Tag Archives: volunteering

What I learned from researching virtual volunteering in Europe

8 Replies

As I’ve blogged about 7 times already (and now, 8!): Since early April 2013, I’ve been researching Internet-mediated volunteering (virtual volunteering, online volunteering, microvolunteering, online mentoring, etc.) in European Union (EU) countries. This research is for the ICT4EMPL Future Work project being undertaken by the Information Society Unit of the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. As part of this project, I created a wiki of all of the various resources I used for my research, and it includes a list of online volunteering-related recruitment or matching web sites that are either focused on or allow for the recruitment of online volunteers from EU-countries, and a list of more than 60 organisations in EU countries that involve online volunteers in some way, either through a formal virtual volunteering or microvolunteering program, or just as a part of their volunteer engagement, without calling it virtual volunteering or any other associated name.

The research and analysis for this project is pretty much done. The overall ICT4EMPL project is focused on employability and social inclusion, so all of my analysis in the narrative for the EU ties back to those goals. The final paper should be available before the end of the year from the Information Society Unit of the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, and may be published in a journal by the University of Hertfordshire.

But here’s some analysis about what I found in my research that either aren’t in the paper I’ve submitted, but I think they should be out in public for discussion, or, that are in the paper, but I wanted to highlight them in particular for discussion:

  • Virtual volunteering is happening all over Europe. It’s not a new practice in Europe, just as it isn’t in North America. There are thousands of people in Europe that are engaged in virtual volunteering – and as I found 60 organizations involving online volunteers in a very short time, I image there are far, far more that I didn’t find, just because of my lack of skills in languages other than English. True, virtual volunteering still isn’t as widespread in Europe as it is in the USA, but its well-established and seems to be growing.
  • Traditional volunteer centers in Europe are ignoring virtual volunteering. The web sites of volunteer centers in European capitals, as well as most national web sites focused on volunteering in Europe by Europeans, were of little help in this research – they rarely mentioned online volunteers, virtual volunteering, microvolunteering, etc. Also, many of their online search engines for volunteering opportunities offer no way to list virtual opportunities. What is it going to take for this to change?
  • Spain is the European leader regarding virtual volunteering. Organizations involving online volunteers and web sites talking about voluntarios virtuales, voluntarios en línea, voluntarios digitales, voluntarios en red, microvoluntarios, voluntariat virtual, voluntaris digitals, voluntariat virtual abound in Spain. I could have done this report JUST on Spanish virtual volunteering and had 50 pages of narrative! Fundación Hazloposible, an NGO established in 1999 in Spain, launched HacesFalta.org the following year, an online portal for the promotion of volunteerism, including virtual volunteering, and its been growing ever since. Academic articles about this and other online efforts are plentiful. But why did Spain embrace virtual volunteering so early, and why did it spread so quickly, compared to other European countries? I would love to hear your thoughts as to why.
  • Lack of French virtual volunteering efforts. French is spoken by 74 million people, including in 31 francophone countries of Africa. It’s one of the official working languages of the United Nations. And, yet, information about virtual volunteering in French is sparse; even when the France-based France Bénévolat, talks about it, they just mention the phrase and then link to Canadian materials. Why the lack of information in French – and the apparent lack of interest in France regarding virtual volunteering, compared to Spain and England in particular?
  • Where are the online discussion groups for managers of volunteers in European countries? The United Kingdom has the wonderful UKVPMs, which brings together hundreds of people that work with volunteers, regularly discussing everything from legislation to day-to-day challenges in working with volunteers. There’s E-Voluntas, un canal para compartir experiencias de intervención e investigación sobre voluntariado. But where are the discussion groups in French, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan, German, Czech, Polish, Estonian, Swedish and on and on? In fact, where are the associations of managers of volunteers in these countries – not the volunteer centres, that promote volunteerism, but the associations that talk about effective management and support of volunteers? I found nothing on the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE) site nor on the European Volunteer Centre (CEV) about such groups. Without such associations/communities of practice, there’s little chance of volunteering be elevated to the level of importance many of us believe it deserves, far beyond “feel good” activities. What will it take to change this?
  • Where are materials in languages other than English to help organizations involve online volunteers? I don’t mean just the Guía de voluntariado virtual, the translation of the Virtual Volunteering Guidebook I co-authored with Susan Ellis back in the 1990s, or translations of web materials I’ve written. I don’t mean just the UN’s Online Volunteering service English materials translated into French. I mean advice written in Spanish about Spanish experiences for a Spanish audience, or advice written in French about Francophone African experiences for a Francophone African audience, regarding how to identify tasks that might be undertaken by online volunteers, how to screen online candidates for volunteering, how to keep online volunteers motivated, how to supervise and support online volunteers, how to create an online mentoring program, how to create microvolunteering opportunities how to work with virtual teams of online volunteers, and on and on? I am so hungry to read a non-USA perspective about how to create online volunteering tasks, how to support online volunteers, the benefits of such engagement for organizations (not just the volunteers), etc. Are these out there and I’ve missed them? And I am ready to write an impassioned endorsement for anyone who wants to undertake such an endeavor for his or her respective country/region.
  • There are far, far, far more efforts in Europe to promote virtual volunteering, including microvolunteering, to potential volunteers than to volunteer hosting organizations. I found lots of material geared towards potential online volunteers, or talking about online volunteers and how they benefit, but scant information about why organizations in Europe involve volunteers, and why they should. Without focusing much, much more on hosting organizations, Europe is in danger of creating many thousands of disappointed people – people that wanted to volunteer online but couldn’t find tasks to do.

Those are some the findings I think might be of most interest to those that work with volunteers. Would love to hear your thoughts about these findings. 

Open Air Hackathon – Nonprofits Get Web Sites, Designers Get Accessibility Training

2 Replies

The Accessibility Internet Rally is a community hackathon with a unique twist – Internet accessible for everyone, including people with disabilities.

AIR benefits nonprofit organizations and schools in any community by providing them with free, professionally designed, accessible websites.

AIR benefits participating volunteers, who are web designers, by providing them with increased awareness of the tools and techniques that make the Internet accessible to everyone – including people with disabilities – thereby increasing skills they can take back to their work places.

The result: dozens of professionally designed, accessible websites for nonprofit groups, and web designers with new skills and understanding regarding accessible design and usability.

Open AIR Registration for both nonprofits that want web sites and teams is NOW.

The competition – the hackathon — begins October 23, 2013 (& and lasts a month).

If you are a web developer, professional or aspiring (but with the needed skills), sign up a team of three to six members via the online developer registration. Besides helping nonprofits and learning new skills, you will also get the opportunity to win tickets to SXSW Interactive 2015 in Austin, Texas.

As a participant and competitor you will:

  • Be matched with a non-profit organization, budding artist, or worthy community organization (though you can also help a nonprofit register and be asked to be matched with that particular nonprofit)
  • Create an exciting, interactive web experience that is accessible to everyone.
  • Network with area artists, web professionals, and other really cool people.
  • Get to complete your development project in a more relaxed time frame – unlike past events that happened in one day, onsite, the development cycle is 30 days for Open AIR and can be done from your own location, giving your team the opportunity to create something really special fromanywhere.
  • Have access to training worth over $4,000

Don’t have a team to register with? Submit an individual registration and we will work to place you on a great team. Knowbility recommends a $25.00 donation to support the Open AIR program in lieu of a team registration fee for individual registrants.

Fees are $100 for the first 4 team members, $125 for teams of five, $150 for teams of six.

For nonprofits: register for free and if you are selected, a $100 registration fee will be due.

The Accessibility Internet Rally is open to participants in three categories:

  • Community Organizations: to qualify in this category, entities must be either a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization or an entity that exists for community benefit such as a church group, an arts organization, or a performance organization, to be decided at the discretion of the Organizer.
  • Web design team: to participate in this category, a group of up to 6 web and related professionals sign on as a team. Each web design team shall be considered a single Entrant. No person may enter more than once, either individually or as part of any team. If an Entrant uses the name of a corporation, partnership or other legal entity, the Entrant certifies it has the permission of the entity to do so.
  • Individual web professional: Individuals may sign on to participate and will be matched to other individuals at the discretion of the Organizaer to create a Web Design Team.

All Entrants must be officially registered to participate in the competition.

Entrants will be given access to a collection of online resources (training) to help them build accessible Web sites. Entrants will be expected to read and familiarize themselves with these resources prior to the Rally.

Entrants are required to submit their Entries in accordance with a mechanism determined by the Organizer This mechanism shall include instructions for preparing files for upload, file specifications including file type and file size and location for uploading.

Here are the complete details of participation, including team commitments.

Here is registration info for both teams and nonprofits.

pro vs. volunteer firefighters

Leave a reply

Back in 2010, I blogged about how the firefighter union in the USA is anti-volunteer – and my feelings about such as a manager of volunteers, a trainer of such managers, an advocate for volunteerism and an advocate AGAINST volunteers being used to replace paid staff.

To stay up-to-date on this issue, check out the National Volunteer Fire Council‘s excellent Right to Volunteer campaign. They post updates about this struggle after the narrative. I’ll try to do a better job of staying up-to-date as well.

Also see this: NVFC Asks FEMA to Examine Whether Anti-volunteer Provision in Labor Agreement Violates Federal Law, from March 2012.

Also see:

Volunteers needed, but are they wanted?

Fire station turns away volunteers – & how it could be different

Volunteers needed, but are they wanted?

4 Replies

This isn’t just a lesson regarding volunteer fire fighters; it’s a lesson for any organization that involves volunteers. Your organization might need volunteers, but does it really want them? Is this want expressed in the attitude and action of everyone that interacts with potential volunteers, and in all of your procedures regarding potential volunteers?

Yesterday, I reposted a blog from 2010 that was inspired by my husband’s frustration at trying to be a volunteer firefighter in the USA since moving here in 2009. As I noted in yesterday’s blog, my husband is German, he’s been a volunteer firefighter for most of his adult life in Germany, and he wants to remain such here in the USA. He has no interest in a professional firefighting career — he already has a career. He’s fluent in English, and ready to start out from the very beginning with training and certifications.

Since moving to Oregon in 2009, he has visited at least six fire stations in the state that involve volunteers, trying to find a place to volunteer. I was with him on most of those visits, and talked to him at length about all of his visits. And I am astounded by how differently each of these fire stations talks about volunteers and to potential applicants.

Take Silverton, a small, picturesque town outside of Salem. We happened to be passing by the fire station while on our motorcycles just a few weeks after arriving in Oregon, and thought we would stop by just to see if anyone was around. Indeed, there was someone – one of the paid, career firefighters, who, after hearing our story, said, “Volunteers are the backbone of this fire station!” He took us immediately on the tour of the station, told us all there was to know about becoming a fire fighter, detailed what volunteers get to do, which includes fighting fires, gave my husband an application to print out, and said that, while there were no guarantees, he would love for us to move to Silverton.

Another station that was excellent was Estacada, which we happened upon while it was having an open house. All of the firefighters were friendly, and we met one who was oh-so-proud to have volunteered for more than 10 years and enthusiastic about showing us the protocol for going on a call. After hearing my husband’s situation, he said, “Oh, please move to Estacada!” Had it been closer to Portland, we would have!

Unfortunately, both Silverton and Estacada were too far from Portland, where my husband works and where I travel to frequently for work. So we moved elsewhere, to a town with a fire station with a sign out in front saying, “Volunteers Needed.” My husband went in during regular business hours. According to my husband, the chief seemed annoyed to have to talk to him, wasn’t very forthcoming with information, gave short answers, and was vague about what the exact steps would be to become a volunteer. He also made statements that made it clear his preference for paid career firefighters rather than volunteers. Nevertheless, my husband filled out the application and turned it in in-person at the station. In the next few months, the fire station never called my husband – so he called them, two or three times. Each time, he felt the person on the phone didn’t really want to talk to him. In those calls, he was told that:

  • someone from the fire station had tried to call him but the number had been wrong (my husband confirmed the phone number they had on record was correct)
  • someone from the fire station had sent emails but my husband never responded (he never received such, and he confirmed the email they had on record was correct)
  • the academy for new volunteers was canceled, the next one wouldn’t happen for 10 months, and my husband could not go to another fire station’s academy as a substitute (later, we found out that the station had sent a small group of applicants to the academy in Silverton, in contrast to what they had told my husband)

He checked the web site and this fire station’s Facebook page regularly, but no information on volunteering was every posted or updated. As my husband put it, “Volunteers are needed, but they aren’t wanted.”

On his own, my husband visited another fire district during an open house, where he was told, for the most part, volunteers don’t do any fire fighting or emergency responding; they clean up the hoses or other equipment after a call. By contrast, another city’s firehouse staff invited him to view a training and said that, while volunteers were never first responders, they were often second responders, and in those cases, might undertake firefighting or emergency treatment responsibilities.

We ended up moving to Forest Grove, Oregon this year. We live two blocks from the fire station. The application process to be a volunteer is online, and my husband filled it out almost immediately after we moved into our home in January. Since then, he’s passed the physical test and the interview, and he will begin the academy next month. One of the leaders at the station saw us at a local event and approached us, asking if he had received the official offer yet and if he was excited. He was also proud to tell my husband, “Our volunteers aren’t just hose-rollers. They’re essential.”

What is your organization’s attitude regarding volunteers? Do your words, actions and procedures say, “Volunteers are essential, we value them, and we’re transparent and explicit about how to volunteer!”? Or do your words, actions and procedures say, “Volunteers are needed here, but we don’t really want them. They aren’t essential. If we didn’t have to involve them, we wouldn’t.”?

Also see: International Association of Fire Fighters is anti-volunteer

Fire station turns away volunteers – & how it could be different

Leave a reply

This blog was originally published on 12 April 2010 on my blog platform at the time. More than three years later, I finally have an update on this situation, which I will post tomorrow. But first, let’s revisit this blog:

A fire station turns away volunteers – and how it could be different

My husband is an experienced, highly-trained, highly-skilled firefighter. He’s been a volunteer firefighter for most of his adult life, and wants to remain such (he has no interest in a professional career — he already has a career). Imagine our shock when we moved to a small town in Oregon with signs outside all of the area fire houses proclaiming Volunteers Needed but upon asking about volunteering, were told, “We only bring in new volunteers once a year. We won’t be talking to new candidates until June. If you are still interested in 10 months, we’ll talk to you then.”

This isn’t just the policy of many fire stations or emergency response agencies that need volunteers. There are other organizations, such as domestic violence shelters, that also have only a once-a-year new volunteer training or induction.

If your organization has just one window of opportunity for new volunteers to join, you are regularly turning away potential volunteers for most of the year.

Most people who are interested in volunteering are not going to wait around for months for your once-a-year training. You need to explore ways to keep those candidates involved until the once-a-year induction rolls around.

Here are actions you can take to either alter your program or to keep potential candidates engaged until your once-a-year window comes around:

  • Ask anyone interested in volunteering to immediately fill out either your full application to volunteer or a special one-page pre-volunteering application that asks for just basic information (full name, email address, mailing address, note about why the person wants to volunteer). Keep track of this information so that you always have an up-to-date list of everyone interested in volunteering with your organization; you do not ever want to say to a potential volunteer “We lost your information.” Have a rock-solid system for making sure all applications or pre-volunteering applications are accounted for.
  • Invite everyone on your list of people interested in volunteering to a meeting or event at least once-a-month at your organization. This can be a training event (allowing candidates to observe but **not** to participate), a celebration, an open-house, a presentation, etc. Have a sign-in sheet for candidates at the onsite event. Ask staff and current volunteers to greet these candidates at each event. Your goal is to build relationships between the potential volunteers and current volunteers and staff, which better ensures the potential volunteers will be around for your once-a-year induction of new volunteers.
  • Create an email distribution list for all those interested in volunteering with your organization. This can be a YahooGroup or GoogleGroup that you configure so that only you can post to the list. Ask anyone interested in volunteering to join this group. Use this group to post
    • a notice about new information on your web site that might be of interest to potential volunteers (photos, a new program that’s been launched, a message from the Executive Director, an evaluation report — the material does not have to be specific to volunteers)
    • a request for potential volunteers to complete an online survey (such as via zoomerang or surveymonkey)
    • a reminder of a deadline
    • an invitation to join an organizing or exploratory committee
    • an offer from another organization (an invitation to an event, for instance)
    • a link to an article online about your organization, or that relates to the mission of your organization and that you think volunteers would find helpful
    • an essay or testimonials by one of your current volunteers
    • a link to photos of volunteers in action at Flickr or Picasa
    • a reminder about training activities at other organizations that could be helpful to a potential volunteer (for instance, for potential firefighters, classes offered by the American Red Cross or the state agency that oversees firefighter training)
  • Look for ways to offer your induction/training for volunteers more than once-a-year. If you absolutely cannot offer it at least twice a year, look for an organization within a 50 mile radius that has the same induction/training for new volunteers as your organization, but that offers such at a different time of year. Sit down with that organization and look for ways to create a reciprocal agreement so that you can send potential volunteers to their volunteer induction/training, and vice versa. It may mean adjustments to both of your induction/trainings so that they meet each others’ needs. Talk with your legal adviser to make sure insurance covers volunteers trained at another facility. You can still require these volunteers to go through parts of your own induction/training when the time comes, to take a mini-induction/training so that they are familiar with all equipment and unique procedures at your organization, or to be limited in their volunteering activities until they go through your own induction/training.
  • Could volunteers-in-waiting help with events that honor current volunteers, or their training activities? Could they staff sign-in tables, hand out food and drinks at training events, help prepare a venue for an event or training, etc.? If they do any of these activities, they need to thanked very publicly by the current volunteers.

The goal is that potential volunteers start to feel a part of the organization as soon as possible, even though they are not yet active volunteers. You have a much better chance that these candidates will be around for your once-a-year induction for new volunteers if you create ways for potential volunteers to be involved in some way right away. This process will help volunteer candidates learn the culture of your organization — the language you use, the vibe of your work place, etc. This process will also help you screen out people who will realize volunteering at your organization isn’t really for them, and screen in people who are a good fit to your program. And isn’t it better that people realize this before they go through your actual full training/induction?

If all of this seems like too much work, you need to take a hard look at your commitment to involving volunteers. What is behind your reluctance to involve volunteers? What value do you see in volunteer involvement at your organization? Is it time for you to go to your supervisor and be honest and ask for help to overcome your reluctance to involve volunteers?

Also see:

International Association of Fire Fighters is anti-volunteer

global survey on volunteer management software

Leave a reply

Last year, Rob Jackson (robjacksonconsulting.com) and Jayne Cravens (coyotecommunications.com) — ME — drafted and circulated a survey regarding software used to manage volunteer information. The purpose of the survey was to gather some basic data that might help organizations that involve volunteers to make better-informed decisions when choosing software, and to help software designers to understand the needs of those organizations. We also wanted to get a sense of what organizations were thinking about volunteer management software.

We promoted the survey every way we knew how – emailing our contacts directly, posting to various online discussion groups, posting repeatedly to our social networks, and asking others to share the survey with their readers and networks. Then we published the results of the survey here (in PDF); it includes an executive summary of our findings, as well as the complete responses to questions and our analysis of such.

Software companies and designers: you can learn a LOT from this report to improve your products and your communications with customers!

We learned how much managers of volunteers love spreadsheets, even those that have specialized software for managing volunteers.

We also learned a lot from this report that has nothing to do with software. In the survey, we asked a lot of questions that didn’t relate directly to software, like about how many volunteers these organizations managed, as well as what volunteers did. And the answers about what volunteers do at various organizations were surprising.

Rob and I did not have time to analyze all of the comments made in answer to some questions; for all questions, we listed the comments made, but we did not always offer any observations about such, or group the responses into categories. We welcome the efforts of other researchers to offer their own analysis of the data provided.

Conferencia Latinoamericana de Voluntariado, 14 al 16 de octubre

Leave a reply

Del 14 al 16 de octubre se realizará en Guayaquil, Ecuador, la VI Conferencia Latinoamericana de Voluntariado que organiza la International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE) con el lema “El voluntariado como expresión de la participación social”. A la Asociación Coordinadora del Voluntariado, ACORVOL, en tanto miembro del IAVE, le ha correspondido organizar la Conferencia Regional Latinoamericana de Voluntariado. De este modo por primera vez Guayaquil será sede de tan magno evento.

Contará con una jornada dedicada a la juventud y, durante su desarrollo, se abordarán dos grandes ejes: Voluntariado como agente de cambio y transformación social; y Voluntariado Corporativo: ¿Hacia dónde vamos?. Es de destacar que el Consejo Mundial de Voluntariado Corporativo  de IAVE (Global Corporate Volunteer Council) sesionará en este marco, por lo cual contaremos con líderes globales y regionales de voluntariado corporativo.

ACORVOL cuenta con 40 años de presencia en la comunidad, 77 instituciones afiliadas y es el referente del voluntariado en la provincia del Guayas. Particularmente en Guayaquil el voluntariado tiene una tradición que data desde la época colonial, pues tuvo que hacer frente a una saga de desgracias que generaron el comportamiento peculiar de su colectividad, dentro de la cual, el sentimiento de solidaridad ha sido una constante, llegando a ser parte consustancial de su identidad.

ACORVOL cuenta con 40 años de presencia en la comunidad, 77 instituciones afiliadas y es el referente del voluntariado en la provincia del Guayas. Particularmente en Guayaquil el voluntariado tiene una tradición que data desde la época colonial, pues tuvo que hacer frente a una saga de desgracias que generaron el comportamiento peculiar de su colectividad, dentro de la cual, el sentimiento de solidaridad ha sido una constante, llegando a ser parte consustancial de su identidad.

Desde estos valores estamos trabajando para invitar y abrir las puertas para la participación de organizaciones del voluntariado, líderes de organizaciones públicas, privadas y comunitarias, ONG’s y al sector empresarial de América y el Mundo.

OBJETIVOS

  • Ofrecer un espacio de encuentro, reflexión, contraste y trabajo a las organizaciones de voluntariado y a las personas voluntarias en el contexto de América Latina.
  • Contextualizar la acción voluntaria y su participación en el cambio de época y en los distintos escenarios que estamos viviendo.
  • Contribuir al fortalecimiento de la interacción del voluntariado con los diferentes estamentos de la sociedad.
  • Fomentar el encuentro y articulación entre voluntarios y organizaciones de voluntariado juvenil en la región que potencien un trabajo en red.
  • Visibilizar las acciones e impacto del voluntariado juvenil en la Región.
  • Presentar a la Conferencia Regional las recomendaciones y propuestas que la Juventud tenga sobre el voluntariado.
  • Aprovechar, incentivar y encauzar el potencial del personal de las empresa en beneficio de las necesidades sociales y de las asociaciones de voluntariado de la comunidad en la que trabajan a través del conocimiento de lo que es el Voluntariado Corporativo

Wiki re: virtual volunteering in Europe

Leave a reply

In the course of researching and writing about Internet-mediated volunteering (virtual volunteering, online volunteering, microvolunteering, online mentoring, etc.) in European Union (EU) countries, I created a wiki to serve as a publicly-shared knowledge base for resources used to inform this project, resources that could inform future research projects related to the subject matter, and to invite further submissions of relevant information from any wiki visitor. The ICT4EMPLOY wiki includes:

  • More about the overall project & researchers
  • The information we are seeking / How to submit information
  • Online Volunteering-related recruitment or matching web sites
  • Organisations that involve online volunteers in the EU
  • Resources related to volunteering as a contributor to employability
  • Resources related to arguments against and concerns about volunteering by unions/professionals in Europe
  • Resources and research related to Internet-mediated volunteering (focused on, but not limited to, Europe)
  • Resources related to telecommuting, virtual teams and remote management
  • Legal status and regulations regarding volunteers
  • Resources related to volunteer engagement and volunteerism in EU countries statistics, studies, volunteer centres, volunteer matching sites, sites for volunteers, sites for those that want to involve volunteers, etc.
  • RSS feeds for keywords associated with Internet-mediated volunteering
  • Información en español
  • Informations en français
  • Informationen in Deutsch

I’ll update it as long as I’m working on the research.

When to NOT pay interns, redux

1 Reply

A US Federal judge has ruled that against the company that made the movie “The Black Swan” for not paying interns.

In the ruling, U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III said the film’s producers should have paid the two interns because they did the same work as regular employees, provided value to the company and performed low-level tasks that didn’t require any specialized training. In ruling for the interns, the judge followed a six-part test outlined by the Labor Department for determining whether an internship can be unpaid. Under the test, the internship must be similar to an educational environment, run primarily for the benefit of the intern as opposed to the employer, and the intern’s work should not replace that of regular employees.

“Undoubtedly Mr. Glatt and Mr. Footman received some benefits from their internships, such as resume listings, job references and an understanding of how a production office works,” Pauley wrote. “But those benefits were incidental to working in the office like any other employees and were not the result of internships intentionally structured to benefit them.”

I tried to warn you! I did! I tried to warn you in my blog When to NOT pay interns and my other blog Are Interns Exploited?.

Note that this was NOT a matter of the organization being volunteered for being a for-profit. That this was a company, a business, rather than a nonprofit, NGO or charity, was NOT the problem for the judge. The problem was the nature of the work these unpaid interns (these VOLUNTEERS) were doing and the reason these tasks were done by volunteers (to save the organization money!).

Nonprofits, NGOs, charities: WAKE UP. This kind of lawsuit could happen to you. Especially if you keep harping on the dollar/Euro value of volunteer hours, the way UN Volunteers, IFRC, ILO & others are encouraging you to do.

Here’s a better idea: create a mission (and a mission statement) for your volunteer involvement and live it! State explicitly why your organization reserves certain assignments for volunteers, to guide employees and volunteers in how they think about volunteers, to guide current volunteers in thinking about their role and value at the organization, and to show potential volunteers the kind of culture they can expect at your organization regarding volunteers. It will also help to prevent exploitation – or perceptions of such – regarding your involvement of volunteers. Let it be an answer to this question: “Why do volunteers do these tasks rather than paid people” but without the answer, “Because we can’t afford to pay people to do this work.”

My previous blogs on this subject:

Note that the links within these blogs may not work, as I moved all of my blogs from Posterous to WordPress a few months ago, and it broke all of the internal links. Also, some web pages on other organization’s sites have moved since I linked to such, and I either don’t know or haven’t been able to find a new location for the material.

Volunteer online ever? I’d love your photo!

Leave a reply

jayne at computer 2002Do you help, or have you ever helped, a nonprofit organization, non-governmental organization (NGO), grassroots organization, school, or other civil society organization (CSO) via a computer or smart phone, as a volunteer (that means unpaid, NOT as a paid employee or paid consultant)?

Maybe you volunteered onsite as well, but at least sometimes, you also volunteered offsite, designing a database or graphic or web site, editing a document, translating text, offering professional advice, moderating an online discussion group, tagging photos or mentoring someone.

Maybe it was called virtual volunteering. Or online mentoring. Or cyber service. Or microvolunteering. Or crowd-sourcing. Or cloud computing volunteering. Or Internet-mediated service.

Or maybe it was just called volunteering, plain and simple.

Whatever it was – or wasn’t – called, I want your photo! Why? I want to feature such photos at this Flickr Group, “Online Volunteers.”

Photos of yourself with a computer or tablet or smart phone would be great, but so would a photo of you with your dog. Or your kids. What’s most important is that you don’t just submit a photo; you also should describe what you do as an online volunteer, including either the name or a description of the organization(s) you support.

ALSO, please tag your photo “online volunteer” (use quotes in the tagging process).

Submit the photos directly to the Flickr group for online volunteers– which means you will need a Yahoo ID. If you don’t already have such, and don’t want one, you can send ONE photo to me, via email, however, please clearly note in your email who you are, why you are sending the photo, etc.; blank emails, or those with sketchy descriptions, will be discarded without viewing (to protect myself from computer viruses). Photos that don’t clearly represent online volunteers will be rejected – that’s why your description is SO important.

Please share this message to volunteers you work with, or anyone you think might be interested.

Goal: to show the diversity of online volunteers out there. The practice of online volunteering is more than 30 years old. I want to show just what a HUGE group of people volunteer online, and have been doing so for a long while now!

Looking forward to your photos!