Tag Archives: tech4good

Fear of Wrestling

Leave a reply

You probably won’t hear any well-known social media guru talking about it, you probably won’t hear about it in any social media workshop (except mine, of course), but do you know who is getting the MOST out of social media when it comes to community engagement?

Wrestlers.

Check out 110 Trending Topics in 5 Hours: How WWE Wrestlemania Body-Slammed Social Media:

Behind strong pushes on Twitter and YouTube, WWE Wrestlemania XXVIII laid the smack down on social media last weekend, teaching a digital engagement lesson to the sports entertainment world.

Heck, Wrestlemania taught a digital engagement lesson to the nonprofit world, to ANY world, if those sectors will listen. Also see: How the WWE Is Making WrestleMania More Social Than Ever.

But will you click on those links? Or are you already lifting up your nose at the mere mention of the word wrestling?

Professional wrestling – or, as my people like to call it, rasslin’ – is unbelievably popular world wide. I’ve been stunned at how many wrestling shirts I’ve seen all over the world, including in Kabul, Afghanistan. In Kabul, there are (or, at least, in 2007, there were) gyms in the city that had the images of wrestlers from Wrestlemania in front of their businesses to draw people in (don’t sue, Wrestlemania, just don’t). I couldn’t understand why USAID wasn’t employing stars from Wrestlemania to create public service announcements for Afghans about whatever it is we’re trying to get Afghans to do (support women in microenterprises, support girls going to school, grow wheat instead of poppies, drive on the right side of the road, employ proper water sanitation practices, etc.). I’m totally serious, USAID!

But we cringe at the thought of… sniff… wrestlers being involved in anything noble or high-minded or community-focused like that.

I worked with People Magazine once upon a time to do a pilot online mentoring program with kids in Washington, D.C. – and the People folks wanted celebrities to be the online mentors. At a classroom we visited in the basement of a school (where it was easily over 100 degrees on that stifling hot day), there were probably five kids wearing Wrestlemania t-shirts. I talked to the kids while the rest of our visiting party stood across the room, as far away from the students as possible, and when I asked the students what kind of celebrities they admired, they didn’t name rap stars – they named wrestlers. I was thinking, hey great, we’re getting wrestlers for these kids as online mentors! Later that afternoon, in our followup planning meeting in an air-conditioned room of a then dominant Internet provider in Virginia, a room so cold I needed a sweater, People Magazine staff balked at the idea of wrestlers. They said they were thinking of celebrities such as Martha Stewart and Charleton Heston as possible mentors for these teens. I kid you not – that’s the two people they named in that meeting as examples of proper online mentors for inner-city teens.

It’s worth noting that the first virtual volunteering by a celebrity I have been able to find has been by…  A RETIRED WRESTLER. Mick Foley is a an online volunteer with RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), the largest anti-sexual assault organization in the USA. He talked about his experience as an online volunteer on a November 2010 episode of The Daily Show with John Stewart. In a RAINN web video, Foley says, “I cannot think of a better way to spend a few hours a week than helping someone who needs RAINN’s services.” Learn more about volunteering for RAINN’s Online Hotline.

(Yes, I just burned a bridge with People Magazine. So much for my bid to be one of their most beautiful people. Ah, well.)

Let’s be clear: I actually don’t watch wrestling. Well, now, anyway – when I was 8, I loved watching Bill “Superstar” Dundee on TV. I also loved roller derby in those days. But, indeed, I have moved on. I could not name a modern-day wrestler. I’m not as hip as you might think.

But I haven’t become too sophisticated to say, way to go, Wrestlemania. I’ll happily learn from Wrestlemania and wrestlers when it comes to virtual volunteering, online mentoring, and online community engagement, I’d love to invite your participation in any community engagement activity I’m a part of, and I’ll even use examples of your online activities in my workshops – even while other social media experts and nonprofit management trainers rolls their eyes and cringe.

But I still might call it rasslin’.

Consulting services by Jayne Cravens.

 

My Twitter Lists

Leave a reply

One of the things I really like about Twitter is that I don’t have to follow absolutely everyone whose tweets I might be interested in reading at some point; I can put people and organizations on various lists, by subject matter, geography, whatever, and then check in with those lists as I like. I pick one or two of my lists a day, and then spend a few minutes going through the tweets of that list.

I make my Twitter lists public – anyone can see them. I’m also sharing them below – I thought you might like to see what they are, either to find someone you should be following, to subscribe to any of these lists or maybe to finally get you on Twitter at long last.

Afghanistan
People and organizations that tweet about Afghanistan. I’ll always care about Afghanistan…

Aid work & Dev
Organizations working development, aid and humanitarian response in developing/transitional countries.

CSR
Corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship, including pro bono help

Colleagues
My professional and volunteering colleagues (if you aren’t on this list, and we’ve worked together at some point in some way, and you are on Twitter, please let me know!)

español
Info & orgs in Spain & Latin America, or any site I follow that tweets in español, all related to some subject I follow (aid work and development, tech4good/ICT4D, tourism for good, CSR, FOSS, etc.)

FOSS
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) – vendors, distributors, volunteers and advocates.

International NGOs
Major international non-governmental organizations I’m particularly interested in.

Nonprofit associations
City, state & regional nonprofit associations in the USA.

PNW
Portland, Oregon & Pacifc Northwest Tweeters I follow.

Tech4Good ICT4D
Also #nptech, apps for good. Organizations and individuals engaged in activities that use computer, software and Internet technology to help individuals, communities and the environment.

tourism4good
Organizations promoting tourism for good, or tourism for development.

Women & Girls Empowerment
Orgs & tweeters re women & girls empowerment/rights

Vol Research
Research regarding volunteerism and/or community engagement

Volunteerism non-English
Volunteer info & orgs that do not tweet English (but tweet in Spanish, French, Portuguese, or anything I can sorta kinda figure out)

For Volunteers
If you want to / are a volunteer. If you tweet about your volunteering activities, the things you do as a volunteer, contact me and let me know. If you are an organization focused primarily on volunteers (you have developed a web site or app to help people find volunteering opportunities, for instance), let me know.

Volunteer recruit/manage
For those that work with volunteers – for managers of volunteers, and for organizations that regularly tweet regarding their volunteers.

Volunteerism
Promoting or researching the concept of volunteers/community help.

If you want to be on any of these lists, please contact me. And if you are interested in the subjects I am, or want to know what I’m up to, I hope you will follow me on Twitter!

What I’m taking from 2011 for 2012

2 Replies

logoIt’s December 2011. Here’s what I will be taking with me into 2012:

  • The Second Mile/Penn State/Jerry Sandusky scandal. This was more than the case of one pedophile; this was a colossal management and policy failure by a nonprofit organization and a university. Will you use this as a starting point for an open, honest discussion and review at YOUR organization? The case reminded me that I need to keep asking questions that make nonprofits uncomfortable regarding how they screen and supervise volunteers.
  • Virtual Volunteering is accepted as mainstream, as this recognition by CNN this year confirms. So, no more calling it “new.” That includes microvolunteering, which was identified and called byte-sized volunteering as early as 1997.
  • There is no excuse whatsoever, no matter how awesome the work that is done, no matter how large the task at hand, for a nonprofit organization, a non-government organization, a government agency or an international agency to not be vigilant about measuring its results and reporting on what it is doing, because, as the  Three Cups of Tea Fallout showed, the consequences hurt ALL mission-based organizations.
  • Too many agencies, governments and even charities themselves remain obsessed with valuing volunteers based on the hourly wages they aren’t paying them. One of the most popular blogs I wrote in 2011 was regarding the huge misstep by the United Nations Volunteers programme, IFRC, ILO & John Hopkins University make HUGE misstep this year regarding how to assign value to volunteers. Those that use this method – assigning a monetary value to the hourly work by volunteers – create problems like this with the USA’s union of professional firefighters. Or this with the unionized school employees in Petaluma, California. In addition, judging volunteers by their number of hours remains a bad idea as well, and it’s important to keep showing why.
  • Corporate folks really do NOT always know best when it comes to nonprofit and volunteering initiatives, as a certain stupid name for this new online volunteering service for nonprofits demonstrates – and as does the organizers’ continual denial that the name is offensive.
  • For-profit companies that try to pass off watching videos as community service do NOT like it when their activities are brought to light online and in the press by me, as oh-so-many nasty comments submitted to this blog – courts being fooled by online community service scams – demonstrate. I stopped posting the comments because they attacked me for things I never said regarding this company, and because they were sinking to the level of this, received today: Haha fuck you, bitch. Stay classy, guys.
  • Volunteer managers really do have a sense of humor: two of my most popular blogs this year were How to get rid of volunteers and Volunteer Manager Fight Club.
  • Twitter rocks. I’ve added hundreds of new followers in 2011, but much more importantly, I have learned things I never would have otherwise, met people at agencies I’ve long had my eye on, and gotten the word out about my own resources and activities to people and organizations that actually read and respond to such. Facebook was making me lose hope for the Internet as a meaningful way to meet people and exchange ideas; Twitter has restored that hope.
  • The world economy is still bad. Most of the jobs I had in 2011 were budgeted by my clients in 2009 or 2010. I’m not sure anything has been budgeted in 2011 to work with consultants – or hire new employees – for 2012, based on how my calendar is looking. One government program got eliminated entirely just before I started work! Even if the recovering starts in 2011, we will be feeling the consequences from these bad years for quite a while.

What did you learn in 2011? What are you going to do in 2012 regarding nonprofits, charities, humanitarian efforts, community capacity-building and/or volunteers?

Hackathons for good? That’s volunteering!

2 Replies

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

4 good examples? Like those by , & ( Internet Rallies/AIR)?

(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?

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply


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

2 Replies

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

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply


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?

Leave a reply

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