Tag Archives: volunteering

What funding volunteer engagement looks like

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image of a panel discussion

A week ago was Valentine’s Day in the USA, and it’s not too late to talk about LOVE for the people at your program that support volunteers, and a great way to show them some love is to pay for what’s needed to fund effective volunteer engagement!

I talk a lot about funding volunteer engagement, how if communities – including corporations, foundations and governments – want for more people to volunteer, and want more nonprofits and community programs to involve volunteers, they are going to have to pay for it, in cash. What would funders be paying for to increase community engagement, to increase volunteerism?

  • Salaries for part-time or full-time managers of volunteers.
  • Training for ALL staff in effective volunteer engagement (not just the person in charge of volunteer engagement), like how to create meaningful, appropriate assignments, how to appropriately support vounteers, how to report safety and quality concerns, etc.
  • Training for the person in charge of volunteer engagement in skills that could help in better support and recruit volunteers, like basic video or audio editing skills, so they can produce simple YouTube videos, podcasts, etc., or classes in another language, such as Spanish, or classes in facilitation, conflict management, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), etc.
  • Subscriptions to services that have the information and news they need, like Engage.
  • Books – yes, BOOKS. Like mine, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook.
  • Volunteer management software, computers, smart phones, video conferencing software (free versions often don’t provide a manager of volunteers all they need to effectively work with volunteers), etc.
  • Registration fees and travel expenses for staff to attend conferences that provide speakers and learning experiences that can help improve volunteer engagement.
  • Renting meeting or event spaces for volunteer-related activities.
  • Funds for volunteer recognition: gift cards, swag, etc.

All of the above is the “overhead’ that too many corporations and foundations refuse to fund. When I say volunteers are NOT free, these are the expenses I mean. Let me say it once again: if communities, corporations, foundations and governments want more people to volunteer, and want more nonprofits and community programs to involve volunteers, they are going to have to pay for it, in cash.

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Facebook, Meta, Virtual Worlds – Benefits? Risks? Does Second Life offer lessons?

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a screen capture of a webinar that took place in Second Life, an avatar-based virtual world.

An online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and “live” in an online virtual world. Avatars interact with places, objects and other avatars, exploring the virtual world, meeting other residents, socializing, having business meetings, hosting events, participating in group activities, building, creating, shopping, collaborating, even trading virtual property and services with one another.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse? No! I’m talking about Second Life, which launched back in 2003. The image at the top of this blog, and the image below, are of me, as an avatar, leading an event in Second Life for TechSoup back in 2014:

An image of Jayne Cravens as an avatar in front of a giant silde from her event within Second Life.

TechSoup was an early and passionate adopter of Second Life, hosting numerous online events there. If you do a search for Second Life on the TechSoup forum, you would find numerous references to the platform and TechSoup activities there over the years.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook (now Meta), said to much fanfare that he wanted to launch his own metaverse. The new virtual-reality app Horizon Worlds is Facebook’s first foray into the much-hyped “metaverse” for Facebook parent company Meta. Horizon Worlds, a beta version of which featured prominently in Zuckerberg’s announcement, launched Dec. 9 in the United States and Canada on the company’s Oculus virtual-reality platform and represents its first major attempt to deliver on his vision.

Were you on Second Life? Are you still on Second Life? Did you participate in TechSoup’s events on Second Life, or any other nonprofit-related activities? What do you think emerging virtual worlds, including Meta’s projects, can learn from Second Life? Comment below!

This article from The Duke Law Journal, The Development and Failure of Social Norms in Second Life, seems like something that the Meta folks should read. Its conclusion about Second Life:

Second Life is so thoroughly steeped in conditions that have impeded the development of successful social norms in other communities that any system of social norms in Second Life will ultimately fail. Because social norms will likely fail to successfully maximize resident welfare, regulatory schemes imposed both by the operators of the virtual world and by real-world governing institutions are needed to enhance the functioning of this particular alternative reality inhabited by millions.

Do you think Meta’s virtual world is addressing this issue? Do you think they need to plan for how to address such? And are you worried about safety at all with any online platforms? Comment below!

Nina Jane Patel was targeted with sexual harassment in Facebook/Meta’s platforms. “Within 60 seconds of joining — I was verbally & sexually harassed — 3–4 male avatars, with male voices, essentially, but virtually gang-raped my avatar & took photos…” The 43-year-old mother said it was such a “horrible experience that happened so fast” before she even had a chance to think about using “the safety barrier,” adding that she “froze.” She continued by confessing how both her “physiological and psychological” reaction was similar to it happening in real life. “Virtual reality has essentially been designed so the mind and body can’t differentiate virtual/digital experiences from real,” Patel wrote.

This is similar to assaults that happened in Second LIfe. Examples:

Horizon Worlds is supposed to be limited to adults 18 and older. In practice, however, very young kids appear to be among its earliest adopters. Some say the presence of children in Meta’s fledgling metaverse raises a grave concern: that by mixing children with adult strangers in a largely self-moderated virtual world, the company is inadvertently creating a hunting ground for sexual predators.

When new online forums arise that attract kids, sexual predators “are often among the first to arrive,” said Sarah Gardner, vice president of external affairs at Thorn, a tech nonprofit that focuses on protecting children from online sexual abuse. “They see an environment that is not well protected and does not have clear systems of reporting. They’ll go there first to take advantage of the fact that it is a safe ground for them to abuse or groom kids.”

More on safety for children in virtual worlds from the Washington Post.

Could nonprofits that engage in an online metaverse be putting their clients or others at risk by asking them to be there too? Comment below!

There’s one more consideration: accessibility. If you engage with people in a graphics-based environment, you are leaving out people who have sight-impairments. How will auditory displays work for graphics-based environments to address accessibility issues (I’m asking because I really don’t know)? Or is it a matter of ensuring you never limit your service delivery and volunteer engagement to only a graphics-based environment?

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

There is section devoted to virtual volunteering and avatar-based environments in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. The section offers some examples of nonprofits using Second Life to engage with clients and volunteers, and offers specific advice on how a nonprofit should get started using such environments, considerations to explore and pitfalls to avoid – all of which is relevant for any graphics-based virtual world. The rest of the book is easily adaptable to engaging with volunteers in graphics-based/avatar-based virtual worlds as well.

Looking forward to hearing your comments!

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.

Nine plus four emerging volunteer engagement trends (a VERY different list than you will read elsewhere)

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

Lots of people public predictions of upcoming trends in volunteer engagement – and often, these are people who are not managers of volunteers nor researchers regarding volunteerism. Their lists are things like People want micro tasks! – something many have said year after year, and something that, in practice, never seems to be what people are actually looking for, no matter what they might say in surveys. In other words, most of the lists seem to be focus on a casual, perfunctory view of volunteer engagement, not one based on reality, on actual experience.

Below is MY list of growing trends in volunteer management. It’s based on:

  • what I’ve seen on online communities like the volunteer subreddit and various other regionally-based subreddits, as well as on Twitter and on TechSoup,
  • what I’ve seen in the comments on Facebook posts by various nonprofits requesting volunteers,
  • what I’ve seen in emails and DMs sent to me (people like to share things with me, which I very much appreciate),
  • conversations with oh-so-many volunteers, wanna-be volunteers, and managers of volunteers,
  • my own work with volunteers and in volunteer management.

And after my own list, I post four more points from another organization that I agree with very much (hence why I called my blog “Nine plus four emerging volunteer engagement trends.”

  1. People want to know why a position is unpaid & don’t always like the answer.

Especially for positions that require particular skills, like web development, video editing, graphic design, translation, online community management, accounting/financial management or social media management, people want to know why the role is unpaid instead of a paid position – and “we can’t afford to pay someone” is NOT the answer they accept. They are also pushing back against unpaid internships at nonprofits. Also, labor unions, professional associations and people with disabilities are asking why people who are experts in something are being asked to donate their services, without being paid for their time (groups that are experiencing high unemployment are particularly angry).

Most organizations don’t have a mission statement for their volunteer engagement, one that could help guide the organization on when a role should or should not be an unpaid role. Most organizations also haven’t thought about ethical issues, like the inappropriateness and disrespect to people with hearing issues of having a student studying American Sign Language trying to interpret a live event rather than someone with this particular skillset and credentials, specifically.

The result of this trend if it’s not addressed properly: a continuing backlash against ALL volunteering.

2. People want much more support as volunteers.

Especially true of public-facing volunteers, like members of school boards and people expected to support youth or at-risk populations. These volunteers are being asked to recognize and report child abuse, deal with extremely angry parents and navigate potentially violent situations. They need specific training on these issues and they need continued support regarding such – and that training and support costs money that most governments and corporations balk at funding.

The result of this trend if it’s not addressed properly: fewer people volunteering for community, city and county government advisory boards, more people with specific political agendas doing so. Fewer people volunteering for critical volunteering roles with children, or with people who might be experiencing mental health issues, meaning many programs, like youth sports leagues or programs to support homeless people, have to be canceled.

3. Volunteers want to know why their service matters.

A mug, a t-shirt, a thank you event via zoom – it’s just not enough of a “thank you” to volunteers, not anymore, and maybe it never was. Volunteers want to know WHY their service mattered. That does not mean saying the monetary value of their hours. It does not mean saying platitudes like, “We just couldn’t function without you!” Rather, it means talking regularly on social media, in the organization’s non-volunteer-focused events, and in board meetings about how what volunteers did made some kind of difference regarding the organization’s mission. It means integrating talk about the value of volunteers – and NOT monetary value – into all communications by the organization, public and internal.

4. Volunteers want to have fun, and/or an enlightening experience.

So many organizations that involve volunteers have forgotten that volunteers aren’t just laborers working for free, who show up, do what needs to be done and leave. For instance, firehouses that involve volunteer first responders seem to have forgotten the social aspects that many people seek through volunteering, and that interacting with fellow first responders outside of official duties – a sporting event, a picnic, a campout, a training or event not related specifically to their service, etc. – can help everyone recognize strengths in each other they may not have seen otherwise, further build a sense of team, and further build a connection to the community they serve.

Focusing on activities and events that are fun and that further build a sense of team and a stronger commitment to an organization and its cause is not just a good thing to do for volunteer recruitment and retainment: societies are becoming increasingly polarized. We all need to care about each other and our overall communities more, and that kind of caring comes from being around a diversity of people in contexts outside of professional work and standing in lines to buy something.

I was on a board for a nonprofit that gives away grants to arts organizations. I thought this would be a great experience to celebrate and learn about the arts in my community, but for most of the time, it’s been just work. A TON of work. In one year, I received more than 1000 emails just from fellow board members. After three years, I left, because there’s no fun. There’s no enlightenment. I was getting resentful about the arts instead of being inspired by them. The county government our organizations supported also was silent about our hours and hours of work.

5. People want “heart” from volunteering

I’ve struggled with the word to use here – personal doesn’t feel quite right. So I went with heart. What I mean is this: I think many people are just so, so hungry for very human experiences, where they hear voices, look into people’s eyes, feel like they are having a sincere, human interaction. They want to feel like they are in a community. Once it is safe to do so, people are going to fill concert halls, theaters, crafts classes, dance classes, sports events – I know this is happening in some places already, despite it spreading the deadly novel coronavirus every time, but in other places, where the culture is one more focused on personal safety and community, it’s not. Once hospitalizations finally go down, after years of a global pandemic, very personal experiences are going to be like a balm for the soul. No, that does NOT mean virtual volunteering is going away. Let me say it again: virtual volunteering can be a highly personal, even emotional experience.

Volunteers, more and more, are wanting to feel connected to other humans, and they want their volunteering service to provide some of that.

6. Managers of volunteers must master tech tools.

Not all of the tools – that’s impossible – but definitely social media (and not just Facebook), online community platforms and volunteer management software – beyond spreadsheets. The managers of volunteers that prosper – that are able to recruit and engage a diversity of volunteers in a diversity of projects and are valued within their organizations – will understand basic web design and be able to update the text on a web page, be able to edit a simple video and share it on YouTube and know how the audio software works on their laptop or phone so they can record things – like a conversation for a podcast.

7. An increasing number of traditional volunteering programs that refuse to evolve will disappear.

The town where I live no longer has an Optimist Club. Most of the remaining service clubs in town have seen dramatic drops in membership. Why? Those service clubs refuse to change: they don’t have social media channels or, if they do, they don’t update them regularly with event information, recognition of volunteers, information about how to volunteer, etc. They don’t post to the subreddit for their town. They don’t reach out to new residents. Their web site, if they have one, hasn’t been updated in years. They don’t invite the members of the high school Key Club or anyone from the high school or university newspaper to their events. They over-rely on Facebook as a way to advertise activities – and even then, don’t use it very well.

People under 40 really want to volunteer – just spend a few minutes on Reddit and you will see just how hungry young people are to volunteer. But they don’t know about service clubs, so they try to start their own. They don’t know about Meals on Wheels – that’s why they all tried to start their own meal and grocery delivery programs when the COVID-19 pandemic started. They don’t know about existing mentoring and tutoring programs, like Junior Achievement – so they try to start their own.

If your nonprofit is struggling to attract members, program participants or volunteers, here’s my challenge to you: try to find your information about such online, via a search engine or on Facebook, WITHOUT using your program’s name. Try to find it just using the name of your city and the word volunteer or community service, for instance. Here’s more on diagnosing the causes of volunteer recruitment problems (one of the most popular blogs I’ve ever written).

8. Trying to please corporate donors will further hurt volunteerism

Corporations say we want more microvolunteering, so nonprofits pour resources into creating micro tasks, something inefficient, time-consuming, and often more about creating busywork than getting things done that a nonprofit actually needs done. Also, corporations want a monetary value for volunteer time, so organizations will continue to focus on that, which will create more hostility with labor unions and the unemployed, who see it as more fuel for their argument that volunteer engagement is an effort to cut costs by cutting paid positions.

The pushback against corporations who say this is what they want is so overdue. Nonprofits have got to start saying “no” to corporations demanding volunteer engagement that is, in fact, creating conflict and more, and unnecessary, work for nonprofits.

9. Virtual volunteering will continue to become so mainstream that we stop talking about it.

Online roles and tasks for volunteers have not been unusual nor innovative for a few years now. Virtual volunteering was already widespread long before the COVID-19 global pandemic, and calling an online role virtual volunteering often isn’t even done anymore – it’s simply volunteering. Not that there isn’t going to continue to be a need to talk about creating virtual volunteering roles, managing virtual teams, supporting online volunteers, etc. – just as there is always going to be a need to talk about other volunteering modalities, like creating volunteering roles for families or corporate groups, and how best to support those groups. But that hard wall so many put up in talking about virtual volunteering as something entirely separate from traditional, onsite volunteering – that’s long been crumbling.

On a related note: back in 2017, the UK-based Association of Volunteer Managers published a blog, Ten Ten: How Does The Next Decade Look For Volunteering. These four points stood out to me then and still stand out to me now, four years later, because I think this is absolutely where volunteer engagement is going – or, at least, where it MUST go:

  • The potential for volunteering will go on growing. Whether its volunteers in schools, welcoming refugees, campaigning against government cuts, or helping neighbours, we haven’t begun to reach saturation in the ways that volunteering can change society.

It’s absolutely true: we haven’t begun to reach anywhere near the saturation in the ways, the potential in the ways, that volunteering can be leveraged to improve our world. When I talk about all of the ways organizations are involving just online volunteers, I watch people’s eyebrows raise – they start to realize just how much more volunteers could be doing at their organizations. And when I talk about volunteers engaged in delivering mission-based programming, I have seen mouths start to gape as it dawns on people that volunteers are so much more than people who get tasks done.

  • Volunteer managers will have specialisms just like fundraisers do. There are over 15 types of fundraising expertise. Expect volunteering management to become more and more specialist as it matures, just as fundraising has.

This is already happening, as predicted! There are volunteer managers who specialize in one-time, just-show-up group volunteering events, those who specialize in hack-a-thons and edit-a-thons, those who specialize in online transcription-based projects mobilizing hundreds of volunteers at once, those who specialize in volunteers as mentors for at-risk youth, those who specialize in volunteer activities for teens or for seniors or for immigrants or for people on parole or are incarcerated, and on and on.

  • Intertwining specific audiences by demographics (eg working parents) and product (eg micro-volunteering) will be the breakfast of volunteering champions. In other words, the best organisations will understand exactly who their volunteers are, or could be, and create the volunteering products to encourage, entice and engage them ever more into giving their time.

A thousand times this! Those who manage programs for volunteer engagement will be at the table with those that manage fundraising, those that manage marketing, those that manage program, and the HR Director (because HR and volunteer engagement are NOT the same thing!).

I would word this point differently. It says originally:

  • The most far-sighted charities will invest in volunteer recruitment the way they do donor recruitment. Typically they may invest several hundred pounds in donor recruitment and the total budget may amount to millions of pounds in the biggest charities. I wonder how many volunteer managers even have a recruitment budget.

Change it to this and it’s accurate:

The most far-sighted charities will invest in volunteer engagement the way they do donor recruitment. Typically they may invest several hundred pounds in donor recruitment and the total budget may amount to millions of pounds in the biggest charities. I wonder how many volunteer managers even have a budget for every aspect of their volunteer engagement, from recruitment to support to recognition to results-tracking?

And those are my predictions about trends in volunteerism. What are yours?

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.

GirlGuiding Attempt at Inclusion Raises Ire of Many

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

Last week, I blogged about the controversy at the Art Institute of Chicago per their dismissing their entire volunteer docent membership and their plans to replace the volunteers with paid staff, in pursuit of a more diverse corps of museum guides to interact with the public.

GirlGuiding in the United Kingdom, the UK’s version of the Girl Scouts, has also incurred the wrath of many for one of its efforts at volunteer inclusion: on October 28th, the organization sent out a tweet that ended with, a shout-out to all of our asexual volunteers and members – thank you for everything you do in Girlguiding.

More than 2000 people liked the tweet. But the tweets-of-outrage were swift and many: the complaints focused on a belief that GirlGuiding was sexualising children with such messaging. One response that was representative of most of the negative responses: Why do your guides need to know whether your volunteers have a presence or absence of sexual desire? A nonprofit in the UK, Safe Schools Alliance UK, which has worked against allowing children to use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender with which they identify and works against bans on gay conversion therapy, is pushing back hard against the GirlGuide messaging. This group promotes its agenda as part of responsible safeguarding, the term used in the UK and Ireland regarding measures to protect the health, well-being and human rights of individuals, especially children and vulnerable adults, better ensuring they live free from abuse, harm and neglect.

I offer this info on this controversy for two reasons:

  1. Creating and launching efforts in support of the diversity of volunteers your organization has, or wants, and in support of accommodation of that diversity, will always attract complaints, immediately or eventually. There may be just a few, there may be many. Some of the complaints will be sincere and from individuals not a part of any “movement” or organization, and some of the complaints will be from volunteers and paid staff of very well-organized groups. Either way, your organization needs to have thought about how to answer questions and comments like why are you doing this and why is this necessary and this puts young people in danger.
  2. People asking the question or making the comment aren’t all obtuse or rigid. Don’t assume everyone complaining is so when you craft replies. Provide a response that comes from the point of view of this person just needs more and better information in order to support this statement or decision. Will such a response convince everyone? No. But your reply is being seen by people who aren’t entirely sure how they feel about the situation. Perceived arrogance on your part can drive those people who are on the fence into the arms of people and organizations who are only too happy to provide carefully word-smithed, detailed responses to frame their point of view.

My perspective: I adore GirlGuides and Girl Scouts of the USA. I deeply admire the commitment of both to ensuring all girls feel they can be a part of their activities. This isn’t the first time they’ve done something that’s lead to controversy. But no one – NO ONE – can say the GirlGuides and Girl Scouts don’t put safeguarding at the top of their list of priorities.

I also know that change can be painful – not just for others, but also for me. Work regarding inclusion and diversity is not easy, because many societal norms are deeply held, and cherished beliefs are challenged by conversations around inclusion and diversity – and that’s uncomfortable. It’s easy for a person to feel attacked during such conversations. I’ve seen diversity and inclusion experts be angered at the idea that they need for their own web sites to meet accessibility standards so that people with disabilities and using assistive technologies can access their online information – in their talks about inclusion, they were focused on ethnic and cultural groups, not people with disabilities, and the realization is embarrassing and painful.

I assure you that, eventually, even if you consider yourself an advocate for inclusion and diversity, you will have a moment where your own deeply held principles are challenged, and you will feel anger and you will be incredulous. Maybe you will decide to hold on to those principles – I’m not here to say you should or shouldn’t. But remember that feeling the next time you are facing it from someone else.

We’re all on a journey. That includes me.

One last thing: a chastisement to all of the organizations and consultants touting themselves as volunteer engagement experts and as the leaders of conversations on volunteerism who are silent on this and other controversies in volunteer engagement. I challenged you to comment on organizations that charge big money from volunteers, to comment on organizations that say if a person that has been assigned community service will pay a fee, the organization will give them a letter saying they did the hours required by the court which assigned that community service, to weigh in regarding governments wanting to require welfare recipients to volunteer in order to receive benefits and to comment about the situation at the Chicago museum – so far, you haven’t. In addition to having upbeat conversations about how managers of volunteers can build their brand or raise their profiles in their organizations or get a hug for International Volunteer Manager’s Day, we need to be having these very difficult conversations and controversial subjects. In fact, we should be leading the conversations.

And I love how the corporate world, which always has oh-so-much to say about how nonprofits should operate, are oh-so-silent during these conversations as well.

Also see:

Art Institute of Chicago docent program is no more – a painful change, but is it required for better inclusion?

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image of a panel discussion

The entire membership of the Art Institute of Chicago docent program, all volunteers, are being let go by the museum in an effort to entirely revamp how art education for museum visitors is staffed and to make such staffing much more diverse.

It is a move that has hurt long-time volunteers and outraged right-wing media, but many say it’s the only way to dismantle a system that, intentionally or not, is designed to exclude many people from participating.

On Sept. 3, Veronica Stein, the AIC’s executive director of learning and public engagement, emailed 82 active docents, telling them the program’s current iteration would be coming to an end. Stein told the Wall Street Journal that the museum must move “in a way that allows community members of all income levels to participate, responds to issues of class and income equity, and does not require financial flexibility.” In the letter, Stein said the museum “had a responsibility to rebuild the volunteer educator program in a way that allows community members of all income levels to participate, responds to issues of equity, and does not require financial flexibility to participate.” The AIC told USA TODAY that the pause is part of a “multi-year transition” to a “hybrid model that incorporates paid and volunteer educators.”

“Rather than refresh our current program, systems, and processes, we feel that now is the time to rebuild our program from the ground up,” Stein said in the letter, noting that current docents would be invited to apply for the paid positions.

While the elimination of docents struck many as sudden, it had actually been in the works for years, according to artnet news: the AIC stopped training new docents in 2012, and has been discussing internally how to restructure the program since 2019.

The institute’s docent council sent a letter Sept. 13 protesting the pause of the program. The letter described the docents’ expertise, noting that volunteers had trained twice a week for 18 months, done five years of research and writing, and participated in monthly and biweekly trainings. “For more than 60 years, volunteer docents enthusiastically have devoted countless hours and personal resources to facilitate audience engagement in knowledgeable, relevant, and sensitive ways,” the letter said.

Gigi Vaffis, president of the AIC’s docent council, told USA TODAY that she and other docents felt blindsided by the decision and weren’t included in the decision-making. Even now, she said there are few details about what the AIC’s multi-year plan will look like.

Docent programs have long been mainstays of major museums. Docents are all volunteers and are beloved by museum visitors. Becoming a docent can be quite competitive: not everyone who applies is accepted, and docents that get into the program stay for years, even decades. And involving volunteers is a sign a nonprofit wants the community to be a part of the organization – not just as donors or clients but also as people delivering services. But docent ranks at museums are often skewed toward a certain demographic: wealthy white women. The intention of the Chicago Institute is to dismantle this traditionally very rigid system that, intentionally or not, is designed to include/favor one, very privileged group and to exclude others.

Museum equity consultants have long advocated for transitioning volunteer positions at museums to paid roles, to encourage more diversity, allowing people who could never afford to give the time current docents give without pay. Monica Williams, executive producer of The Equity Project, a Colorado-based equity, inclusion and diversity consulting firm, who is NOT involved with the Art Institute, said this shift will open the doors for people who cannot afford to work on weekdays or do a significant amount of unpaid work. If docent programs switch to paid positions, she said it will help museums move away from “a particular demographic of mostly white and wealthy.”

Mike Murawski, a museum consultant and author of “Museums as Agents of Change,” said in the USA Today article that there has long been a tension between equity efforts and volunteer programs. When the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum ended its docent program in 2014 in favor of an initiative for younger volunteers who often work for college credit, Murawski said there was an uproar with many saying the museum might as well close. But now, he said. “they’re doing just fine.” Murawski is one of many museum consultants that says the way forward is not about making changes to programs, but to completely dismantle them and start over, and that docent programs often have “long-standing legacies of how things are supposed to be” that can make them difficult to adapt. 

A side note: the Chicago Tribune, a once-great newspaper which was recently bought by Alden Global Capital, a secretive hedge fund that gutted the staff at the newspaper, wrote an outrageous editorial that had this jaw-dropping and completely misleading statement:

Volunteers are out of fashion in progressive circles, where they tend to be dismissed as rich white people with time on their hands, outmoded ways of thinking and walking impediments to equity and inclusion. Meaningful change, it is often said, now demands they be replaced with paid employees.

This is just flatly not true and the Tribune should be ashamed of itself.

As for me and my opinion: I don’t think programs should always be overly-cautious and ever-fearful of upsetting current, long-term volunteers – quite frankly, I think some long-term volunteers can have an entitled attitude that can discourage, even kill, much-needed changes and innovations. But I also feel like there was a better way to handle this transition. Absolutely, there are MANY systems related to nonprofits, including volunteer engagement, that have been exclusionary. But couldn’t current volunteers, who have invested a great deal of time in their roles, have been involved in the decision-making process, and perhaps, even bought into it? Also, will there still be a way for people to volunteer for the Art Institute – will there still be a community engagement component that isn’t donating funds or attending events?

If you have an example of a museum that significantly revamped its volunteering program so that it was vastly more diverse, but without having to fire the entire volunteer corps, please note such in the comments. Also note if it continued to have a volunteer program of some kind.

With all that said – what do you think?

October 17 update: the Art Institute of Chicago is, apparently, STILL not involving volunteers at all. Below is a screen capture from its volunteer page that notes “the volunteer program is temporarily on pause, and we are not accepting applications at this time.”

Also see:

Volunteer Bill of Rights – a commitment by a host organization to volunteers

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

I ask this on the volunteer subreddit and got just one response… maybe I will have better luck on my own blog.

In 2010, Robert Egger, the founder of the nonprofit DC Central Kitchen, proposed a national Volunteer Bill of Rights. In an interview, he said, “If a program can’t tell a volunteer what they accomplished, allow them to talk to any staff member, provide financial data or allow a volunteer to rate their experience or provide feedback—then volunteers should feel free to call them out.”

His Volunteer Bill of Rights, which he implemented at DC Central Kitchen, included the following:

  • The right to work in a safe environment.
  • The right to be treated with respect by all staff members.
  • The right to be engaged in meaningful work and be actively included regardless of any physical limitation.
  • The right to be told what impact your work has had on the community.
  • The right to ask any staff member about the organization’s work.
  • The right to provide feedback about your experience.
  • The right to receive financial information or an annual report.

In 2019, the Association for Women in Communications created its own Volunteer Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. In their document, they said that it is a Volunteer’s Right to:

  1. To be assigned a task that is worthwhile and challenging.
  2. To receive the orientation, training and supervision needed to do the job.
  3. To feel that your efforts have real purpose and contribute to the organization’s mission.
  4. To receive useful feedback and evaluation on the volunteer work that you perform.
  5. To be treated with respect and as an equal partner within the agency.
  6. To be trusted with confidential information necessary to carry out your assignment.
  7. To be kept informed about relevant matters within the organization.
  8. To expect that your time will not be wasted because of poor planning or poor coordination by the organization.
  9. To ask any questions that will clarify a task or assignment.
  10. To give the organization input or advice on how to better accommodate the needs of present and future volunteers.

And they said it is a Volunteer’s Responsibility to

  1. Not to take on more responsibility than you can handle.
  2. Meet time commitments or to provide notice so alternative arrangements can be made.
  3. Perform the tasks assigned to you to the best of your ability.
  4. Provide input on ways your task might be better performed.
  5. Follow organization policies and procedures.
  6. Respect those confidences entrusted to you.
  7. Be open-minded and respectful towards opinions shared with you.
  8. Notify the organization in advance of absences or schedule changes that may affect them.
  9. Accept reasonable tasks without complaints.
  10. Communicate and work with others in the organization if the task calls for it.

I would add that I believe a volunteer has a right to:

  • Ask for a description of a role or task in writing, detailing time commitments, responsibilities, impact of the service to the organization, etc.
  • Ask why a role, or certain roles, are reserved by the organization for volunteers (as opposed to paying people for their time and expertise), and get an answer that is not “because we can’t afford to pay people.”
  • Expect a role to be fun and/or personally fulfilling and/or professionally helpful.
  • Complain and be treated with respect if complaining when an organization has not fulfilled its responsibilities to the volunteer, in terms of providing a safe environment, being treated with respect, addressing harmful and or toxic behavior, provided with appropriate preparation and support for a role or task, information-sharing by staff, what a role is versus how it was described initially to the volunteer, etc.
  • Say no and withdraw from a role without penalties to future volunteering or program participation if a role the volunteer has successfully undertaken changes substantially later in terms of the amount of time required, the responsibilities, the training required, etc.
  • Not face any financial burdens to volunteering in their own communities (where they live geographically) or online, in terms of having to pay a prohibitive fee to the organization in order to volunteer.

What would you add? Or reword? Or do you even think such a Bill of Rights is necessary? And when I say necessary, I mean that nonprofits sign on to it, post it, and voluntarily adhere to it (or try to) – not a legal document, just a promised MO. Please add your ideas in the comments section below.

And what might prevent you, as a volunteer-hosting organization, from implementing such a Bill of Rights for your volunteers? Please comment below!

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.

Why aren’t you reaching out to young people via Reddit?

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It’s been a mantra for at least two decades now, probably more, among those who promote volunteer engagement: we must do a better job engaging young people!

And, yet, managers of volunteers, as well as consultants who try to help them, seem to avoid spaces, online or onsite, where they could cultivate these younger volunteers.

Reddit is a good example. As of July 2019, Reddit ranked as the No. 5 most visited web site in the USA and No. 13 in the world. Users tend to be significantly younger than other online communities like Facebook, with less than 1% of Reddit users being 65 or over. Statistics suggest that 74% of Reddit users are male. Most of the niche online communities I’m a part of are overwhelmingly female; that’s why I use Reddit, to provide some gender balance in my online life regarding nonprofits, community development, volunteerism, etc. It also helps me understand what people outside of the nonprofit, volunteerism and humanitarian worlds are saying about nonprofits, volunteering and humanitarian issues.

The community on Reddit for discussions about volunteerism has reached 10,000 members. I did a poll last month, trying to get an idea of member ages. Just 262 responded, not even a 3% return. But I do think it’s a representative sampling, and it clearly shows that almost 60% of the members are 18 to 28, and 36% are either 30 to 49 or under 18.

I regularly ask colleagues to answer a question or offer advice on the community on Reddit for discussions about volunteerism. I regularly ask organizations like VolunteerMatch and the Points of Light Foundation, via Twitter, to post their announcements there. They never do. Here is an audience of young people asking questions about how to volunteer, how to do specific types of volunteering, how to make their volunteering more sustainable or effective, and I can’t get the people claiming to want to reach young people to, well, reach them.

Also see:

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What should my next virtual volunteering video be?

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Since the start of the global pandemic last year, I have been creating and sharing videos to help organizations understand virtual volunteering and to quickly create roles and activities for online volunteers. I share them on my YouTube channel. These videos include:

I’m a professional consultant, and I cannot pay my bills with my goodwill and sharing free videos. However, sacrificing some – indeed, a lot – of my potential income to try to mitigate at least some of the negative impacts of the pandemic on nonprofits has been my way of feeling like I’m doing something worthwhile in this intense, tough time, as a way to feel not quite so helpless.

So, let me continue to try to help in my own small way: what would you like my next free training about virtual volunteering to be? What is a subject I could cover in just 5 to 15 minutes that would help your nonprofit, charity, school, NGO, library or other cause-based program regarding virtual volunteering? Please note the subject you need most in the comments below.

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

While I don’t think these videos nor my blogs are a substitute for reading my book, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, I do believe that the information can help nonprofits who already have experience involving volunteers in traditional settings – onsite, face-to-face – pivot quickly in creating roles and tasks for online volunteers. But if you want to deeply integrate virtual volunteering into your program and expand your engagement of online volunteers, such as in an online mentoring program or other scheme where online volunteers will interact with clients, 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. And purchasing the book is far, far cheaper than hiring me as a consultant or trainer regarding virtual volunteering – though you can still do that!

Also, FYI, please note my videos that aren’t specifically about virtual volunteering, including:

Looking forward to reading your suggestions!

Volunteering is no substitute for government programs

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

The Washington Post published an editorial on Monday by Katherine Turk, an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of. The headline and subhead:

Volunteering and generosity are no substitutes for government programs.

Conservatives have weaponized Americans’ desire to help to attack the social safety net.

As the editorial notes:

…as we honor these selfless acts, we should also recall National Volunteering Week’s dark origins story, when president Richard Nixon distorted benevolence to serve the least generous of goals. This history makes it clear that volunteering cannot stand in for government provided support…

…(President) Nixon, a Republican, set out to change the conversation about what the government owed to citizens when he became president in 1969. In particular, he sought to shrink Aid to Families With Dependent Children (often called simply “welfare”), the program that paid modest sums to low-income families. He also wanted to fulfill his campaign promise to be a president of “law and order” by redirecting War on Poverty funds into expanding incarceration and more aggressive policing in urban communities of color.

To lay the groundwork for these changes, Nixon took up his predecessors’ focus on volunteerism, and warped it. Many Americans needed assistance, Nixon claimed, but their generous fellow citizens could meet those needs. Volunteer programs should replace government-funded and run services… Nixon outlined an ambitious vision in which teens tutored youths; business leaders mentored aspiring entrepreneurs; housewives cooked for elderly neighbors, and those elderly served as foster grandparents. Most anyone could be recruited to aid another person free.

This praise for volunteerism helped erode the notion that basic sustenance was a right — something for which Americans shouldn’t have to rely upon the vagaries of charity. 

I strongly encourage you to read the entire editorial. As for me, I love volunteer engagement, I love volunteerism – and I absolutely agree with this editorial.

I won’t repeat myself – I have blogged about this so many times. I’ll let those past blogs speak for me:

Your local adventure – & opportunity to help humanity or the environment – awaits

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Below is a question and answer from an interview with by Paul Salopek on the post-pandemic world, and I think its message is something every person that wants to volunteer abroad, or any person that wants to be a humanitarian worker abroad, needs to reflect on:

How can storytellers, who are often used to traveling and seeking stories out in the field, adapt to the new reality and continue telling the stories while staying at home?

I’ve always suggested to journalism students that it’s easy to jet off to some war and make your name covering such dramatic material. It’s actually the most unimaginative, even lazy, way to success. And I say this as a former war reporter. It’s much harder—but far more impressive, in my opinion—to document the same human drama at home. On your city block. In your house. If you tell me that the spiritual, existential dread of a lonesome woman or man in a middle-class suburb is somehow less interesting or “authentic” than a refugee’s woes, I’ll tell you that you are in danger of producing shallow cartoons, not original, impactful work. Take the lockdown as a challenge. Dig deeper into the warzone of your own heart.

A thousand times this! I feel exactly the same way about people that say they want to volunteer abroad but have not done locally whatever it is they want to do in another country: it’s an unimaginative, lazy way of thinking about helping others and making a difference. It is far, far more impressive to engage in meaningful local volunteering opportunities helping educate people with HIV, helping immigrants and refugees, helping unsheltered people, helping foster kids, helping people access the critical services they need, helping to educate people about their rights, introducing arts or sports or outdoor recreation to people in your own community. If you tell me helping abroad is somehow more “authentic” than helping in your own community – or even another community in your own country – I’ll tell you the same thing: you are in danger of producing shallow cartoons, not original, impactful work. In fact, I’ll tell you you’re in danger of promoting a colonialist, even racist, view of the world.

I’m not at all opposed to wanting to work or volunteer abroad. But I am opposed to looking at it as something primarily to help yourself, to give you some spiritual experience, some experience that is completely different than issues in your own country, and something that is more genuine, more lofty than doing the same work locally.

When I moved back to the USA after living and working abroad for eight years, I decided I was going to try to do locally what I had done abroad. It has not been easy: I am looked at with much more suspicion here in Oregon than in communities in Afghanistan, Egypt or Ukraine. In those places, I had the label as “from the United Nations” and “foreign expert.” Here, I’m an outsider who can’t possibly think of the issues faced in local communities in Oregon as worthwhile or exciting as the other places I’ve been. When I go to local government meetings, volunteer at political candidate forums, apply to join a citizens’ advisory group, apply to volunteer with a nonprofit or even apply for a job, people will ask questions with an incredulous tone, like “But why do you want to be in Oregon instead of one of those really exciting places?” and “Why do you want to work here at this government office instead of abroad for some exciting international agency?” Never mind that the work is almost exactly the same. Yes, really, it’s oh-so-similar: researching local conflicts and grudges, understanding local history, attending local events, being respectful of local culture, being careful with word choices in order to stay neutral, filling out lots of forms, writing lots of reports, producing lots of slides for presentations, finding informal acts and conversation points that can build trust (being aware of weddings, births, graduations and other family events, sharing meals, etc.), knowing my neighbors and their complexities and navigating such as necessary (that house is a place for people who have to stay sober, this man has an extensive gun collection, that woman gets angry about dogs peeing on her lawn, this house gets a lot of visits by the police), and so forth.

There’s a nonprofit in the town where I live now that engages in work with local immigrants that is exactly the same as work an initiative I worked in as part of a government-UN partnership abroad: they train women in creating and managing their own small businesses and micro enterprises, most regarding agriculture. And the executive director of this nonprofit was incredulous when I told her how similar her work was to what I’d been a part of in Afghanistan: the approach, the challenges, the conflicts, and on and on.

And local experiences are SO valuable in work abroad: I watched other foreign co-workers feeling uncomfortable in deeply-religious Islamic communities where there were prayers before government meetings, while I recalled my hometown in Kentucky where prayers are said before just about any gathering or meeting (including a presentation I was doing regarding social media management). And my familiarity with professional wrestling has proven valuable everywhere from work with inner-city kids in Washington, DC to talking to security guards in Egypt.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t want to go abroad. Traveling abroad is an extraordinary experience. Let’s remember that Mr. Salopek is traveling right now, despite the pandemic – he’s not in his home country, telling local stories: he’s been traveling for more than seven years on an unprecedented transcontinental 21,000-mile odyssey along the migration route of early humans. And I am writing as someone that’s been to more than 35 countries and as someone who has worked abroad in humanitarian work, and I cannot deny that it wasn’t an adventure and, at times, as mental and spiritual high. Nor can I deny that I am dreaming of getting a new stamp in my passport.

And like me, Mr. Salopek is a man of privilege – it’s nice to be able to say “Stop over-planning your life so much,” but it also has to be acknowledged that most people in the world don’t have the luxury of living the life that Mr. Salopek does, and that a white man crossing a country’s border gets very different treatment than a black man. A white man working at a foreign itinerant farm laborer is going to be treated differently than a woman of any ethnicity.

But with all that acknowledged, I believe, fervently, that you have to have done locally whatever it is you want to do internationally if you truly want to be “authentic.”

Also see:

Your thoughts? Let’s hear them in the comments below.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into developing material, researching information, preparing articles, updating pages, etc., here is how you can help.