Tag Archives: technology

Are you using your own smartphone or other devices in your work or volunteering activities? Is your employer aware?

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images meant to look like cave drawings, one of a woman using a smartphone and one at a desktop computer.

Do you use your own, personal smartphone in your work activities for your employer? Does your company reimburse you for this? Does your company have a policy in writing about this use? Are you facing any challenges in using your own tech resources for your work, tech that you pay for and maintain yourself and use for your personal life as well?

I started a thread on the TechSoup forum a while back about this and a lot of folks have some strong feelings about this issue. There are also some companies that reimburse staff for use of their own personal devices.

What about your company? And for nonprofit organizations – do you realize what the cost is for your staff and volunteers when you require them to use their smartphones and other personal devices in their work for you? Had you even thought about it before?

You can weight in on the comments below, but please also weigh in on the original TechSoup forum.

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Please vote for “Living & Loving Digital Inclusion”

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There are only a few hours left to vote for my proposed session at NTEN: Living & Loving Digital Inclusion!

Voting is open only through August 31. The 2019 Nonprofit Technology Conference will be held in Portland, Oregon, March 13 – 15, and I will be able to go if I get to present! If I can’t present then – let me be blunt: I won’t be able to afford to go.

Digital Inclusion means working to ensure ICT tools, resources and associated spaces are welcoming to the widest audience possible. Helping children in communities with rates of high poverty to access the Internet and gain skills might be the first thing most think of when they hear the term digital inclusion, but it’s also about accessible web and app design, providing safe, encouraging spaces for women and girls in community tech centers and hackathons, and being mindful of our language when promoting or talking about public tech initiatives. This energizing session will give attendees lots of ideas to consider and employ.

Learning Outcomes

  • understand what is meant by “digital inclusion” in practical terms
  • understand the benefits of making “digital inclusion” a priority
  • put into immediate practice activities that improve an organization’s “digital inclusion”

Update: “Although your session received a strong level of support during the voting stages it was not selected as part of this final process to balance out the overall range of topics in the related category.” That’s the final word from NTEN. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to attend the conference (it’s VERY expensive), so even though NTEN will be right in my backyard in Portland, Oregon, I won’t be there. Very sorry to miss out once again on NTEN.

I have already developed the workshop and hope I will get a different opportunity to deliver it.

Would you like for me to speak at your conference or train at your organization? Here’s is more about my presentations and trainings. Also read more about my consulting services.

Nonprofits, NGOs: An Opportunity for a Fabulous Web Site

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I am thrilled to announce, at last, that I am working with Knowbility, a nonprofit based in Austin, Texas with whom I’ve been working with on and off since its founding in 1998. And even better: what I’m doing will help nonprofits, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), charities, schools and others to be able to welcome more clients, more donors, more volunteers and more supporters via their web sites.

I am the Knowbility liaison for nonprofits, NGOs, schools and other mission-based organizations that will participate in OpenAIR 2018 . OpenAIR is my very favorite group volunteering gig and hackathon anywhere in the world. This Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR) by Knowbility was a hackathon before there was the word hackathon. It was an onsite, local event for many years, and is now an international virtual volunteering event!

Via OpenAir, mission-based organizations get professionally-designed, accessible websites that accommodate all visitors. In fact, via OpenAir, they get more than a shiny new web site; they become a more-welcoming organization online – and maybe offline as well. This is a life-changing event for many participants – expect to have your horizons expanded and your way-of-thinking about how people use online tools transformed! 

People with disabilities want to donate, volunteer and otherwise support causes they care about. Like all people, they love the arts, animals, and the environment, they enjoy beautiful parks and fun outdoor activities, they support education, they want serious social problems addressed, and they want to be involved in these causes – as employees, as donors, as volunteers and as clients. But if your organization’s web site isn’t accessible to them, you leave them out – and that means you leave out potential donors, volunteers, clients, ideas, talent and more. All of that changes when your organization participates in OpenAIR! Here’s more about what accessibility means and why it’s important.This is a GLOBAL event: participating nonprofits, NGOs, charities and other mission-based organizations can be anywhere in the world!

This is a GLOBAL event: participating nonprofits, NGOs, charities and other mission-based organizations can be anywhere in the world!

I am SO EXCITED about my role, and I can’t wait to start helping nonprofits and others participate!  In September and October, I will market the heck out of this event, and I hope you will help by:

  • sharing this blog that you are reading now via your social media and in emails to colleagues and associates
  • by retweeting tweets that use the hashtag #OpenAIR2018
  • by following @Knowbility on Twitter, liking the Knowbility Facebook page and liking all messages related to OpenAIR
  • by talking to nonprofits, NGOs and charities you know that either don’t have a web site, or have a web site but it’s in need of a redesign, and encouraging them to check out the nonprofit section of the OpenAir web site.

In fact, you don’t have to wait – you can start doing all that NOW.

In November and December 2017, and in January 2018, I will be knocking myself out doing everything I can to help participating nonprofits prepare their information for their design teams, so that those teams can get started on their web sites in February – these design teams have just six weeks to develop these sites as a part of the OpenAir competition! Judging and awards will take place in March 2018. Participating nonprofits pay $100 to participate in OpenAir, but that fee isn’t due until December 2017, and the informational webinars in September and October about accessibility and the competition will be free.

The web designers in OpenAIR are professionals who want to apply their accessibility design skills to a web site for an organization doing good in the world. Each design team pays a small fee to participate, and commits to several hours of classes by Knowbility regarding the latest web accessibility tools and techniques. These design teams are mentored by leading experts in the accessibility field throughout their design time during OpenAIR. The designers that participate in OpenAIR are professional, trained web designers working for a variety of companies and universities. Since 1998, OpenAIR (then AIR) has included teams of web professionals from IBM, Dell, Applied Materials, Google, GivePulse, TradeMark Media, Elemental Blend, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Cal State, University of Michigan, University of Southern Florida and many more. For Knowbility, these teams are volunteers, donating their time and talent to create high quality, professional websites for participating organizations. If your company or university or group of friends wants to form a design team to participate and support a nonprofit or NGO in creating its web site as a part of this competition, please see this OpenAIR design team information.

Can you tell I’m excited?! This is a dream gig for me: I adore the work of Knowbility beyond measure (at left is a photo of me and Sharron Rush, a co-founder of Knowbility and its Executive Director, at a conference in 2006, with me displaying my “are you accessible?” temporary tattoo), I had a blast being a part of the AIR events almost 20 years ago, back when they were onsite in Austin, I am passionate about web accessibility, I love how corporations walk away from this event with much more awareness about the work of nonprofits, and I love helping nonprofits! This means, however, that I’m not available for any consulting gigs until after February 2018. So if you are thinking of me as a consultant for next year, contact me ASAP, as my schedule fills up quickly! More about my consulting services.

Direct links from the OpenAIR web site for nonprofits:

I can’t wait to work with you! In fact, if you are in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area, I would be happy to talk with you face-to-face, in-person about participating in this event. Just contact me at jc@coyotecommunications.com to set up a time and place!

UK House of Lords Select Committee on Charities

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersThe United Kingdom’s House of Lords Select Committee on Charities was appointed on 25 May 2016 “to consider issues related to sustaining the charity sector and the challenges of charity governance.” The committee has issued a report, Stronger charities for a stronger society (HL Paper 133).

There are some good points in the report. For instance, the committee recommends that government funding of charities be “based on impact and social value rather than simply on the lowest cost.” The committee also encourages government “to recognise the added benefits of charities’ involvement in service delivery, and urge local authorities to consider grant programmes wherever possible.” And the committee also highlighted a great observation about risk aversion in mission-based organizations:

371. We also heard that risk aversion and a lack of organisational flexibility were a problem. NAVCA said that “charities need to be bolder, and boards need a greater appetite for risk, if the sector is to adapt and deliver greater impact in a changing world.” Rebecca Bunce from the Small Charities Coalition highlighted the consequences that resulted from trustees not understanding digital technology sufficiently.

372. Helen Milner said that trustees who were risk averse on digital tools were approaching the issue from the wrong starting point: “If they are saying, ‘Digital feels like a risk’, they are asking themselves the wrong question. They should be saying, ‘What is our strategy? Where do we want to be in three years’ time? How are we going to get there? Do we want to help more people and how are we going to reach them?’ Digital ought then, naturally, to become part of that solution.”

I really, really love that observation. Expect to see it quoted frequently by me in the future.

But, for the most part, the report is full of observations that should have been made 20 years ago – and were made 20 years ago by various consultants and nonprofits, myself included. I’m glad that a government body is realizing that “We are living through a time of profound economic, social and technological change and the environment in which charities are working is altering dramatically,” as the report says. But that’s a statement that could be said in the 1990s, when public access to the Internet exploded.

The report also never mentions virtual volunteering by name or concept, and that’s incredibly disappointing; virtual volunteering is a practice that is more than 30 years old. When this report talks about “digital technologies” being used by charities, it’s only to build awareness, not to support and engage volunteers. Meanwhile, on an online discussion group I’m on for managers of volunteers, the discussion last week was about the best platforms for training volunteers online. What a shame that the authors of this report are so out-of-touch regarding nonprofit, NGO and charity use of online technologies to engage and support volunteers.

The report also sees volunteers only in terms of economic value:

“The charity sector relies heavily on volunteers and many charities told us that they could not do their work without them. 372 The Association of Volunteer Managers suggested that the economic benefit of volunteering could exceed £50 billion a year, 373 while other witnesses highlighted the value of volunteers in community cohesion.”

Do I have to say yet again that this talk of the economic benefits of volunteer hours are why so many labor unions and others are turning against volunteer engagement? Do I have to say yet again that no volunteer says, “I really want to volunteer so I can save money by not being paid!” It’s true: deriding the monetary value of volunteer hours is now my mission in life…

Also see:

Initiatives opposed to some or all volunteering (unpaid work)
& online & print articles about or addressing controversies regarding volunteers replacing paid staff

Involving volunteers: a cop out for paying staff?

More on the UK’s Big Society

Criticism Continues for UK Government Talk Re Volunteers

Firsts… or almost

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logoI didn’t invent virtual volunteering. I started involving online volunteers in 1995, and did a workshop that same year about it for what was then the Nonprofit Center of San Francisco (now Compasspoint), but I didn’t know it was called virtual volunteering, a term coined by Steve Glikbarg at what was then Impact Online (now VolunteerMatch), until more than a year later. I know, and frequently remind people, that online volunteers have been providing services to various causes since the Internet was invented, long before I got online in the 90s. But I was the first to try to identify elements of successful engagement of online volunteers, via the Virtual Volunteering Project, I think I was the first to do a workshop on the subject, even if I didn’t call it that, and I’m very proud of that.

I didn’t write the first paper on using handheld computer tech as a part of humanitarian, environmental or advocacy efforts – I wrote the second. At least I think it was second. It was published in October 2001 as a series of web pages when I worked at the UN, at a time when handheld tech was called personal digital assistants, or PDAs. People are shocked that the predecessor to the smartphone and cellphone was used to help address a variety of community, environmental and social issues before the turn of the century, that apps4good isn’t all that novel of an idea.

And I probably didn’t write the first papers on fan-based communities that come together because of a love of a particular movie, TV show, comic, actor, book or genre and, amid their socializing, also engage in volunteering. Those kinds of communities played a huge role in my learning how to communicate online with various age groups and people of very different backgrounds, which in turn greatly influenced how I worked with online volunteers. In fact, I can still see some influences of that experience in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. But I stopped researching them in 1999. So I was quite thrilled to recently to find this paper, “The media festival volunteer: Connecting online and on-ground fan labor,” in my research to update a page on the Virtual Volunteering wiki that tracks research that’s been done regarding virtual volunteering. It’s a 2014 paper by Robert Moses Peaslee, Jessica El-Khoury, and Ashley Liles, and uses data gathered at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, in September 2012. It is published on Transformative Works and Cultures, an online journal launched in 2009 that looks at various aspects of fan fiction (fan-created fiction inspired by their favorite movies, TV shows and books), comic book fandom, movie fandom, video game fandom, comic and fan conventions, and more.

It’s nice being a pioneer… though I don’t think my early contributions are much to brag about. But I do enjoy seeing things I thought were interesting back in the 90s finally getting the attention they deserve.

Also see

Early History of Nonprofits & the Internet.

Apps4Good movement is more than 15 years old

vvbooklittleThe Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, a book decades in the making, by Susan J. Ellis and myself. Tools come and go, but certain community engagement principles never change, and our book can be used with the very latest digital engagement initiatives and “hot” new technologies meant to help people volunteer, advocate for causes they care about, connect with communities and make a difference.

UNICEF invites orgs to apply for funding for tech innovations to help children

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global_logo_2013UNICEF is inviting technology organizations developing tech solutions with the potential to improve the lives of the world’s most vulnerable children to apply for funding from its recently launched Innovation Fund.

UNICEF Innovation Fund plans to invest in open source technologies by increasing children’s access to information, opportunity and choice. UNICEF identifies opportunities from countries around the world including some that may not see a lot of capital investment in technology start-ups. They are hoping to identify communities of problem-solvers and help them develop simple solutions to some of the most pressing problems facing children.

The fund focuses its investments on three portfolio areas:

  • Products for youth under 25 to address a range of needs including learning and youth participation;
  • Real-time information for decision-making; and
  • Infrastructure to increase access to services and information, including connectivity, power, finance, sensors and transport.

The projects must be open source and have a working prototype. They can involve developing a new technology, or expanding or improve upon a preexisting technology.

Key Dates

  • 1 February 2016: Launch of global Requests for Expressions of Interest
  • 26 February 2016: Closing date of the Requests for Expressions of Interest
  • Early-March 2016: Selected companies and institutions will be contacted and will receive a Request for Proposal
  • Mid-March 2016: Virtual or in-person pre-tender briefings with selected companies and institutions will be held
  • End-March 2016: Full technical and financial proposals are due from selected companies and institutions
  • Early-April: Contracts will be awarded to selected companies and institutions

More information about the challenge and how to submit an idea.

For more information about UNICEF’s work in innovation, visit: www.unicef.org/innovation and www.unicefstories.org

Follow on Twitter: @UNICEFinnovate

Also see this TechSoup thread about UNICEF’s Wearables for Good Challenge 

 

Technology, the Internet & Social Work Practice: call for papers

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This special issue of Advances in Social Work will explore the themes of changing technology and media and their impact on social work practice. Taking a broad stance on defining practice, articles may focus on any element of the practice landscape including: clinical work, social work administration, policy advocacy, community organizing, and others.

The use of technology in social work practice has risen dramatically over the past 10 years. Clinical interventions such as psychotherapy using telephones, interactive video, and the Internet are gaining in popularity (Parker-Oliver & Demiris, 2005). Additionally, new technology is revolutionizing policy practice in the United States, giving rise to new interventions collectively called electronic advocacy or online advocacy (FitzGerald & McNutt, 1997; McNutt & Boland, 1999). Both in the practice and policy arenas technological innovation is changing the way that social workers do business.

We are looking for manuscripts of up to 4,000 words (no more than 5,000 words including references) relating to any of the following themes:

  • The impact of mobile technologies on social work practice
  • Confidentiality in an age of open communication tools
  • Challenges and opportunities for using technology and communication tools to help clients
  • Accountability practices, data use, and management in human services agencies
  • Social networking’s impact on social work practice
  • Electronic advocacy
  • Digital community organizing
  • Ethical dilemmas that arise from use of technology in practice

The submission deadline is September 30, 2014. The issue is scheduled to appear in May or June, 2015. Authors should follow the guidelines for writing articles for Advances in Social Work which may be found here: Author Guidelines. Submitted manuscripts will be anonymously peer reviewed.

For more information, please contact:

William H. Barton, Editor, Advances in Social Work: wbarton@iupui.edu 

or

Guest Editors:

Lauri Goldkind, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Social Service, Fordham University, New York, NY Goldkind@fordham.edu

JohnMcNutt,Professor, SchoolofPublicPolicy&Administration,Universityof Delaware, Newark, DE mcnuttjg@udel.edu

Enhancing Inclusion of Women & Girls In Information Society

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Found this via Zunia: one of my favorite leads for publications and studies about issues relating to women’s empowerment in development countries and under-served areas:

Doubling Digital Opportunities: Enhancing the Inclusion of Women & Girls In the Information Society

This Report studies the role that ICTs and the Internet can play in advancing gender equality agendas, including equal access to new technologies by women and girls. It examines the central question of how access to the Internet and ICTs can help redress some of the inequalities women and girls face in their everyday lives, and whether inequalities in access to the Internet, and the types of content available online, are in fact reinforcing social attitudes towards women. Issues in fact extend far beyond basic access, including the availability of relevant content and the participation of women in public policy-making processes. The Report explores measures of inequality in access to ICTs, the importance of ICTs in educating and shaping the aspirations and hopes of the next generation of women and girls, and the implications of lack of access to ICTs by girls and women.

Also see: Women’s Access to Public Internet Centers in Transitional and Developing Countries (my resource)

Assessing the Flow of Tech Talent into Government & Civil Society

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Assessing the Flow of Tech Talent into Government & Civil Society: An evaluation of the technology talent landscape shows a severe paucity of individuals with technical skills in computer science, data science, and the Internet or other information technology expertise in civil society and government. The report investigates broadly the health of the talent pipeline that connects individuals studying or working in information technology-related disciplines to careers in public sector and civil society institutions. Barriers to recruitment and retention of individuals with the requisite skills include compensation, a perceived inability to pursue groundbreaking work, and cultural aversion to innovation.

This report was written by Freedman Consulting, LLC, and was commissioned by the Ford Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Excerpt from the executive summary:

Technology now mediates a vast set of relationships, but the number of individuals who can understand, build, and work with these evolving technology tools and platforms remains relatively small… through the effective use of technology is among the greatest contemporary opportunities for the public sector.

Civil society faces a similar set of challenges and opportunities. Technology has emerged as a transformative tool for how non-governmental organizations are able to build movements, raise money, disseminate information, provide services, and generate conversation.

In addition, both government and civil society will play a crucial role in making decisions about how technology should be used across all sectors of contemporary society. This includes identifying opportunities to utilize technology as a solution, but it also involves a sophisticated and challenging set of conversations about limitations on the use of technology, whether by private or public institutions…

Recent examples illustrate in vivid detail both the complexity of these issues and their growing relevance. The launch of President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy initiative health care reform has been stymied by significant malfunctioning of HealthCare.Gov, the online portal intended to provide health insurance to millions of Americans… In particular, because HealthCare.Gov was built largely by private contractors, questions have emerged about whether government agencies employ enough individuals with the skills to knowledgeably manage outside vendors for extensive technology projects…

…deep questions remain about the ability for many areas of government and civil society to identify, cultivate, and retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly driven by information technology.

I like the report, upon first glance – but I missed anything about recommendations about how there must be a change in how FUNDERS think. Without a change in how funders think about paying for overhead at nonprofits and community initiatives and about how they pressure nonprofits to keep administrative costs low, the funding needed for the changes recommended in this report isn’t going to happen – and therefore the changes aren’t going to happen.

New report NOT by me re: microvolunteering

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At long last, someone that is not me has conducted a fact-based, non-hype review of micro volunteering, and not just from the volunteers’ point of view, but from the volunteer-involving organizations point of view as well. Hurrah!

Published by the Institute for Volunteering Research and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), the report, The value of giving a little time Understanding the potential of micro-volunteering, is focused on United Kingdom-based efforts, but is applicable to other countries regarding what micro volunteering really looks like, and what it takes for it to be successful.

Do I agree with everything in the report? No. For instance, the writers don’t believe micro volunteering is episodic volunteering; I’m adamant that it is. The writers include offline activities within their definition of micro volunteering, something that is a very new way of thinking. But every researcher has to define the parameters of their study, and I respect how they’ve chosen to define the practice, even if I don’t agree with it 100%.

And is it micro volunteering, microvolunteering, or micro-volunteering? I just do whatever spell check tells me…

That said, it’s a good report and worth your time to read, particularly if you are skeptical of the idea of micro volunteering. My favorite part was part 6, “What are the challenges of micro- volunteering?” It’s the part of the report that breaks new ground, because (1) it admits that there ARE real challenges to creating micro tasks and involving volunteers in those tasks, something people promoting micro volunteering to date have been reluctant to admit, and (2) it offers a detailed list of those real challenges, and a start on how they might be addressed.

I have managed probably hundreds of online volunteers in micro volunteering projects – though it didn’t have a snazzy name for most of the years I did so. In September 2013, I blogged at TechSoup about what it’s like to manage its micro volunteering initiative, Donate Your Brain, pointing out just how much time and effort it takes to look for micro volunteering opportunities in relation to the TechSoup community forum. I’d like to see others that are creating micro volunteering tasks and supporting the volunteers in them do this as well: talk about what it REALLY takes!

I have to say that Table 3 in the report, “Are organisations experiencing the benefits of micro-volunteering?”, made me laugh out loud – it reads oh-so-much like the benefits of virtual volunteering for organizations that was written back in the 1990s!

Here’s more of my own recommendations regarding micro volunteering. And in January 2014, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook will be published, and it includes practical guidelines on how to create micro tasks for volunteers, and how to support volunteers in those tasks. But more information, and voices, are needed! We need more, real research that answers these questions, in detail:

  • What does successful micro volunteering look like for an organization? I don’t mean just a list of tasks; how do they measure success? What measurable impact does engaging with volunteers in micro tasks look like, for the organization and those it serves?
  • How much time and other investment, in detail, is required by the organization to create successful micro volunteering that makes the investment of time and effort by the organization worth it?

Let’s hope that national institutes that study community engagement, as well as traditional volunteer centers, will, at last, embrace micro volunteering (and all virtual volunteering, for that matter) and start including it in their studies, workshops, publications and trainings.

With all that said, and as much as I really do like this report, the reality is that not every organization is going to be able to create micro tasks for micro volunteering. Just as not every organization can, or should, create opportunities for family volunteers, or other group volunteers. Not every task can be altered so that any volunteer can do it. Not every task can be done by episodic volunteers – sometimes, the best person for a task or role is a long-term volunteer who can give a substantial amount of time every month. Different tasks require different kinds of staffing. And all volunteering, including micro volunteering, takes real time – let’s NOT say it’s perfect for people that don’t have time to volunteer, because it DOES take real time, even if it’s just a few minutes.

The challenge isn’t creating micro tasks for volunteers; the much greater challenge is supporting those charged with supporting volunteers at organizations large and small with the resources they need to create all of these different avenues for volunteer engagement. Are you ready to fund and equip your manager of volunteers with the resources he or she needs to make this a reality?