Tag Archives: volunteerism

volunteer engagement to promote social cohesion, prevent extremism?

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social cohesionThere will be a conference in Brussels, Belgium on 13 October 2016 regarding the possible role of volunteer engagement in promoting inclusion and preventing extremism.

Examples from across Europe and beyond, such as from South Africa, Colombia and Algeria, will be reviewed to explore ways that volunteerism has contributed to building trust and social cohesion. The conference will also discuss elements and factors that are essential for success in such endeavors. The examples will be included in a publication that “will offer analysis of the challenges faced in Europe concerning social inclusion and the risks of extremism from different belief groups and explain how the volunteer projects contribute to addressing these issues.”

The conference is being promoted by the European Volunteer Centre (CEV), supported by the European Commission. The event will be organised in the framework of the Slovak Presidency of the Council of the European Union and with the support of London House and Team London (European Volunteering Capital 2016).

There are lots of ways for an organization that involves volunteers to be thinking about inclusiveness in its volunteer engagement, even if social cohesion or community building isn’t explicitly stated in its mission. For instance:

Also see these related resources:

Firsts… or almost

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

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

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

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

Also see

Early History of Nonprofits & the Internet.

Apps4Good movement is more than 15 years old

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

Volunteers are more important than social media in Presidential elections

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Please see the end of this blog for an update nine months later.

graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersLast night, the public radio show Marketplace here in the USA did an excellent story about the vital role volunteers play in a successful Presidential campaign. Social media is great, but the reality is that it’s old-fashioned volunteer engagement – people calling neighbors to get out the vote, driving neighbors to the polls, etc. – that wins elections. The story is available for free online, and if you are outside the USA and can’t access it, just download Hotspot Shield – you’ll be able to using that.

My favorite points from the article:

“It takes $670,000 dollars in ad buys in a general election to get the same number of estimated votes as you would by opening a field office which is about $21,000 dollars to maintain throughout an election season.” — Joshua Darr, assistant professor of political communication at Louisiana State University, quoted in the article.

“Donald Trump’s performance in Iowa has widely been blamed on his lack of volunteer organizing. ”

“Networks of lawn-trodding volunteers aren’t something you can just whip up overnight, and the people who build these networks are not a dime a dozen.”

I’m THRILLED with this story. It touches on so many things I promote in my work: that highly-skilled managers of volunteers, fully supported and funded, are required for effective volunteer engagement, that volunteers are not free, and that, sometimes, volunteers are the BEST people to do a task.

For the record, I knew President Obama was going to win re-election, despite what the polls were saying, because his campaign was getting new volunteers, and keeping volunteers, all over the country, right up to election day, while Romney’s campaign was closing offices many weeks before. And when I volunteer for political campaigns, I always rewrite the script I’m given, so that the first thing I always say is, “Hi, I’m Jayne Cravens, and I’m a volunteer with the such-and-such campaign,” because I know the person on the other end is much more likely to listen to me knowing I’m a volunteer, not a paid staffer.

And note: volunteer engagement might be cheaper than national news spots, but it still costs money. I know a lot of managers of volunteers that would love $21,000 for their volunteer engagement… and with that said, be sure to sign this petition at Change.org that calls on Congress to provide funding for the effective management of the volunteers it is requiring public lands, including National Forests, to involve.

vvbooklittleSuch a shame people managing presidential campaigns, senate campaigns, congressional campaigns, grassroots campaigns – whatever the campaign – aren’t buying The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook in bulk! Tools come and go, but certain community engagement principles never change, and our book can be used with the very latest digital engagement initiatives and “hot” new technologies meant to help people volunteer, advocate for causes they care about, connect with communities and make a difference.

— end original blog —

November 28, 2016 update:

I was wrong. This election was not won by volunteers nor by volunteer management. As my November 28 blog details, social media DID win this election. It proved an ideal vehicle for promoting misinformation. As I noted in my last blog, BuzzFeed reported that fake news stories about the USA Presidential election this year generated more engagement on Facebook than the top election stories from 19 major news outlets COMBINED – that included major news outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and NBC News, and on and on. And the majority of these fake news stories did NOT come from any campaign operatives; rather, they came from a man in Los Angeles who originally built fake news sites to as a way to expose the extreme right, a plan that most certainly did NOT work. And these fake stories, most of which promoted Trump as a candidate, were shared by millions of people via social media – people who believed them, and most of whom never signed up to be an official Trump campaign volunteer. See my November 28 blog for more details. A blog in December offers even more details on how volunteers were engaged, officially and unofficially, in this campaign, and how a well-managed, vast army of volunteers did NOT win this election.

Keynote speaking in South Carolina & Washington state!

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logoCome here me speak this month or next!

Me in South Carolina Jan. 27 – 29, 2016
I’ll be the keynote speaker and presenting workshops at the South Carolina Association for Volunteer Administration (SCAVA) annual conference, January 27-29, 2016 in North Myrtle Beach! You do not have to be a member of SCAVA to attend. Join me!

Me in Vancouver, Washington (state – USA) Feb. 11, 2016
I’ll be the keynote speaker at the Nonprofit Network Southwest Washington / Directors of Volunteer Programs Association (DVPA) conference on Thurs., February 11 in Vancouver, Washington (state), USA.

You can book me for your conference or workshop! After February 2016, my consulting schedule is wide open. I am available for presentations, short-term consultations, long-term projects, part-time positions, and, for the right role, a full-time permanent position. Here’s what I can do for your organization/initiative.

There are free online workshops by me which you can view anytime, if you want to know more about my presentation style. Most are more than 45 minutes long:

I’m available for interviews on Skype or your preferred video conferencing tool, and, of course, by phone – I’m on West Coast time (the same as Los Angeles). I’m available for in-person, onsite interviews in and around Portland, Oregon (the area where I live), and am willing to travel most anywhere for an interview or as part of a short-term consultation.

Using volunteerism to build clients’ skills

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersPerhaps your organization has volunteers that help your employees or that help clients. But have you thought about volunteer engagement as a central part of your initiative’s program delivery? Have you thought about your clients in volunteering activities, as volunteers themselves, as a way to meet your organization’s mission?

Here’s an example: Adelante Mujeres is a nonprofit in Western Washington County, Oregon, about 30 minutes west of Portland. It provides education and empowerment opportunities to low-income Latina women and their families, in order to ensure their full participation and active leadership in the community. Its Chicas Youth Development works with more than 400 Latina students, grades three through 12, with the goal of instilling the importance of community leadership and civic engagement, and cultivating their skills for school, for future studies, for careers, and for life. The students, as volunteers, provide tech help at public libraries, pick up trash, plant trees and engage in other activities around the area. The participants in this program are role models for younger girls in the community, encouraging those younger girls to become volunteers, and leaders, themselves. The Chicas program has been selected as a 2015 Oregon Governor’s Volunteer Award Winner.

Here’s a theoretical example: a nonprofit serving people who are homeless could invite those clients to volunteer with the organization, or could work to help them volunteer at other organizations, so that they can build their skills, accomplish things that can be put on a résumé, and meet people that could be potential references for jobs.

Here’s anoter: a nonprofit that helps combat veterans re-integrate into society could help organize group volunteering activities so these clients can engage in a social activity together and have a positive result at the end of the day.

Too often, volunteerism is talked about only as something to supplement the work of paid staff, or as outsiders helping clients. By contrast, this other type of volunteering is integrated into a nonprofit’s program, into its mission-based activities. Volunteering is offered as an activity for clients to undertake themselves, as a part of accomplishing whatever it is a nonprofit wants to accomplish.

Congrats to Adelante Mujeres for this recognition of its outstanding program. And if you have other examples, please share them in the comments!

Also see

List of resources related to volunteering as a contributor to employability, compiled as a part of Internet-mediated volunteering – the impact for Europe, a paper and wiki I researched and compiled as part of the The ICT4EMPL Future Work project, a European Union initiative that aimed to inform policy of new forms of work and pathways to employability mediated by ICTs. The overall ICT4EMPL project produced a series of reports on the state of play of novel forms of internet-mediated work activity: crowd-sourced labour, crowdfunding, internet-mediated volunteering and internet-mediated work exchange (timebanks and complementary currency).

Ideas for Leadership Volunteering Activities – A long list of ideas to create or lead a sustainable, lasting benefit to a community, recruiting others to help and to have a leadership role as a volunteer. These can also be activities for a Capstone project, the Girl Scouts Gold Award, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (U.K.), a mitzvah project, or even scholarship consideration.

Volunteering in pursuit of a medical, veterinary or social work degree / career – a guide to volunteering activities that will help build your skills and give you experience applying skills to work in these fields.

Nov. 11, 2015 update: Team Rubicon “seeks to provide our veterans with three things they lose after leaving the military: a purpose, gained through disaster relief; community, built by serving with others; and self-worth, from recognizing the impact one individual can make.” It does this through volunteering, uniting the skills and experiences of military veterans with first responders to rapidly deploy emergency response teams.

June 26, 2016 update: The Washington County, Oregon Sheriff’s Department has a search and rescue team and membership is reserved for teen volunteers. Participants learn leadership skills, basic First Aid, some first responder skills, the basics of police investigations and more, and become eligible for college  scholarships. 

Oct. 23, 2019 update: High school students in New  York state studying building trades and construction participated in state and federal parks systems historic preservation projects as volunteers via HistoriCorps, a nonprofit organization who organizes volunteers to save and sustain historic places for public benefit. The students are helping to preserve the history of the nation’s public lands while also receiving an important real-world, hands-on education. Also see: Volunteering on public lands in the USA (national parks, national forests, national monuments, federally-managed historic sites, Bureau of Land Management land, state parks, wetlands, etc.)

Skills & experience, unpaid, are still skills & experience

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“A few of our volunteers have been listing their experience with us on their résumés, as though this was paid work, so we’ve asked them to stop doing that.”

She said this to me with a look of I’m sure you understand. I didn’t.

“You mean they listed their role at your organization, the name of your organization, the list of their responsibilities and their accomplishments at your organization?” I asked.

“Yes!” she said, “As though it was a job!”

And I said, “Why is that a problem?”

She said, “Because they were just volunteers! You don’t list that on your résumé!”

Sigh.

As I said in a previous blog, a marketing director is defined by the scope of his or her responsibilities – not a pay rate. Paid or not, you call such a person a marketing director. An executive director is defined by the scope of his or her responsibilities – not a pay rate. Paid or not, you call such a person an executive director.

If a person has a role at your organization, with a title and responsibilities, and that person has met goals / accomplished things as a result of his or her work at your organization, paid or unpaid, that person has EVERY right to put that experience on his or her résumé! The person should also say if the role was part-time (5 hours a week? 10? 20?) and to whom he or she reports/reported (the marketing director? the executive director? the manager of volunteers?). You should do all that for PAID jobs as well.

Should the person say if the role is paid or unpaid on his or her résumé? I keep trying to imagine a scenario where a person should, absolutely, say he or she was/is a volunteer in that role on his or her résumé, and I cannot think of one. Certainly if you are asked how much you were paid for each job, and you are filling out that information for each job, you should be just as transparent, and write $0.

And maybe you want to brag about having been a volunteer, specifically. I was just an employee of the United Nations Volunteers, I never had the honor of serving as a UN Volunteer – I was merely an employee who supported UNVs in the field (I really did say this when I worked at UNV, and it was hilarious to see the reactions from paid staff who worked so hard to tell people, “Oh, no, I’m an employee, I’m not a volunteer!”). If I did have the honor of serving as a UNV, I would make absolutely SURE it was clear on my CV that, indeed, I’d made the cut and been an actual UNV. Of course, that’s my way of thinking – by contrast, a lot of UNVs list their field work title on their CVs (Youth Program Director, HIV/AIDS Community Educator, etc.) and that their employer was UNDP, rather than UNV, to distance themselves as much as possible from the term volunteer – sad, but true.

When I am an employer, I look at experience, skills, training and accomplishments, period. I don’t care if the candidate did anything as a paid employee, a paid contractor or an unpaid volunteer – I want to see what they’ve done and what they can do. Whether they were paid to do it or not is irrelavent to me.

And you?

Also see:

Requests for submissions for ISTR conference

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Abstract submissions are now being accepted for the 12th International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR) International Conference, being held in Stockholm, Sweden, 28 June – 1 July, 2016. The theme of the conference:

The Third Sector in Transition: Accountability, Transparency, and Social Innovation.

Deadline for submissions is 26 October 2015. Papers on the following topics would be especially welcome:

  • The Third Sector and the Welfare state
  • Civil society and Democracy
  • NGOs and Globalization
  • Accountability and Transparency
  • Social Innovation and Social Enterprise
  • Advocacy and Public Policy
  • Philanthropy and Foundations
  • Volunteerism and Co-production
  • Managing Third Sector Organizations
  • Emerging Areas of Theory and Practice

More info on how to submit.

Managers of volunteers & resistance to diversity

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersIt never fails: try to have a conversation about diversity and volunteerism, get comments about how such conversations are not needed.

“Thoughtful Thursday” is an online discussion about issues related to the involvement of volunteers. It takes place in the comments section of the blog and on Twitter using the tag #ttvolmgrs.

Two weeks ago, the subject was diversity. The comments section on the blog are a perfect example of how these much-needed conversations in the nonprofit sector frequently turn into:

We don’t need this.
We are doing just fine with the volunteers we have.
Our recruitment has worked for 25 years. No need to change.
We are not going to lower our standards in order to get new volunteers.
Young volunteers just don’t have the commitment that are current volunteers have.

And it’s what frustrates me most about managers of volunteers. Most – yes, I said MOST – are resistant to change. Meanwhile, they wonder why they are having trouble recruiting, or keeping, volunteers.

Harumph.

(not all the comments are negative on the subject – so there’s hope)

Also see:

I’m thrilled with UNV’s 2015 State of the World’s Volunteerism Report – Transforming Governance

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state of volunteerism 2015I’m thrilled with the United Nations Volunteers program’s recently published 2015 State of the World’s Volunteerism Report – Transforming Governance.

Oh, yes, you read that right. THRILLED. And , as you know, I am a tough audience.

Why am I thrilled? Because, instead of doing the usual – talking about the value of volunteers only, or mostly, in terms of money saved because they aren’t paid a salary – this report talks about the value of volunteers in the terms that are much more powerful and important, value that goes far beyond money. Excerpts from the reports introduction explain better than I can:

For the post-2015 sustainable development agenda to succeed, improving governance, tackling inequalities, and expanding voice and participation need to be addressed simultaneously. Volunteerism can help by giving voice to stakeholders and by mobilizing people and civil society organizations to contribute to solutions.

The report suggests that the ability of volunteers to support development progress depends on the willingness of national governments to ensure that the space and supportive environments which encourage their participation and initiatives are available. The Report finds that volunteerism can help to generate social trust, advance social inclusion, improve basic services, and boost human development. Volunteers and volunteerism bring the greatest benefits where enabling conditions like freedom of speech and association and an atmosphere of vigorous political debate are already in place. At the local level, the Report suggests that volunteerism can increasingly be a vehicle for people in excluded and/or marginalized communities to be heard, and to access the services, resources, and opportunities they need to improve their lives.

Examples of formal and informal volunteering attest to the fact that those who are marginalized, such as women, indigenous populations and disempowered young people, can create spaces where their voices can be heard and where they can affect governance at local levels. This report addresses the issue of women’s engagement, providing interesting examples of how women have been able to engage in spaces outside the traditional norms, hold authorities accountable and ensure responsiveness to their needs and those of their communities.

Further research and innovative strategic partnerships are needed for better understanding, documenting and measuring volunteerism and its contribution to peace and development. This report starts a conversation that can and needs to be deepened.

And this, from the executive summary:

This report shows, using a body of knowledge collected through case studies, that volunteerism provides a key channel for this engagement from the local through to the national and global contexts.

This report has identified key strategies, challenges and opportunities for volunteerism, focused on three pillars of governance – voice and participation, accountability and responsiveness – where volunteers have shown impact. Specific volunteer actions and strategies illustrate the diverse ways in which volunteers engage in invited spaces, open up closed spaces or claim new spaces.

Volunteerism spans a vast array of activities at the individual, community, national and global levels. Those activities include traditional forms of mutual aid and self-help, as well as formal service delivery. They also include enabling and promoting participation and engaging through advocacy, campaigning and/or activism. The definition of volunteerism used in this report refers to “activities … undertaken of free will, for the general public good and where monetary reward is not the principal motivating factor.”

Volunteering in this report is also understood as overlapping and converging with social activism; while it is recognized that not all activists are volunteers, many activists are volunteers and many volunteers are activists. The terms volunteerism and social activism are not mutually exclusive. The idea that volunteers only serve to support service delivery or are only involved in charitable activities is one that is limited and provides a superficial line of difference between volunteerism and activism.

The report recognizes that volunteering is highly context specific and is often not on a level playing field. Women and marginalized groups are frequently affected by this unevenness; not all volunteers can participate equally or on equal terms in each context. Volunteerism is harder in contexts where people are excluded, their voices curtailed, their autonomy undermined and the risks of raising issues high. An enabling environment that respects the rights of all enhances the ability of volunteerism to contribute to positive development and peace. The report shows that creating a more enabling environment that allows positive civic engagement in sustainable development is critical for success.

If you do nothing else, PLEASE read the report’s executive summary.

Every program or project manager in every local, regional or government office needs to read at least the executive summary: government workers that are focused on police, fire and emergency response, parks and recreation, environmental issues, agriculture, the justice system, education, public health, arts, library, historical sites, economical development – they all need to read this report, look at how they currently involve the community, and ask themselves lots of questions:

  • Could you do a better job involving volunteers in decision-making?
  • Could you do a better job involving a greater diversity of volunteers – women, minority groups, children, the people that are the target of government services, etc.?
  • Are there tasks that volunteers actually might be better at doing than paid staff, because they wouldn’t have any worries regarding job security or loss of pay?
  • Are – or could – volunteers help your organization be more transparent to the general public and improve services?
  • Could volunteers help you build bridges with hostile communities?
  • Have you handled critical comments from volunteers appropriately?

This report can help you start answering those questions.

For more on the subject of the value of volunteer or community engagement

Corporate volunteers can be a burden for nonprofits

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Back in 2011, I asked if group volunteering was really all its cracked up to be.

The sentiment has gone mainstream: the Boston Globe published this yesterday: Corporate volunteers can be a burden for nonprofits.

Corporate social responsibility folks, managers of employee volunteerism programs: are you listening?