Tag Archives: virtual volunteering

I hope we stop talking about virtual volunteering

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I really do mean that headline: I hope we will stop talking about virtual volunteering.

What I mean is: I hope we will stop talking about online volunteers versus onsite volunteers. I would be so happy to never hear the phrase “virtual” volunteers, distinguishing them from “real” volunteers, ever again. I hope that, at last, all managers of volunteers realize they need to be using the Internet to engage and support ALL volunteers.

Co-author Susan Ellis and I wanted The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook to be a turning point, to be the last time anyone talked about using the Internet to engage and support volunteers as something separate and completely different than engaging and supporting traditional onsite volunteers. We hoped the book would be the moment that virtual volunteering stopped being segregated to separate books or a separate chapter at the end of a volunteer management book or a separate workshop on volunteer recruitment, volunteer support, etc.

Sadly, the publication of the book was not the turning point we were hoping for.

So… could the pandemic and the massive rise in popularity of virtual volunteering be that turning point? Could this be the moment that we stop thinking of volunteer engagement this way, with groups completely segregated from each other:

And, instead, we think of volunteer engagement this way, with everyone in the yellow oval being volunteers and intersecting together, and being in more than one grouping?

They are all volunteers. And unless the volunteers don’t have Internet access, you should be using the Internet to engage and support all of your volunteers – to refuse to do so creates so much more work for you, the manager, and leaves out so, so many people as volunteers – it undermines any goals you might have regarding diversity and inclusion.

(Yes, there are volunteers without Internet access – just as there are volunteers who don’t like your traditional thank-you banquet and choose not to attend, or volunteers who don’t like working with the public or in groups and prefer to work behind-the-scenes, alone. No one thing you do onsite, face-to-face is appropriate for all volunteers.)

If you are writing a book or teaching a class about the basics of volunteer management, it should talk about using the Internet to support and engage volunteers – not at the end, but throughout the book or workshop. If you are going to focus on how to

  • identify tasks for volunteers
  • recruit volunteers
  • keep volunteers engaged/volunteer retainment
  • recognize/honor volunteers.

Then you should be talking about:

  • identifying tasks people can do online, not just onsite
  • using the Internet to recruit volunteers for both onsite and online roles and tasks.
  • using Internet tools to keep volunteers engaged/volunteer retainment
  • using your web site, YouTube, social media and other Internet tools to recognize and honor volunteers.

You don’t even have to say the phrase virtual volunteering in your workshop or article. People don’t think of themselves as online volunteers – just as volunteers, so why are you talking about them as this completely separate group?!

Also see:

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is a volunteer management book for anyone that supports or engages volunteers, or who cares about the overall volunteer engagement at their agency. The book has never been just for people that want to involve online volunteers. In fact, the book emphasizes support for ALL VOLUNTEERS more than any other topic. When Susan Ellis and I wrote The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, we never envisioned a global pandemic creating this massive, sudden shift to virtual volunteering for so many agencies, and I’m glad the book has been helpful to so many in these trying, fatiguing times, but I worry that people are thinking of virtual volunteering as something that will go away when the pandemic eases. Just as virtual volunteering is a practice that’s more than 35 years old and undertaken by thousands of organizations long before 2020, it will continue to be not only a reality, and an expectation.

Also see:

Request to all those training re: volunteer management (blog).

My own training videos (all free!).

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site or my YouTube videos and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

Contributing to online communities can help you professionally

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I see lots of young people online who are wondering how to build up their skills and résumés in this time of COVID-19, or to explore careers with so many onsite experiences closed to them. I want to remind them all (they all read my blog, right?) that volunteering to help with an online community is a great way to get experience, to build your skills, to build your knowledge, to build your portfolio and to network for jobs.

Don’t believe me? I’ve been helping with online communities since 1993 or so, mostly as a volunteer. And those experiences have played a substantial part in both getting professional positions and getting experience that’s helped me in my offline work.

The first online community I participated in was the soc.org.nonprofit USENET newsgroup. It was created in June 1994 and gatewayed to the email-based mailing list USNONPROFIT-L. The community was for the discussion of nonprofit management and program issues. I found it soon after it was created and, after a couple of years of participating, because I was such a prolific contributor, I got asked to co-moderate it, as a volunteer, and I did so for several years. My participation there, and some onsite volunteering and collaboration, lead me to being offered a paid position: to direct the Virtual Volunteering Project.

In the late 1990s, I participated in three other online communities, all on YahooGroups: CyberVPM, UKVPMs, and OZVPM, all focused on managers of volunteers. It was because of my participation in those three communities, talking about the VV Project and virtual volunteering in general, that I got noticed by a United Nations agency in charge of the online volunteering portion of NetAid, and ended up directing what became the UN’s Online Volunteering Service. I also have lifelong colleagues and friends because of my volunteer participation in those three communities specifically.

In 2001 or so, while living in Germany and working for the UN Volunteers program, I started participating in the then newly-launched TechSoup online community. You can see an early version of that community on the Internet Wayback machine. I was a very active volunteer contributor and ended up getting asked to be a volunteer moderator, helping to introduce topics, answer questions and delete spam, and to lead a couple of online events. And years later, in 2009, after volunteering on and off, I got a part-time contracting gig helping with the community and some online events. I’ve done that off and on ever since (including now!).

Around that same time, someone set up an online community for people working in international aid and development work. I joined that community and, once again, I was a prolific contributor, as a volunteer, and eventually got asked to be a volunteer board member of the newly-formed nonprofit that got set up to support the community. The Aid Workers Network lasted for just a few years, but I got asked about that experience regularly in job interviews, and there are two people that remain my professional colleagues to this day.

On Reddit, I’ve been the volunteer moderator for the volunteer community, the community service subreddit, and the inclusion subreddit, for a few years now – and I got a short, well-paid consulting gig earlier this year because of my activities on the volunteer subreddit specifically.

So, that’s my story on how volunteering to contribute, moderate, facilitate and lead online communities has helped me professionally. It could help you, too:

  • Look for Reddit communities that represent what you want to do professionally or as a volunteer. Read a lot before you contribute, and always read as much as you yourself post. When you feel ready, post helpful, on-topic questions, advice and comments. Follow the rules. If you do this regularly, don’t be surprised if you end up getting asked to be a moderator. Even if you aren’t asked to be a moderator, if you think your contributions show your expertise, workstyle and character, consider including a link to your Reddit profile on your résumé.
  • If you use computers or your smart phone as a part of your volunteering or professional work with nonprofits, NGOs, charities, community groups, advocacy groups, libraries, religious groups, etc., and you want to share your experience and help others that might be trying to do so, consider joining the TechSoup online community and contributing to the subjects there, like Databases and Software (including apps), Web Building, Digital Engagement, Hardware, Servers & Networks, Security, Privacy & Safety, Tech in Disasters, Tech Planning and Policies or Tech4Good, Tech Making a Difference, Tech in Society.
  • Use Google, Bing or Duck Duck Go, and on Facebook, to find online communities hosted on other platforms that relate to what you want to do, whether its humanitarian work, nonprofit theater management, rescuing wildlife, logistics after disasters, whatever. As always, read a lot before you contribute, and always read as much as you post. Post helpful, on-topic questions, advice and comments and follow the rules. You might get asked to be a moderator, but regardless, you’ll create an online profile potential employers might find quite interesting.

And if your nonprofit, NGO, charity, library, etc. has an online community, the contributors to that community are volunteers, even if you don’t call them such, even if you also call them clients or community members instead. If they are asking questions, offering comments and advice, introducing discussions on your community, even debating (but are staying on topic) and you aren’t paying them, they are online volunteers, they are contributing their time and talents, and you are engaged in virtual volunteering.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

For detailed advice on creating assignments for online volunteers, for working with online volunteers, for using the Internet to support and involve ALL volunteers (including those providing service onsite), and for ensuring success in virtual volunteering, check out The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. 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 available both as a traditional paperback and as an online book. It’s co-written by myself and Susan Ellis. If your organization wants to better engage the people who contribute to your online communities – and, yes, those are online volunteers – this book can help.

Also see:

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

NYT spotlights how seniors are volunteering virtually

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The New York Times, in a story last week, says “Older adults, particularly vulnerable in a pandemic, still work for their causes, but primarily from home now”, via virtual volunteering.

The story notes what all of us that work in or with nonprofits know so well: in March, the health risks of in-person contact brought in-person volunteering to an immediate halt at many programs, particularly for seniors / the elderly. Volunteers are the lifeblood of many nonprofits and other community programs,, but the pandemic has created major barriers to volunteer participation, especially for older people, who face a higher risk of serious illness or death if they contract the coronavirus. As a result, many seniors have pivoted to virtual volunteering, and some of these elderly volunteers are finding themselves devoting even more hours each month to their causes now.

The story profiles two senior volunteers who are doing more virtual volunteering because of the pandemic, and what they are doing as online volunteers:

Before the pandemic, Paula Brynen devoted 15 hours a month to various causes, including arts groups and a volunteer recruitment clearinghouse. For instance, she volunteered onsite for the local chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, volunteering that is especially important to her, having survived leukemia in 2011. She used to help with the setup for the annual fund-raising walk; now, she focuses on fundraising phone calls. Opportunities with arts groups have disappeared for her for now, but she has several new projects, including working as a mentor with Table Wisdom, a St. Louis-based nonprofit that matches older adults with students and young professionals in the United States and abroad who need career advice and help with English-language skills. She connects each week via Zoom with a young environmental engineer in Colombia who is hoping to advance her career by improving her English. Ms. Brynen is also volunteering for Democratic candidates in the November election, and she recently helped a graduate student in psychology complete her training by serving as a sort of virtual guinea pig, doing sessions as an art therapy patient.

Barbara Lewers is a 79-year-old New Yorker who spent two afternoons every week volunteering at Senior Planet’s center in Manhattan before the pandemic. When Senior Planet, a program of the nonprofit Older Adults Technology Services and which helps older adults learn to use technology. shifted its work completely online, Ms. Lewers shifted, too. A retired advertising creative director, she has volunteered in a program that makes check-in calls to older New Yorkers. She has also helped with a program that has deployed 10,000 tablet computers to older low-income residents in city housing, helping to train people how to use them.

The Times article notes that technology can be a barrier for some older adults, who can be less likely to use the latest technology, according to the Pew Research Center; for example, last year 59 percent of Americans age 65 and older had broadband internet connections, roughly 20 percentage points fewer than those in younger age groups. Efforts to help seniors use online tools are noted now almost every week on the TechSoup online community forum (do a search for the world senior, click on forums, sort by date).

I am not surprised at all that the online volunteers profiled in this NYT story are people who already had an established relationship with the nonprofits they are now helping as online volunteers – that’s something that’s usual for online volunteers even when there isn’t a pandemic going on (as noted in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook). I’m not surprised that these experienced, traditional volunteers are finding themselves spending MORE time as online volunteers. I am very glad the article spotlighted senior citizens as the online volunteers in this story, not just as the recipients of service. I just wish this story had talked to more nonprofits about how they are creating activities and roles for volunteers, what challenges they are facing, etc.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

For much more detailed advice on creating assignments for online volunteers, for working with online volunteers, for using the Internet to support and involve ALL volunteers, including volunteers that provide service onsite, and for ensuring success in virtual volunteering, check out The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. Tools come and go – but certain community engagement principles never change, as this Times article confirmed! You will not find a more detailed guide anywhere for working with online volunteers and using the Internet to support and involve all volunteers – even after home quarantines are over and volunteers start coming back onsite to your workspace. It’s available both as a traditional paperback and as an online book. It’s co-written by myself and Susan Ellis.

Also see all of the blogs I’ve developed JUST THIS YEAR to help nonprofits quickly launch online roles & activities for online volunteers and to deliver their programming and services online:

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

Schools & Courts: you need to accept historical transcription online projects as community service

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Projects abound where online volunteers transcribe scanned documents for universities, nonprofits and government archives. By doing this, the documents become more searchable for researchers and more accessible to everyone. Through these programs, online volunteers are helping to amplify and preserve the stories of escaped enslaved people, the thoughts of and to people like Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, people who attended political meetings held at the state and national levels in the 1800s to free enslaved people or gain women the vote, and on and on. It can be a surprisingly intimate experience for the volunteer, one that benefits many thousands of people for years – for generations – to come.

I’ve done this myself as an online volunteer, and it was quite an emotional experience for me, transcribing newspaper ads seeking people who had escaped enslavement in the 1800s in the USA, part of the Freedom on the Move (FOTM) project. I have a list of every online transcription project for online volunteers that I know about at this resource on finding virtual volunteering roles and activities.

These historical transcription projects are wonderful virtual volunteering experiences, but most schools and courts will not accept this volunteering for required community service because they have a piece of paper that must be signed by someone from the project affirming that the volunteer did the service.

YA’LL NEED TO CHANGE.

These historical transcription projects are PERFECT for both students seeking community service hours required for graduation and for people who are ordered by the courts to do so.

Using suggestions already in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service Into Volunteer Involvement and a previous blog on supervising online volunteers in court-ordered settings as guidance, here’s how high schools and courts could verify community service hours via online historical transcription projects:

  • Require the volunteer to keep track of service hours on a Google Doc spreadsheet that that person gives you access to for viewing, so you can check-in at any time to see if they have updated it. It should have the name of the project or organization, a web address for more info, the date and time of volunteering service provided by the volunteer, the hours or minutes spent, and a summary of what the volunteer did (“transcribed a letter by George Washington to Alexander Hamilton from June 1775.”). Check into that spreadsheet weekly or every other week to see if it’s been updated.
  • Require that the volunteer take a photo on their smartphone every time they start transcribing a new document and every time they finish, and that they upload this photo to a private Flickr account album (Flickr is free), one that only the user (the volunteer) and you can see. You can spot check the time and date stamps on photos to see if the data corresponds to the aforementioned spreadsheet data (just spot check – you don’t have to do them all).
  • Require the volunteer take a screenshot of each document they are going to transcribe, and each transcription they complete, and to upload these screenshots to the aforementioned Flickr account album. This provides more documentation for confirming if a person did the assignment.
  • Require the volunteer take a selfie of himself or herself at the computer, about to do the work and then again at the completion, and upload these screenshots to the aforementioned Flickr account private album that only you and that volunteer can see. This provides more documentation for confirming if a person did the assignment.

Give the volunteer one to two hours of credit for service hours JUST for setting up and maintaining the Google Doc and the Flickr account correctly.

Could a volunteer fake all this? Yes, and it would take that volunteer about as many hours to create the fake documents, screenshots and summaries as it would for them to do the ACTUAL volunteering and record-keeping – meaning they would still have had to do all this time to fulfill community service hours, even if they didn’t end up doing what they said they were doing.

Could someone else do all of this service for the person? Yes: a parent, a sibling, a friend, or someone the person pays could do all of this. And this happens in onsite, in-person volunteering. People also frequently show up to volunteer at a beach clean up as community service, sign in, go sit in their cars and smoke or listen to music, then come back at the end and get their paperwork signed off that they did the hours. It’s the chance every program takes in not supervising people doing community service every moment. While Lindsay Lohan probably had her assistance do her online court-ordered community service, I don’t think most people do.

Doesn’t this create a lot of followup by the assigning body? Yes. For schools, keeping track of this is a GREAT assignment for an online volunteer, or group of online volunteers. For courts: sorry, but you all have never done well in this department with onsite, face-to-face folks – I’ve seen the forged paperwork first-hand for nonprofits that don’t exist or for nonprofits that have never seen or heard of the person that supposedly did the service. Let this be your opportunity to up your game in terms of confirming court-ordered community service completion.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

There’s also my book, co-written with Susan Ellis which goes into a great deal of detail on supervising and supporting online volunteers, and how to track their progress: The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service Into Volunteer Involvement. In this time of a global pandemic, as well as this time where every program should be looking at how to be more inclusive and accommodating for working parents, people with home care requirements (for children for parents, for other relatives, etc.), people with transportation issues and people with disabilities, every program that relates to people completing community service for a graduation requirement or a court requirement should read this book.

Here are all of my blogs about some aspect of court-ordered community service.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site or my YouTube videos and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

Free training in virtual volunteering (involving & supporting volunteers using online tools)

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Jayne ponders a point
Me pondering a point I make in one of my webinars.

I have a series of free, short videos on my YouTube channel that, altogether, in less than one hour, create a basic training regarding virtual volunteering – in using the Internet to involve and support volunteers. The videos are focused on staff – employees or volunteers – who are responsible for recruiting and supporting volunteers at nonprofits, NGOs, charities, government programs and other mission-based initiatives.

Here is the order I recommend you watch my videos in if you want a full, basic orientation in virtual volunteering:

Altogether, these videos cover developing initial online roles and activities for volunteers, how to rapidly engage online volunteers, how to expand virtual volunteering, how to adjust policies, how to address safety and confidentiality, the importance of keeping a human touch in interactions, addressing the most common questions and resistance to virtual volunteering and much, much more.

You have my permission to show any one of these videos, or some or all these videos, at any gathering or event of your own – a volunteer management workshop or conference, for instance – however, you must show any video you choose to show in its entirety.

(October 14, 2020 update: there’s a new, additional video, especially for corporations and businesses: Virtual Volunteering: Guidance for Corporate Employee Volunteering Programs. It’s 7 minutes long).

Does this mean there is no need to hire me as a consultant or as a trainer regarding virtual volunteering? I hope that’s not what it means! Rather, I hope It means there’s no need to hire me or anyone else for a basic virtual volunteering workshop. In fact, I would like to see basic virtual volunteering workshops go away entirely, because I think any workshop on, say, the basics of volunteer management, should fully integrate using the Internet to involve and support volunteers. A workshop on retaining volunteers should fully integrate using the internet to support and manage volunteers. A workshop on better recognizing and valuing volunteers should fully integrate using the internet to recognize and valuing volunteers. In short, virtual volunteering shouldn’t be regulated/segregated into a separate topic. It’s long overdue to FULLY integrate using the internet into involving ALL volunteers, even those you don’t think of as “online volunteers.”

What I’m much more interested in doing as a professional consultant is creating workshops or advising, as a paid consultant, on specific aspects of higher-level virtual volunteering, like:

  • online mentoring – considerations for such a program’s setup, setting goals for a program, evaluating such a program, etc.
  • online volunteers with particular skills or expertise training others remotely in something not virtual volunteering related, like public health messaging, teaching online media literacy to elderly people, helping public information officers prevent and respond to misinformation, etc.
  • online communities where people who previously participated in an onsite program advise people currently participating in an onsite program
vvbooklittle

Are my series of free videos a substitute for purchasing my book, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook? I don’t think so. While my videos will, I hope, win over in last holdouts regarding virtual volunteering (few that they are), and will help programs rapidly, almost immediately, create and expand online activities and roles for online volunteers (something that became essential during the COVID-19 pandemic), the book is an oh-so-much-cheaper way to get intense consulting regarding every aspect virtual volunteering, including more high-impact digital engagement schemes, than to hire me. 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 available both as a traditional paperback and as an online book. I also think it would be a great resource for anyone doing research regarding virtual volunteering as well. The book is co-written by myself and Susan Ellis.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

United Nations scales back online volunteering program

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The United Nations Volunteers program, an initiative under the UN Development Program (UNDP), has stopped accepting new nonprofits, NGOs and others who apply to use the Online Volunteering Service, onlinevolunteering.org.

Organizations that have already been accepted into the Online Volunteering service can continue to use it to recruit online volunteers, but no new volunteering hosts are being accepted, and there is no word on whether this is a temporary or permanent change – and what this changes means for the future of the UN’s pioneering virtual volunteering initiative.

I found this out when I tried to register the nonprofit where I am working now – the nonprofit where I work is an international program and one of our nonprofits clients, in Congo, is familiar with both the OV service and my own work in virtual volunteering (it’s a small world, truly!). It reminded me that the organization where I am working now needs to make sure people in other countries know about our many online volunteering opportunities – we strive to be an inclusive organization, and involving international online volunteers is a part of that. As our program works to address at least three of the Sustainable Development Goals, the UN’s Online Volunteering service seemed like an obvious choice for the organization.

But after I filled out the application, I received an email from UNV that pointed me to this announcement on the home page:

April 5: The UNV Online Volunteering service has suspended acceptance of new registrations from non-governmental (NGO) and other civil society organizations (CSOs).

The Find out more link after this announcement makes no mention of the suspension. The other pages on the UN site make no mention of this suspension. The how does it work page makes no mention of this suspension. The page with the heading “Organizations that find volunteers through us are”, says that organizations need to be officially registered with appropriate government authorities and provide proof of such, be a nonprofit, an NGO or other civil society organization, a government or other public institution, a United Nations agency or other intergovernmental institution, and active in the field of sustainable human development. There’s no mention at all of on this and other pages that the OV service has suspended acceptance of new registrations from organizations that want to host online volunteers.

Because the application on the OV service for new hosts of online volunteers still works, and all of the links to it still function, I’m not sure if the suspension is for all new users of the online volunteering service that want to host online volunteers, or if United Nations agencies are still allowed to apply to use the service. Is this ban just for NGOs and other non-UN agencies? Is it temporary or permanent? Is this the first step in getting rid of the OV service altogether? And why have these changes been made? I have asked UNV but have not had a response in more three weeks.

If UNV is getting rid of the Online Volunteering service, it will be devastating news. The OV service is one of the most successful programs the UN has launched outside of is emergency humanitarian response programs and its post-conflict-rebuilding programs. Yes, I feel that strongly about the OV service. I think the lessons from the OV service regarding virtual volunteering can still be helpful to any tech4good, micro-volunteering initiative starting now. Note when you read these lessons that the early adopters of the service were NOT UNITED NATIONS AGENCIES, nor were the organizations that most online volunteers supported through the service: they were nonprofits and NGOs, some of them quite small – the kinds of organizations that aren’t allowed to use the UN Online Volunteering service anymore.

This is particularly bitter news on this the 20th anniversary of NetAid, which launched the UN’s online volunteering efforts that became the Online Volunteering service.

What could cause this radical change? Lack of funding and, therefore, a lack of staffing for the OV service? Lack of support from senior management? I would love to know. Let’s hope for a quick and clear response.

And let’s hope someone takes the lessons from the OV service regarding virtual volunteering and creates a viable alternative for those organizations that want to involve online volunteers from outside their country’s borders in their initiatives, and for online volunteers that want to help programs serving the developing world specifically.

Update: UNV has sent a cryptic reply on Twitter that reads: “Thank you for your comment. Online Volunteering continues to be a integral part of the @UNVolunteers offer. The platform will be enhanced in the coming months as the organization expands digital-savvy solutions for all involved.” Answers nothing brought up in the blog. Frustrating!

January 2, 2020 update: UNV now has a new message on its OV web site that says: “Effective 1 January 2020, the Online Volunteering service is free of charge to all eligible partners. Eligible partners are: UN entities, Governmental or other public institutions, and Civil Society Organizations.” But if you click on the link for more information, you discover that UNV has a VERY narrow version of civil society organizations (CSOs): it has to be a CSO already registered with the OV service, or the organization has to provide evidence of accreditation with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), or the organization has to be working with a UN Country Team as an implementing partner or through an agreement and submit a form signed by the UN Entity they are partnering with.

So, in short, the OV service no longer can be used by most nonprofits, NGOs and CSOs. There’s no explanation as to why this decision has been made. So, if your nonprofit, NGO or CSO doesn’t meet the criteria, you can’t use the UNV Online Volunteering service to recruit online volunteers. If you want to recruit online volunteers, I recommend these resources:

Your own country’s volunteering center. Your own country may have a web site that recruits volunteers, online or onsite, for nonprofits, NGOs or CSOs in your country. I have list of many of these here. And use this advice when posting your opportunities to such a site.

Finding a Computer/Network Consultant (you can adapt these for online volunteers, not just tech folks)

Required Volunteer Information on Your Web Site – how to use your own web site to recruit volunteers (not just online volunteers)

NetAid: 20 years later

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October 9th is the 20th anniversary of the NetAid concerts, which launched a web site allowing people to volunteer online to help NGOs & United Nations initiatives all over the world – a web site that still exists and has mobilized many thousands of online volunteers to contribute to what we now call the Sustainable Development Goals.

NetAid started as a joint venture between the United Nations Development Programme and Cisco Systems, and launched with a concert event on October 9, 1999 with simultaneous activities meant to mobilize online volunteers and raise money and awareness for the Jubilee 2000 campaign – in the spirit of BandAid and LiveAid. The NetAid concerts took place at Wembley Stadium in London, England, Giants Stadium in New Jersey, USA, and the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Performers at the concerts included some of the biggest names of the day: Eurythmics, Bryan Adams, George Michael, David Bowie, Robbie Williams, Sheryl Crow, Jimmy Page, Busta Rhymes, Counting Crows, Bono, The Black Crowes, Sean John Combs (then Puff Daddy), Jewel, Mary J. Blige, Sting, Lil’ Kim, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and many more. Cisco sponsored the concerts and the web site, originally www.netaid.org. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was an enthusiastic supporter of the initiative.

In an October 7, 1999 New York Times article, Djibril Diallo, then UNDP public affairs director, said ”We want to use the computer to help change how the world looks at poverty and motivate people to help.” He said UNDP began examining ways of combining music, high technology and altruism more than a year before the NetAid concerts. The article notes that the NetAid web site was meant to be “a clearing house of information on the state of world poverty and the agency’s programs as well as a means of raising money.” The article quotes Mark Malloch Brown, then head of UNDP, who said ”The difference between this and earlier concerts is that we created a vehicle for people to come back, not just on the night of the concert with the one check they write. But instead, here’s a site they’re going to come back to time after time.” The article also noted that the web site “will permit groups and people with particular needs to register them in a Netaid database. It will also allow people who are willing to donate particular skills or materials to register them in the database.” After the concerts, in a Washington Post story, “NetAid Catches Few On the Web,” Robert Piper, described as manager of the NetAid site for UNDP, said the main purpose of NetAid was to mobilize volunteers, not money. “We’ve been [complaining] for years about the need for people in the developed world to participate [in aid programs], but they never had the tools to participate,” said Piper. “With the Internet, people can now get emotionally and intellectually involved.“

I am asked frequently how I started working for the United Nations. The answer: NetAid. Specifically, to fix the NetAid website and process regarding virtual volunteering. A lot of effort was put into promoting NetAid and recruiting online volunteers – but very little effort was made to teach UN agencies and NGOs how to create assignments for online volunteers and how to support those online volunteers in assignments. Therefore, NetAid floundered. UN Volunteers, an initiative of UNDP, was in charge of the virtual volunteering part of NetAid, and someone at UNV found some of my messages on an online discussion group for managers of volunteers. At the time, I was directing the Virtual Volunteering Project at the University of Texas, and I just happened to be the only expert on the subject of virtual volunteering (thankfully, I’m not all alone anymore!). That UN employee shared my information with others at UNV HQ, and I was recruited, specifically, to work at UNV/UNDP on both NetAid and the UNITeS initiative. And the rest, as they say, is history…

By 2002, the online volunteering part of NetAid had been moved entirely to www.onlinevolunteering.org (like that URL? I’m the one that chose it!) and was entirely owned and managed by UNDP/UNV. And it still is!

Meanwhile, NetAid, which had become a nonprofit based in New York City, tried to find a path forward. It explored the use of videogames for social change, co-founding the Games for Change movement in 2004. In 2004, NetAid co-produced a game with Cisco Systems called “Peter Packet,” which addressed how the Internet can help fight poverty, focusing on issues of basic education, clean drinking water, and HIV-AIDS. By 2006, NetAid had a new focus: to raise awareness among high school students in the USA regarding poverty in developing countries. The different campaigns of NetAid are chronicled through archived versions of its web site, www.netaid.org, available at Wayback Machine. In 2007, NetAid became a part of Mercy Corps and was quickly disbanded.

The onlinevolunteering.org site continues to bring together online volunteers and NGOs, UN agencies to do good things. And the lessons from NetAid regarding virtual volunteering can still be helpful to any tech4good, micro-volunteering initiative starting now. In fact, lessons from NetAid, and many other organizations engaged in virtual volunteering, informed the recommendations offered in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, available for purchase in paperback directly from me or as an ebook (PDF) by the publisher, Energize, Inc.

5th year anniversary of my book on virtual volunteering

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It’s the FIVE-YEAR anniversary of the publication of my book with Susan Ellis, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook! The book is the result of more than 20 years of research and experience regarding virtual volunteering, including online micro volunteering, crowd sourcing, digital volunteering, online mentoring and all the various manifestations of online service. It’s packed with examples from a variety of organizations – it’s not just our ideas about how virtual volunteering might work but how it does work, and how challenges are overcome, at many different nonprofits, NGOs and school-based programs.

Susan and I wrote The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook in such a way that it would be timeless – as timeless as a book about using computers, laptops, smart phones and other networked devices could be. That’s not easy when it comes to technology, but we gave it a try – and upon re-reading my own book, I was shocked at how successful we were!

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is for

  • both practitioners – people involving volunteers – and academics that do research regarding volunteering.
  • both people brand new to recruiting and supporting volunteers and those that are veteran managers of volunteers
  • both people brand new to virtual volunteering and experienced managers who are looking for confirmation they are on the right track or information to help them make the case to expand their programs.

It is USA-centric but it offers a lot of international perspectives as well.

The book includes:

  • Detailed advice on virtual volunteering assignment, including one-time “Byte-Sized” tasks (micro-volunteering / microtasks), longer-term, higher-responsibility roles and virtual team assignments.
  • A thorough look at various practices for screening and matching volunteers to assignments, with an eye to getting the most capable volunteers into your volunteering ranks and preventing incomplete assignments or burdensome management tasks
  • How to make online volunteer roles accessible and welcoming for a variety, diversity of people
  • More details about how to work successfully with online volunteers, so that they are successful, your organization benefits and volunteer managers aren’t overwhelmed
  • Ensuring safety – and balancing safety with program goals
  • Respecting privacy of both the organization and online volunteers themselves
  • Online mentoring, including adults mentoring children/students
  • Blogging by, for and about volunteers
  • Online activism
  • Spontaneous online volunteers
  • Live online events with volunteers
  • The future of virtual volunteering and how to start planning for oncoming trends

There’s also a chapter just for online volunteers themselves, which organizations can also use in creating their own materials for online volunteers.

In conjunction with the guidebook, I have maintained the Virtual Volunteering Wiki, a free online resource and collaborative space for sharing resources regarding virtual volunteering.

Here’s why we called it the LAST guidebook and reviews of The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook.

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is available for purchase in paperback or as an ebook (PDF) by Energize, Inc.

If you read the book, I would so appreciate it if you could write and post a review of it on the Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Good Reads web sites (you can write the same review on all three sites).

Here’s some of my free advice on volunteer engagement, not just virtual volunteering:

I also frequently blog about virtual volunteering. Examples:

Holiday gift idea for anyone that works to make a difference

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Looking for a gift for someone in your life that works with volunteers, either as a volunteer themselves or as an official manager of such? Or a gift idea for someone studying for a degree in nonprofit management? Or anyone working at a nonprofit, a non-government organization (NGO), or a government program that engages volunteers?

May I not-so-humbly suggest The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook?

The book is available for purchase in paperback or as an ebook (PDF) from Energize, Inc., the world’s largest publisher of books regarding volunteer engagement. The book is written by me and Susan Ellis, and is the result of more than 20 years of research and experience regarding virtual volunteering – also known as online micro volunteering, crowd sourcing, digital volunteering, online mentoring and on and on – yes, there are a lot of different names for the various manifestations of online service.

Did you know that virtual volunteering was a practice that was more than 20 years old? You would if you read the guidebook!

This book is for

  • both for practitioners and for academics that do research regarding volunteering.
  • both for people brand new to recruiting and supporting volunteers and for those that are veteran managers of volunteers
  • both for people brand new to virtual volunteering and for experienced managers who are looking for confirmation they are on the right track or information to help them make the case to expand their programs.

Susan and I wrote The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook in such a way that it would be timeless – as timeless as a book about using computers, laptops, smart phones and other networked devices could be. We didn’t want it to be out-of-date in just a few months. That’s not easy when it comes to technology, but we gave it a try – and four years later, it still reflects what works, and what doesn’t, in working with volunteers online. In fact, as I’ve said before, I use it as a reference myself – there are times I’m asked a question about working with volunteers online, or facing a dilemma regarding working with volunteers myself, and I go back to the book to see what we said – and, tada, there’s the answer!

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook details the basics for getting started with involving and supporting volunteers online, but it goes much farther, offering detailed information to help organizations that are already engaged in virtual volunteering with improving and expanding their programs. It offers a lot of international perspectives as well.

The book includes:

  • Detailed advice on virtual volunteering assignment, including one-time “Byte-Sized” tasks (micro-volunteering), longer-term, higher-responsibility roles and virtual team assignments.
  • A thorough look at various practices for screening and matching volunteers to assignments, with an eye to getting the most capable volunteers into your volunteering ranks and preventing incomplete assignments or burdensome management tasks
  • How to make online volunteer roles accessible and diverse
  • More details about how to work successfully with online volunteers, so that they are successful, your organization benefits and volunteer managers aren’t overwhelmed
  • Ensuring safety – and balancing safety with program goals
  • Respecting privacy of both the organization and online volunteers themselves
  • Online mentoring
  • Blogging by, for and about volunteers
  • Online activism
  • Spontaneous online volunteers
  • Live online events with volunteers
  • The future of virtual volunteering and how to start planning for oncoming trends

There’s also a chapter just for online volunteers themselves, which organizations can also use in creating their own materials for online volunteers.

In conjunction with the guidebook, we’ve maintained the Virtual Volunteering Wiki, a free online resource and collaborative space for sharing resources regarding virtual volunteering.

Here’s why we called it the LAST guidebook and reviews of The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook.

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is available for purchase in paperback or as an ebook (PDF) by Energize, Inc.

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).

Research & Case Studies Regarding Virtual Volunteering

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At long last, I’ve updated this list of Research & Case Studies Regarding Virtual Volunteering, at the Virtual Volunteering Wiki.

In association with the The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, I provide this compilation of research, evaluation reports and case studies regarding online volunteering / virtual volunteering, including studies on the various different activities that are a part of online volunteering such as online activism, online civic engagement, online mentoring, microvolunteering, remote volunteers, or crowd-sourcing, etc.  Note: these are not opinion or PR pieces – these provide hard data, case studies, etc.

Also note that sometimes articles do not call the unpaid contributors “volunteers.” There are also articles on virtual teams, which often involved paid staff; these research studies are especially applicable to virtual volunteering scenarios.

How do I compile this research? By search various keywords on GoogleScholar and Academia.edu. I wish I had more time to keep the list up-to-date but, unfortunately, I can do it only once a year or so.