Tag Archives: tech4good

Hackathons for good? That’s volunteering!

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

(you can follow me on Twitter here)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway…

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

Also see:

Short-term assignments for tech volunteers

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

 

Walking My Talk: How Do I Use Online Tools for Outreach?

I talk again and again about the importance of nonprofits, NGOs, government agencies and other mission-based organizations:

  • creating a strategy for their online communications,
  • always knowing exactly how they are using each online tool,
  • always looking for measurements of success and areas that need improvement, and
  • always looking for ways to refine that strategy.

Do I practice what I preach, for myself and my own business? Yes I do! And I’ll share my own ever-evolving strategy regarding social media networks, right here, right now, not as a blue print for you, but for you to consider how to create your own road map for your nonprofit, NGO, government program or other mission-based endeavor.

My use of all these tools is ever-evolving. This is how I use these now, but in a year? It may not be true!

Facebook
I have both a Facebook fan page, which I hope you will “like”, and a Facebook account, Jayne Cravens.

I use my Facebook fan page to post about updates to my blog or my web site, and to note anything I think nonprofits, NGOs or other organizations will find particularly helpful or interesting with regards to computer and Internet technology, management, public relations/outreach, volunteers / volunteering, humanitarian / development / aid issues, and women’s empowerment. I try to post to it every work day. One does not have to be my friend on Facebook to like me (and receive updates from me).

I use my Facebook profile page to like, comment on or share other people’s or organization’s Facebook status updates, and to report on personal news that I think my associates might be interested in and that I feel comfortable sharing online. I also use my Facebook profile page to talk about what I’m doing as a consultant, the organization I’m working for, what I’m learning, what we’re accomplishing, etc. (I save my criticisms of current employers for offline conversations directly with the employer, of course!). I try to keep my personal life and professional life separate online, but I don’t want the wall to be so thick that I have no personality online to professional colleagues, and this profile helps in that regard. I friend people I work with, people I volunteer with, volunteers I support or have supported, people I admire and want to learn from, and organizations I support personally or that I think do a great job using Facebook for community engagement. And I accept almost all requests to friend me, though I turn down anyone who I suspect is actually a spammer or scammer… and anyone who is shirtless.

I also have a personal Facebook account that is only for friends. Real friends. People I know and drink beer with. Yes, a *few* people are on all three. A couple of times a month, I might share an item on all three accounts, but I really do try to keep each focused on a specific goal, on a specific audience.

Twitter
Like my Facebook fan page, I use my Twitter feed to post about updates to my blog or my web site, and to note anything I think nonprofits, NGOs or other organizations will provide particularly helpful or interesting with regards to computer and Internet technology, management, public relations/outreach, volunteers / volunteering, humanitarian / development / aid issues, and women’s empowerment. And like my Facebook profile page, I also use it to learn from people and organizations that are also at least somewhat focused on my areas of professional interest. Anyone can follow me on Twitter, but I don’t automatically follow someone who is following me; by limiting those I follow on Twitter to only those people and organizations that relate to my work and that I don’t already friend or follow on Facebook, I keep Twitter much more valuable to me.

I greatly prefer Twitter to Facebook when it comes to getting the word out about my own professional activities and engaging with others (commenting on other’s activities, forwarding the messages of others, etc.). I also learn more on Twitter than I do on Facebook – I learn about resources my own network should know about, news that will affect my work, and ideas I can use in my work. Twitter feels more creative, more fun, and more manageable than Facebook. But I have to be on Facebook too, because that’s where soooo many people and organizations are. For your organization, it might be the reverse – I have worked with many organizations that get far more out of Facebook in terms of engaging constituents, including volunteers, than Twitter.

I don’t link my Twitter and Facebook accounts – meaning when I post to one, it doesn’t automatically post to the other. Because I really don’t like it when someone does that – feeds to Twitter from Facebook often make no sense (the person forgets Twitter’s 140 character limit, or the URL link doesn’t come out right), and feeds from Twitter on Facebook look cryptic. More on why not to do this is best said in this presentation by Carie Lewis at Humane Society of the USA.

LinkedIn
I use my LinkedIn connections to connect with people I have worked with. Period. My 360+ connections on LinkedIn are actual colleagues. These are people I’ve worked with, volunteered with, corresponded with at length regarding work or volunteering, have been in one of my workshops, etc. They are people I know. That makes them a real, trusted network. It is my highly-specialized database to use for specific communications to that network.

My former boss and good friend, Howard Sherman, said in a Tweet once,

Why do people I don’t know keep trying to link to me on @linkedin? Don’t they understand it’s for professional ties? Poor use dilutes goal.

That is exactly how I think as well.

I do use LinkedIn to network: I’m on as many groups as a free account allows me to be on, I post my presentation dates in the events feature, so others can consider attending, and I post regularly to the “answers” section regarding nonprofits. All of that brings me in contact regularly with new people and organizations – and we engage together via email, I read their blogs, they read mine, we get to know each other, and maybe, as a real relationship develops, I may ask to friend them on LinkedIn (or they may ask me). Otherwise, everyone who asks to be a connection that isn’t a professional or volunteer colleague gets directed to my Facebook page, my blog and my email newsletter, Tech4Impact, and I ask for their blog address, newsletter subscription info, or any links to publications they have so I can learn more about them and their work.

Tech4Impact
I have a monthly email newsletter. It has almost 800 subscribers, most of whom do not follow me on Facebook or Twitter. My email newsletter is focused on…

  • how technology is used effectively by mission-based organizations — that means nonprofits, non-governmental organizations/NGOs, civil society organizations, public sector agencies, schools — and their supporters, to benefit individuals, communities and the environment;
  • what tech and online tools, resources and practices are proving most valuable to these organizations and their volunteers;
  • what cultural and financial conditions, legislation, and other factors are that can and do influence tech use by these groups.
  • news and resources relating to all of the above
  • updates to the Coyote Communications web site relating to nonprofits and technology.

Tech4Impact is less about techno-jargon and more about the human factors in using technology successfully, including the Internet, to benefit people, communities and the environment.

I would love to get rid of this newsletter and convert everyone on it to my Twitter feed or an RSS reader for the blog you are reading now. But guess what! The subscribers have told me that is not what they want to do, and so, I’m going to keep publishing this email newsletter. Because that’s what this huge group of people interested in my work have asked for, and I listen!

Google+
I’m still figuring this out. I will probably use it just like I use Facebook. And maybe it will replace Facebook someday. Or maybe it will go away, just like GoogleWave.

I also am still an active user on many email-based and web-based online discussion groups, including several on YahooGroups; it’s through these channels that I reach the most people and organizations, far more than any of the social media channels I’ve just named.

I also subscribe to numerous blogs via RSS, though I’m lead to most via a link on Twitter, Facebook or an email newsletter.

My goal with all this? To be truly accessible – that all of the information I want about me is out there is for the people who want that information, in the form in which they want it. Not everyone wants information delivered the same way, hence why these multiple channels are necessary.

How do I judge success with these tools? Not by the numbers… but here are those numbers, in case you are interested:

There’s not as much cross-over on those social media network numbers as you might think – meaning most of the members of each of those audiences do not follow me multiple ways. How do I know there isn’t much crossover? I’ve asked who is following me where, and I look over subscriber and follower lists to look for people or organizations showing up on more than one network.

I judge success with these tools by the kind of comments I get from readers and colleagues, by the inquiries I get for my services, and by what I learn via these channels, the blogs or web pages inspired by what I learn, and how often the information from these networks leads to new web pages or new material for presentations.

Based on that criteria for success that I use, I abandoned MySpace, GoogleWave and USENET/newsgroups (which used to be the primary way I used the Internet, except for email, back in the 1990s).

Okay, I’ve shown you mine – now, organizations, you don’t have to show me yours, but you do have to create a similar map for use in your own organization or program. How and why are you using various online tools, and what is the result of using those tools? How are you using those tools not just to get information out, but also to get information in?

More on how I use Twitter (includes a list of tags I follow and use)

Tags: social, media, advertising, networking, outreach, relationships, communications, connections, networks

How TechSoup Helped Keep My Skills Sharp


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

How I Use Twitter / Microblogs

I’ve written a primer for mission-based organizations on using microblogs, including Twitter, so rather than repeat that advice on how to get started using such, thinking strategically about using such, etc., I’ll tell you exactly how I use Twitter.

I seek out Twitter feeds:

  • dedicated to activities that help women in developing countries have more control over their lives (it’s a priority issue for me), OR
  • dedicated to resources to help nonprofits, NGOs and other mission-based organizations use Internet, computer and other networking tools, OR
  • dedicated to resources to help mission-based organizations effectively engage the community/volunteers

AND

  • from organizations or individuals I want to follow and that/who share information I feel is a priority for me to receive daily or that’s mostly different from their Facebook page or email newsletter

If I already get all the information I want from an organization or individual via their Facebook page or an email newsletter or a blog, I don’t subscribe to their feed via Twitter as well. And I don’t follow every Twitter user that follows me, though I do check out every new follower. That offends some folks – they feel you should follow every person or organization that follows you, that you should follow every person or organization that you already follow on Facebook or via a blog or as a newsletter subscriber, etc. I don’t. I’m on information overload already; Internet tools, including so-called social media, is not just about receiving information – it’s about controlling it in such a way that it stays meaningful and essential to you.

In addition, I also follow certain phrases on Twitter. Some of these I search for daily, some I search for weekly. These include:

  • #volunteer
  • #volunteers
  • #VolunTweet
  • #microvolunteering
  • #nonprofits
  • #nonprofit
  • #ngos
  • #humanitarian
  • #ict4d
  • #TechWomen
  • #WomenInTech
  • #Tech4Good
  • #digitaldivide
  • #NP
  • #NPTwitter
  • #VirtualTeams
  • #distributedteams
  • #workshifting
  • #TechSoupDYB (for TechSoup microvolunteering projects; I helped relaunch this initiative earlier this month)

A term I follow, but doesn’t generate much information regularly, is #withoutvolunteers, a tag that allows someone to post a short message that says what the results would be if an organization didn’t involve volunteers. Sadly, most posts with this tage are phrases like “We couldn’t do what we do!” or “We would have to cut services”, both of which imply that volunteers are just unpaid staff and reduce the need for employees.

Lastly – your nonprofit, NGO, or other mission-based organization or department needs to make it clear to staff about who owns a Twitter feed – this story from the BBC does a good job of explaining why establishing ownership is essential.

Also see: my primer for mission-based organizations on using microblogs (including Twitter)

And, ofcourse, follow me on Twitter! I post a lot to my Twitter feed that I don’t share via Facebook.

Tags: microblogs, microblogging, Twitter, Tumblr, social, media, outreach, communications, marketing, public, relations, collaboration, community, volunteer, engagement

Harry Potter fans make a difference – as do other fan groups

Back in the 1990s, when I was directing the Virtual Volunteering Project, I researched the phenomena of online fans of TV shows, performers and sports teams using the Internet to organize volunteering, donations and other support for various causes and nonprofits. I thought it was such a splendid example of both online volunteering and DIY volunteering.

There are thousands of online communities for people who want to to share information and excitement about a particular television show, movie, sports team, celebrity, hobby or literary genre. And just as offline communities and groups will often “pass the hat” at their gatherings for a good cause, these Internet-based fan groups often come together online or in person to improve their communities, promote a cause or generate funds for a nonprofit organization. Often, these fans engage in philanthropy with no prompting from any charity or formal organization.

It’s been almost 15 years since I wrote that, and I’m pleased to see that this tradition is continuing. The latest example: The Harry Potter Alliance, a group 100,000 Harry Potter fans all over the world, has raised $15,000 for aid in Darfur and Burma and $123,000 for Haiti. Its Deathly Hallows Campaign is attacking hunger, bullying, child slavery and more.

We are an army of fans, activists, nerdfighters, teenagers, wizards and muggles dedicated to fighting for social justice with the greatest weapon we have– love.

Accio Volunteers!

Tags: outreach, networking, connections, friends, connect, network, volunteering, volunteers, community, engagement, volunteerism, social, business, Harrry Potter, DIY, books, movies, novels, fiction

Microvolunteering @ Techsoup


TechSoup has relaunched its microvolunteering initiative Donate Your Brain.
It allows anyone, anywhere, to help nonprofits, NGOs, libraries and other mission-based organizations with quick answers and suggestions for their Internet, software, and other tech needs. Right now, these microvolunteering tasks are being highlighted on Twitter, primarily.

If you want to volunteer, here’s how you can get involved:

  • Search and save the hashtag #TechSoupDYB on Twitter
  • When you see a question you want to answer (2-3 will be posted every weekday), respond either via a tweet or by following the link to the TechSoup forum post where this question originated.

Ta Da! That’s it!

No Twitter account? No problem! You can also:

Nonprofits – if you have a question regarding technology use at your organization, post to the appropriate branch of the TechSoup forum. TechSoup staff may choose to highlight your question on Twitter or on its TechSoup Global LinkedIn group!

Why do I care? I’m working temporarily for TechSoup right now, and I have helped to relaunch the Donate Your Brain. To me, it was obviously microvolunteering intiative – but no one had ever called it that! Probably because the phrase hadn’t been coined when TechSoup’s DYB initiative was first launched a few years ago. But, then again, I promoted microvolunteering back in the 1990s, but didn’t’ call it microvolunteering – I called it byte-sized online volunteering. See more at Micro-Volunteering and Crowd-Sourcing: Not-So-New Trends in Virtual Volunteering/Online Volunteering.

Also see:

Microvolunteering is virtual volunteering

But virtual volunteering means it takes no time, right?

Tags: engagement, engage, community, nonprofit, NGO, not-for-profit, government, library, libraries, school, schools, volunteers, civil society, social media, technology, microblogging, microvolunteering, micro, volunteer, volunteering

Online community member? Supporter? Volunteer?

Not much sets tongues wagging more among people that work with nonprofit organizations, NGOs, or other mission-based organizations, than a debate on who is and isn’t a volunteer.

I recently had a person responsible for a Second Life community assure me that those people involved in that community are not volunteers. In 2010, NetSquared, an organization I’m a big fan of, talked about how to encourage donors to contribute their time and/or talents virtually  – and never once used the word volunteers.

I’m firmly in the big tent when it comes to who is a volunteer: if you are doing something to support a nonprofit organization, and you are not being paid for it, you are a volunteer. I don’t care if you have been assigned community service by the court or a school, if you want to be called intern, if you are online or offline, if you will be the unpaid manager in charge of an entire department during your volunteer service, if you are doing a so-called micro-assignment and you are never ever going to do one again – I’m going to call you a volunteer.

The aversion to the term volunteer is astounding to me. I’ve had co-workers passionately try to explain to me why an intern isn’t a volunteer, despite the fact that that intern is NOT being paid. Or why an online community member, who helps other online members, and offers advice and feedback, isn’t a volunteer. Or a supporter who blogs and tweets about the organization regularly – and very positively – resulting in more publicity for the organization isn’t a volunteer. Or a board member isn’t a volunteer. My response to this: NONSENSE!

Part of the reason for the aversion to calling anyone and everyone who provides support to an organization, but isn’t paid to do so, a volunteer is because of how rigid so many staff members see their roles. If online community members are volunteers, who is in charge of those volunteers? Very traditional volunteer managers who see their role as being responsible for involving all volunteers, rather than supporting all staff in involving volunteers themselves, will balk at the increased (actually, just different kind) of responsibility. The program manager responsible for an online community of supporters, or the fundraising manager responsible for working with the board members and leadership committee members, may balk at the idea of having to be more internally-transparent about his or her involvement of such people and providing reports to the volunteer manager. It means approaching work and responsibilities more as a team, and many nonprofit, NGO, government and other mission-based managers just are not ready for that, terrified that it will diminish their manager or director role.

In addition, as I said in my blog on this subject back in 2010, I’ve heard some people say that they think the word volunteer conjures an image of very traditional people (whoever they are — I’m still not sure) doing traditional things like stuffing envelopes or handing out food at a homeless shelter. I’ve heard some people say that they think the term volunteer means someone who is merely providing free labor rather than free expertise, so they prefer to talk about pro bono consultants or executives on loan. Or online community member or supporter.

Does that mean all volunteers should be managed by the same person, or that they should all be screened, supported, recognized and supervised the same way? No. Volunteers’ level of responsibility, the amount of time they are donating, the length of their commitment, the nature of their work as a volunteer – all this and more will determine how they are screened, supported, recognized and supervised.

So, once again, I’ll be a rebel: I fully embrace the word volunteer. I’m going to keep using the word volunteer to mean when a person is donating time, talent and skills, whether onsite or online.

Tags: volunteer, volunteers, online, virtual, volunteering, community, discussion, supporters, members, fans, super

Transcribe & caption!

Captioning a video, or offering a transcription of a video or podcast, should be a priority for your organization. Why?
    • Many people that don’t have time to watch that video or listen to that podcast DO have time to read the transcript.
    • Many people are in an environment that would not allow them to listen to a podcast or online video (their surroundings are too loud, they would disturb people around them, they can’t use headphones or ear buds for some reason, etc.).
    • Many people want to quote from a video or podcast in something they are writing (and if that’s online, that quote will often link back to the original broadcast).
    • A person may just need very specific information, and a text search makes that information oh-so-easy to find.
    • Some people prefer reading to listening or watching (I’m one of those people); they are much more likely to access your information in text form than a video or audio.
  • And, of course, so people with hearing impairments can access the information.
In short, you greatly increase the number of audience members for a video or podcast, reaching more potential donors, volunteers, clients and others, by captioning a video or offering a transcription of a video or podcast. At minimum,
  • Any video or audio training materials you have should be captioned and/or transcribed.
  • All PSAs you want to be distributed widely should be captioned and/or transcribed.
  • Videos and podcasts that are part of your service delivery should be captioned and/or transcribed.
Think you don’t have the resources to caption or transcribe a video or podcast? You do: volunteers. There are online volunteers who would love to transcribe your audios and videos. These volunteers may have speech recognition/voice recognition software that they can use to convert spoken words to text, or they may be willing to listen and type. Either way, you will want volunteers checking up on other volunteers’ transcriptions and captioning, to ensure information is rendered correctly. Keep such volunteer transcribing assignments small: you might have trouble finding a volunteer to transcribe a two-hour-long panel discussion, but it might be much easier to find someone to transcribe just a 10 minute excerpt. If a video or podcast is particularly long, you could divide the transcribing or captioning job up among several volunteers. You might even be able to find a volunteer who would happily lead up the entire project for your organization – leadership volunteering opportunities are highly sought by many people these days! Recruit these volunteers from among your existing volunteers and their networks, via your web site, via VolunteerMatch and AllforGood if you are in the USA, Idealist and whatever resources are available in your country, or, if you are in a developing country or your NGO or nonprofit is focused on such: the UN’s Online Volunteering service. December 21, 2017 update: I recently created a five-minute pitch video for the OpenAIR hackathon – the Accessibility Internet Rally – for Knowbility, a nonprofit based in Austin, Texas (I’m in Portland, Oregon). I also used the YouTube captioning tool for the first time ever – I couldn’t believe how easy it was! If I can figure it out, anyone can – including online volunteers you might recruit to caption all of the videos your nonprofit has on YouTube already.
cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices
A reminder yet again that The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook provides detailed advice on creating assignments for online volunteers and for working with online volunteers, including volunteers that are going to transcribe or correct the transcriptions of your videos or podcasts. The book also has detailed guidance 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 co-written by myself and Susan Ellis. Tags: volunteering, volunteers, community, engagement, volunteerism, volunteering, online, micro, microvolunteering, virtual

TweetChat re: virtual teams on July 11

TechSoup will host a TweetChat on 11.July at 10am Pacific USA Time regarding working with virtual teams.

Also known as distributed teams, virtual teams have come together for a day, a week, many months or even years to work on a project together for a nonprofit, an NGO or other mission-based organization. Your organization may already be involving a virtual team now and not even know it:

  • a committee with members who discuss and plan online rather than at onsite meetings
  • a mix of volunteers and employees collaborating on the development of a new online tool
  • a group of volunteers around the world working together to develop an HIV education curriculum

I’m particularly interested in this topic, as I’m currently revising the Virtual Volunteering Guidebook – specifically, I’m revisiting yet again this week the chapter that addresses the subject of virtual teams, a subject that did not appear in detail in the original book. I have been compiling resources and case studies on the subject for quite a while now, and want to make sure the chapter that includes this subject addresses all the fundamental elements required for virtual team success, no matter what online tools you may use with such a team. Woe to the volunteer manager – or any nonprofit professional – who does not know how to work with virtual teams!

You can watch the TechSoup event on Twitter as it happens on July 11 (and even participate!) or look in to the archive of the chat later. Here’s more info from TechSoup on how to participate.

I have more details about live tweet events here on my web site, on this page about using micro-blogging, in case you are wondering what this will event will really look like.

Follow me on Twitter @jcravens42, and follow @TechSoup as well, so you will stay up-to-date about this and other events to help build the capacity of nonprofits, NGOs, libraries, and other organizations that involve community members to meet their goals.

Tags: volunteering, volunteers, community, engagement, international, volunteerism, volunteering, collaborative, collaboration, virtual, teams, staff, employees

People with disabilities & virtual volunteering

I said it back in the 1990s, and I’ll say it again: Online volunteering / virtual volunteering can allow for the greater participation of people who might find volunteering difficult or impossible because of a disability. This in turn allows organizations to benefit from the additional talent and resources of more volunteers, and allows agencies to further diversify their volunteer talent pool.

In addition, ensuring that your volunteering program – online or onsite – is accommodating for people with disabilities will end up making your program more accessible to everyone. For instance, if you make sure your online training videos have captioning, don’t be surprised when people who have no hearing problems at all thank you, since they can mute the video and watch it at work or in a public area without disturbing people around them.

People with disabilities volunteer for the same reasons as anyone else: they want to contribute their time and energy to improving the quality of life. They want challenging, rewarding, educational service projects that address needs of a community and provide them with outlets for their enthusiasm and talents.

I was reminded of this recently when a fantastic testimonial from Alena Roberts for the Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind was recently reposted to Inclusive Planet about online volunteering / virtual volunteering.

Here are 11 people’s testimonials about how virtual volunteering allowed them to volunteer, despite their disabilities, compiled by the Virtual Volunteering Project, that remain as powerful as when they were first-published back in the late 1990s.

I told this story back in April 2009, but it’s a good time to repeat it now:

Back in the late 1990s, when I was directing the Virtual Volunteering Project, I recruited and involved online volunteers myself to support the Project, feeling that it would be inappropriate to offer advice to other organizations to involve online volunteers unless I was engaged in the practice myself. The only recruiting I did was via the Project’s web site, on a page that was purposely not easy to find; online volunteers were oh-so-easy to recruit even back then, and by making the page harder to find, I regularly received applications from candidates who I knew were actually reading my web site.

One day, an application came in from a guy I’ll call Arnie. It was clear from Arnie’s application that he was… different. His answers to questions on the application were child-like (though everything was spelled correctly), and didn’t at all sound like they were coming from a man in his 40s (he shared his age despite my not asking for it). Among other things, he said that what he wanted to do most as an online volunteer was to share images and messages from the Virgin Mary, a skill set that I didn’t really have a need for at that time… But I kept reading Arnie’s application and thinking, well, while I know this person is very likely mentally disabled based on his answers, he spells just fine and he’s REALLY enthusiastic. There’s really no reason to say no outright. I’ll put him through all of the regular online screening steps and give him a trial assignment and see what happens, just like I do with all volunteers.

Unlike most other online volunteering applicants, Arnie followed all of the directions on the online orientation immediately, to the letter, and within just a couple of hours rather than a couple of days. I don’t remember what the first assignment was that I gave him, but just as the directions in the online orientation stated, he wrote back (within probably an hour) and said that he didn’t feel he could do what was asked for, so could he please have a different assignment? I think the revised assignment I sent him was regarding a list of names of people who had given me their business cards at conferences, but back in the 1990s, many people didn’t put their email addresses and web site addresses on their cards. I asked him to use Google to find that information for me, if possible. The next day, the finished assignment was waiting for me, with profuse apologies for each person he couldn’t find online, and a request for a new assignment.

I slowly became a bit obsessed with trying to create assignments for Arnie. He could do only basic things online, like looking up information, and he needed explicit directions on how to do every task, but he was SO enthusiastic about it all. I started saving things for Arnie to do that I could have done myself in far less time than it would take him to do. For each assignment he always wrote back promptly if he thought an assignment was too difficult, or wrote back to say how happy he was at the assignment, how excited he was to do it, etc.

I think Arnie’s favorite assignment was when I asked him to visit 20 or so web sites that were supposed to be targeted at children; I was putting together a list of things online mentors and young people could do together online, and I wanted to know if these web sites were worthwhile. A paid consultant could not have provided the thorough, brutally honest assessments that Arnie did. Things like

I did not like this site at all, Miss Jayne. It was confusing! I did not know how to use it! It is a bad web site for this reason.

    • or

I liked this site very much, Miss Jayne. It was fun! I showed it to my mother. She thought it was fun too.

I was starting an online mentoring program at a local elementary school in Austin, and I invited all the online volunteers I had worked with to apply to be online mentors. Arnie was probably the first applicant. At first, my reaction was: he can’t do this. I have to tell him no. But then I kept thinking about it — *why* couldn’t Arnie talk online with a 10 year old? His tone would actually be perfect for a 10 year old. They would never know each other’s real name or be able to contact each other outside the web platform we would use for online exchanges, every message he sent would be screened, just like the other mentors. Why not let him go through the whole application process and see if he makes it? So, I did.

Among the screening required was two references who could attest to the candidate’s character and communications abilities. One of Arnie’s references was his doctor. When I called for the reference check, the doctor said, “Are you the Miss Jayne?! I’ve heard about you for a year now! Arnie lives to volunteer with you! It’s changed his life!”

I’m glad I was on the phone, so he couldn’t see me crying.

Arnie survived the screening process and was a wonderful participant in the program. His emails to his student were always perfect, full of questions and enthusiastic comments, written in short, simple sentences. The only thing I ever had to do was ask him to revise an email that had a religious reference in it, not as in “I went to church this weekend and it was fun,” which would have been fine, but as in “I hope you are praying to God every day!” Arnie quickly understood why that was inappropriate once I explained it to him, and it never happened again.

After more than a year of working together, Arnie wrote to say that he would need to take a break from volunteering, because he was getting “too full of worry” when he did assignments. I wrote him after a month saying that I hoped he was doing well, and he wrote back a lengthy, somewhat rambling apology for “letting you down.” I wrote him again to say that was NOT the case at all, wrote lots of encouragement and thank yous, etc. When I didn’t hear from him after a few months, I called his doctor, just to make sure he was okay. He was, but his doctor said he probably wouldn’t be using email anymore, that it had become too overwhelming for him. Sadly, I never heard from Arnie again.

What did I learn from all this?

I became a better volunteer manager for all volunteers because of Arnie. My descriptions of all tasks for volunteers became much more detailed and explicit. I better emphasized to volunteers that the time to drop out of an assignment was right at the start, and that there will be no hard feelings for doing so before the commitment has begun. I started reserving a diversity of tasks specifically for volunteers, and for my own list of tasks, I would always ask, could volunteers help me do any of this? I tried to identify a range of very simple starter assignments, so that new volunteers would not feel overwhelmed — or, if they did, they would know that online volunteering was not for them very early on. I look very much into what a volunteer can do, not what limitations a volunteer may have. I also learned that everyone, people with disabilities and otherwise, screen themselves when it comes to assignments, and it’s rare that someone will ask to volunteer for a task they are unqualified to do.

Since Arnie, I’ve worked with other volunteers with disabilities, though often, I haven’t been aware of such, since online volunteering often masks any disabilities a person may have. I can judge people online only by their abilities, rather than their appearance, if I stick to text-only communications.

When I’m working at a nonprofit organization, I involve volunteers not to save money, not to do what I can’t pay staff to do, but rather, to involve the community in the work of my organization, to create an army of advocates for our work, and to make my work more interesting with input from many more people. I’ll continue to strive to create inclusive programs, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because, in the end, it helps me be a better contributor.

2014 update:

vvbooklittleThe influence of this experience, and many others, as well as extensive research, can be found in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. This book, which I wrote with Susan J. Ellis, is our attempt to document all of the best practices of working with online volunteers, from the more than three decades that virtual volunteering has been happening. It’s available both in traditional print form and in digital version. If you read the book, I would so appreciate it if you could write and post a review of it on the Amazon and Barnes and Noble web sites (you can write the same review on both sites).

There’s also The Virtual Volunteering Wiki: a free resource featuring a curated list of news articles about virtual volunteering since 1996, an extensive list of examples of virtual volunteering activities, a list of myths about virtual volunteering, the history of virtual volunteering, a list of research and evaluations of virtual volunteering, a list of online mentoring programs, and links to web sites and lists of offline publications related to virtual volunteering in languages in other than English.

And there’s also our LinkedIn Group for the discussion of virtual volunteering.

Also see: Safety in virtual volunteering