face-to-face? Or lack of access to seeing the impact of direct service with clients?

Tackle any of those research projects and I will promote your research everywhere online I possibly can. I may even dance in the streets.

Four cautions for researchers of virtual volunteering:

  • During your literature review, you will need to look at research articles and case studies that never use the word volunteers. or the term virtual volunteering. For instance, people that contribute their time and talent, online, to nonprofit open source projects may never be called volunteers. Those that contribute their time and knowledge to Wikipedia online are usually called Wikipedians rather than volunteers. Yet, research literature on these subjects is vital for informing any researcher wanting to do an academic study regarding virtual volunteering.
  • If you interview people, you will also not be able to use the phrase virtual volunteering without fully explaining it and ensuring people understand your definition; otherwise, you will find people saying they don’t volunteer online or do not involve volunteers online when, in fact, they do – they just didn’t understand the meaning so they said no.
  • Read this list of myths regarding virtual volunteering before you begin. If you start your research from an assumption that online volunteers are more isolated and less supported than onsite volunteers, for instance, or that virtual volunteering is great for people that don’t have time for onsite volunteering, or that people that volunteer online don’t do so onsite, face-to-face, then you are starting from a false premise that is not supported by any research to date. And if you want your research to test one of these myths, by all means, go for it!
  • You will be hard pressed to find anyone volunteering exclusively online; the vast majority of people that volunteer online ALSO volunteer onsite (and if you have research that says otherwise, let’s hear about it!). That’s why it’s impossible to measure things like if the health benefits associated with volunteering are exclusive for onsite volunteering.

All of the research I know related to virtual volunteering, by the way, is listed here on the virtual volunteering wiki. I try to update this list at least once a year. Note that, as of a few years ago, most of it is NOT by me! Hurrah!

Other blogs I’ve written on the subject of research and volunteering, including virtual volunteering, that should be helpful to anyone researching any aspect of virtual volunteering:

vvbooklittleWhy don’t I do at least some of the aforementioned research? Three reasons: One: I’m burnt out regarding virtual volunteering research. I poured so many years and effort into researching and writing The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, as well as managing various virtual volunteering initiatives since the 1990s, and I need a break. Two: I would really like to read research by OTHER PEOPLE. I think fresh eyes and fresh minds could bring to light things all of my many years researching this subject has made me blind to. I’m so ready to be enlightened on this subject by other people! Three: I don’t have the resources. I would need funding and I would want my research associated with a university, preferably in association with my obtaining a PhD.

So, those are the research needs regarding virtual volunteering, at least as far as I can see. What are YOUR ideas?

Research: Immunity under the Volunteer Protection Act (USA)

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing work of volunteersVolume 6, Issue 1 (Apr 2015) of the Nonprofit Policy Forum features research by Patricia Groble and Jeffrey L. Brudney, “When Good Intentions Go Wrong: Immunity under the Volunteer Protection Act.” It’s research about a law in the USA. The abstract says:

The Volunteer Protection Act (VPA) was enacted in 1997 to encourage volunteerism by protecting individuals from liability for their negligent actions while volunteering. Proponents intended to provide legal safeguards for volunteers, whom they claimed were deterred from volunteering by fears of liability. Little attention has been paid to this legislation since its enactment, however. This article examines the implementation and interpretation of the VPA through the lens of case law to determine whether the act has had its intended effects for volunteers. Our analysis of all court cases in which the VPA has been cited shows that volunteers are at risk for lawsuits over a variety of actions during the course of their volunteer activities. This analysis also demonstrates that although volunteers can avail themselves of the VPA’s protection, their success in invoking this defense is mixed.

A must read for managers of volunteers… however, it’s cost-prohibitive for most of them: the article costs $42.00 / 30,00 € / £23.00 to access (the entire issue of the journal is $235.00 / 172,00 € / £129.00. I’ll be heading to my local library to see if I can access it through them (I suspect I’ll have to schlep 100 minutes by mass transit one-way, all the way to downtown Portland via the bus and train to read it, in order to read it). The Nonprofit Policy Forum is an international journal that publishes original research and analysis on public policy issues and the public policy process related to the work of nonprofit organizations.

Also see: List of

List of research and evaluations of virtual volunteering, as a practice in general or focused on specific projects (much of the research is free to access).

International Sport Volunteering – Call for Chapters

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A Call for Chapters for a new book project. Posted at ISTR-L, and email-based group by the International Society for Third-Sector Research. Chapter proposals are due by May 1, 2015. And I’m guessing British English must be used.

Begin forwarded post:

International Sport Volunteering

Editors: Angela M Benson, University of Brighton and Nicholas Wise, Glasgow Caledonian University (eds)

The study of volunteering is well documented with sport voluntarism hailed as a valuable contribution to society, particularly within the western world. In terms of scale and the range of such opportunities, international sport volunteering is not only replicated through mega-sporting events, as seen in Beijing and Sochi at recent Olympic Games, but through sport development initiatives/programmes in remote communities in Africa and South America. As such, the research into sport volunteering within national boundaries is reasonably well developed, and therefore more research is needed to evaluate the impact and assess sport volunteering in international contexts at a range of scales to critically frame/ successes and limitations to the wider body of volunteering literature. International sport volunteering is often contextualized as part of sport tourism or volunteer tourism research, which is an embryonic but growing field of study. Therefore, the purpose of this timely special issue is to tease out and address conceptual uncertainties and challenges associated with international sport volunteering, pertinent to various dynamics and diverse approaches/understandings.

Linking volunteering and sport within an international (and therefore, tourism related) context is a more recent phenomenon with much of the research focusing around events; according to Baum & Lockstone (2007), even this area lacks a holistic approach and again is concentrated on predominantly national volunteers. More recent research by Nicols (2012) suggests that sport volunteering now plays a significant role in sports policy and the current demands and pressures placed on society are encouraging international volunteering. Bringing together a collection of papers adds diverse scope into the holistic and interdisciplinary nature of contemporary sports volunteering. The field of sport volunteering in an international context is clearly both dynamic and diverse with a range of opportunities and challenges emerging. For instance, a growing number of volunteer tourism organisations are offering ‘sport volunteer projects overseas’; colleges and universities are travelling with volunteer sport students to engage with communities in a sporting context; mobility of sport volunteers is occurring at events, with volunteers travelling both domestically and overseas to take part. These burgeoning opportunities however, raise a plethora of questions and issues (see below) and it is evident that the current literature offers few answers. While these questions are inherently geographical and sociological, nascent understandings inform policy, practice and performance, thus offering greater insight to better manage future sports volunteering programmes that attract internationals.

More research needs to consider sport volunteering in an international context, especially in an era where people continually seeking opportunities abroad whilst engaging in familiar activities through what are often deemed as altruistic experiences. Consequently, this special edition seeks to provide an opportunity amongst academics and practitioners to explore the relationship between these two phenomena and present ideas that capture the dynamics and diversity of international sport volunteering. Interdisciplinary and international approaches are particularly welcomed.

We, therefore, invite chapter proposal on topics that include, but are not limited to:

  • Understanding the sport volunteer in an international context (who is the volunteer in regards to their behaviour, motivation, experience, gender, contribution, impact?) To what extent are they similar or different to other international volunteers (volunteers on projects such as humanitarian, conservation, medical)?
  • Intercultural perspectives on international sport volunteering (a recent advert stated that ‘sport is a universal language’; is this true?  If so, what affect does it have on adaptation, culture confusion and cultural exchange?  If not, what engagement is happening?
  • Supply side (which sectors are involved – private, public or third sector organisations? To what extent are partnerships being formed?)
  • Sponsorship, funding and payment (how is international sport volunteering being funded?)
  • Impact (social, economic, environmental) (is it sustainable?) upon people and places (host communities, volunteers, cities, townships) (are host communities in western cities less impacted than host communities in developing countries where international sport volunteering takes place?)
  • Social development aspects (whose development the volunteers and/or the participants?)
  • Legacy of volunteering in international sport volunteering – tangible and intangible (whose legacy – the country where the volunteering took place or the country the volunteers return to?) (To what extent do relationships continue after volunteers return home?) (Do episodic volunteers become long-term volunteers?)
  • Management of key stakeholders (what are the issues related to the management of international sport volunteering?)
  • The media is full of articles regarding the quality of volunteer tourism should the current academic debates and discussions around this include international sport volunteering.
  • Critical reflections of self, including auto-ethnographies where the international volunteer critiques their role/position during the process of volunteering and conducting research

We are happy to discuss and consider other areas and case-studies related to the main topic area of international sport volunteering.

Chapter proposals should be between 300-500 words in length and should be emailed to both Angela M Benson amb16@brigthon.ac.uk and Nicolas Wise Nicholas.Wise@gcu.ac.uk by the 1st May 2015.

We have already discussed the proposal with a publisher who is keen to work with us on this.

Angela and Nick

Dr Angela M Benson
Principal Lecturer in Sustainable Tourism Management and Development
Director of Postgraduate Studies (Integrated Doctoral Framework)
and
Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Canberra, Australia
Centre of Sport, Tourism and Leisure Studies (CoSTLS)
Eastbourne Campus
Denton Road
Eastbourne
East Sussex
BN20 7SR
Tel: +44 (0) 1273643621
Fax: +44 (0) 1273 643949
Email: amb16@brighton.ac.uk

ESRC Seminar Series – Principal Investigator for “Reconceptualising International Volunteering”. Partner institutions University of Kent and University of Strathclyde. 2013 – 2015. http://about.brighton.ac.uk/sasm/research/researchevents/reconceptualising-international-volunteering/

Special Issue (forthcoming):

Theme Editor: Dr Angela M Benson. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes   – Why and how should the international volunteer tourism experience be improved?  Volume 7 Number 2  2015 Information about the themed issue can be found at: http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/news_story.htm?id=5976

Latest Papers (2014):

Darcy, S., Dickson, T. J., and Benson, A.M. (2014) London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games: Including volunteers with disabilities, a podium performance?  Event Management. 18 : 431-446.

Benson, A.M., Dickson, T. J., Terwiel, A. and Blackman, D. (2014) Training of Vancouver 2010 volunteers: a legacy opportunity? Special Issue: The Olympic Legacy; Contemporary Social Science: Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences. 9(2): 210-226.

Dickson, T. J., Benson, A.M. and Terwiel, A. (2014) Mega-event volunteers, similar or different? Vancouver 2010 vs. London 2012. International Journal of Event and Festival Management. 5(2): 164-179.

Research Fellow re: in Civil Society Organisations and research, Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility

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Closing date: 14-Jan-2015

De Montfort University”s Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility is offering the position of a Research Fellow to work across a number of European and national research projects, including:
GREAT (www.great-project.eu)
RESPONSIBILITY (http://responsibility-rri.eu/?lang=en)
Responsible-Industry (www.responsible-industry.eu)
CONISDER (www.consider-project.eu)
Network Analysis and Simulation of Civil Society Organisations in Research
Human Brain Project (http://www.humanbrainproject.eu/)
DREAM (http://dream2020.eu/)
SATORI (http://satoriproject.eu/)

The CCSR contributions to these projects share the focus on responsible research and innovation (RRI). As research fellow you will be expected to work on specific aspects of these projects and also create synergies between them. You will conduct high quality research, shape the work and take initiatives, and publish the results of the work in high quality outlets and publications. Working closely with leading scholars from a range of disciplines, you will also contribute to the initiation of new research initiatives of the Centre.

Job Details

Here’s

How many virtual volunteering projects are there?

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I get these questions frequently:

How many virtual volunteering / digital volunteering or microvolunteering projects are there?

How many people are engaged in virtual volunteering?

The answer: NO ONE KNOWS.

vvbooklittleI can say that there are at least thousands of virtual volunteering projects in the world, and MANY thousands of people engaged in virtual volunteering, but I cannot tell you exactly how many.

No one can.

Why can’t those questions be answered? Because no one is tracking the number of projects nor the number of volunteers engaged in such. Why is no one tracking such? Because IT’S IMPOSSIBLE. Why is it impossible? Because:

  • Most volunteering tasks – virtual or not – aren’t officially registered anywhere, maybe not even in the organization where they are happening. Individual organizations struggle to count how many volunteers actively engaged with them in any one year! You can’t even rely on web sites where organizations recruit volunteers, since not every organization use such sites – nonprofits and NGOs often use their own web sites and social media channels to recruit volunteers for online tasks, in addition to offline means – announcing the availability of online tasks at an onsite meeting, for instance. I can’t count how many times an organization tells me they aren’t involving online volunteers, and after I explain to them what virtual volunteering is, they realize, in fact, they ARE involving digital volunteers.
  • Many, and maybe most, organizations involving volunteers virtually don’t think of themselves as involving online volunteers, and most people that become volunteers online don’t think of themselves as online volunteers or digital volunteers. People volunteer, period. Organizations involve volunteers, period. Many, and maybe most, organizations don’t distinguish when a person is an onsite volunteer versus an online volunteer.
  • No one can say how many group volunteering events have happened in any given area. Or family volunteering. Or teen volunteering. Or pro bono service. Again – none of these are officially, regularly registered anywhere, and are often not even tracked and recorded within the agency or department that organized such!
  • The terms volunteer and volunteering are contested terms, in any language (not just English); there is not universal agreement on their definitions and they are not uniformly used the same way – if they are used at all by organizations (they often are not). There’s also not agreement on terms like virtual volunteering, micro volunteering, digital volunteering or cyber volunteering. When we aren’t all using the same words regarding online volunteers, how can we even begin to try to count such?

It was a huge challenge for me to do a research paper in 2013 regarding Internet-mediated Volunteering in the EU (virtual volunteering). I made it clear to the EU agency that hired me that I would NOT be finding every organization in Europe engaged in virtual volunteering – I wouldn’t even come close – because it would be impossible, for all the reasons I have already mentioned, plus because of the multitude of languages in Europe. In several weeks reviewing just online materials, with my limited language abilities and Google Translate, I found 60 organizations involving online volunteers – but imagine how many I would have found if I could have visited ever NGO umbrella organization in every country and explained what is meant by virtual volunteering – like so many people that attend my workshops, they would realize that they have been working with online volunteers for YEARS and didn’t know it.

It’s the same with hackathons. Knowbility, in Austin, Texas, has been doing hackathons since the 1990s, but they never called them that – the term didn’t become widely known and used until fairly recently. How many other nonprofits have been doing hackathons for years and haven’t known it?

So here’s what we can say:

  • Virtual volunteering is happening on every country on Earth that has Internet access – both organizations engaging with volunteers online and people volunteering their time online.
  • In fully-developed countries (the USA, Canada, Western Europe, etc.), transitional countries (such as those that were a part of the Soviet Union), and developing countries with a sizable population with Internet access (South Africa, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc.), there are more online volunteers / digital volunteers, and more projects that are involving volunteers, than can be counted. There are not dozens, not hundreds-there are thousands of digital volunteering projects, collectively, in all these countries.
  • Virtual volunteering is a practice that’s more than 30 years old.
  • The USA probably has the largest number of virtual volunteering-related projects and the largest number of online volunteers – but other virtual volunteering hot spots include Canada, Mexico, Spain, Poland, Ukraine, Brazil and India. In Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and South Africa are worthy of attention as well.

Also see:

How many organizations involve online volunteers?

Research on USA volunteerism excludes virtual volunteering

When words get in the way (like “Virtual Volunteering”)

Volunteerism research should include virtual volunteering!

Finding out how many orgs are involving online volunteers

Penn Social Impact Doctoral Fellows Program

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The University of Pennsylvania’s Nonprofit Leadership (NPL) Program invites doctoral student researchers to apply for the 2014 Penn Social Impact Doctoral Fellows Program.

Facilitated by Peter Frumkin, Director of the NPL Program, the program will explore emerging issues in the world of nonprofit organizations, voluntary action, philanthropy and international civil society. The program is June 7 – July 1, 2014 at The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Students are expected to submit a draft research paper that they would like to refine and prepare for publication during the program. Housing near the Penn campus and $3,000 stipends are provided to all 2014 Summer Fellows.

Eligibility: Graduate students currently enrolled in PhD programs at degree-granting institutions

Submission deadline: Friday, March 14, 2014

Submission requirements: A resume, draft research paper (unpublished) on a topic related to the nonprofit sector, and an abstract. Send to Leeamy1@sp2.upenn.edu by March 14, 2014.