Tag Archives: volunteers

school parent volunteer engagement ethics

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersI got this message from a friend. And then I had another situation I had wanted to offer up on a blog as well. So… what do you think about the ethics of required parental volunteering in schools?

I’m preparing to go to [[name of private school redacted]] to work a basketball game. I don’t want to go at all but I have to put in so many volunteer hours every school year for my daughter to be able to go see a movie with her class at the end of the year. And nobody wants to be that deadbeat parent whose child has to stay behind because they didn’t volunteer enough. She’s not even playing basketball! They’ve got quite a racket going here: work me for 20 hours for a $20 movie trip.

Apparently, a parent can’t simply pay the movie ticket admission and, say, a bit for gas: they must volunteer or the child isn’t allowed to go on the trip.

A neighbor also told me that her son is on the swim team for the public high school where he attends but she can’t afford all of the fees for him to participate, so the school gave her the option of volunteering 30 hours a semester so her son could participate.

But, on the other hand, students at schools with high volunteer involvement flourish – good grades, fewer discipline problems, etc.; schools without much parental involvement struggle – students with poor grades, more discipline problems, etc., so there is a big incentive by this and other schools to get parents into the school for student events or into the classroom. And this kind of required time better guarantees that happening.

What are your thoughts about the ethics and optics of either of these cases? What about a situation where a parent absolutely cannot volunteer, because of childcare issues, caregiver issues, job issues or lack of transportation? What if a parent has a conviction that precludes him or her from ever volunteering in a school?

Also see:

Comparing schools with high & low volunteer engagement

How schools & small governments should be using social media

5th year anniversary of my book on virtual volunteering

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

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

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is for

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

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

The book includes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I also frequently blog about virtual volunteering. Examples:

Expand national service programs in the USA?

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersAccording to this story from National Public Radio, the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, a federal panel (USA), says it is working on answers to those questions — and is considering how the USA could implement a universal service program and whether it should be mandatory or optional. The commission is due to submit its final report in March 2020. Between now and then, the panel will hold public hearings on ideas of how to meet America’s service needs. The first such hearing is slated for Feb. 21 in Washington, D.C.

The possibilities under consideration range from boosting the stipend volunteers receive during service to awarding college credit for national service work. Another potential plan would create a Public Service Corps program, similar to the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, which could offer scholarships and special training to “students at colleges throughout the nation in exchange for a commitment to work in civil service.”

And the commission noted an option to “retain programs to forgive student loans for Americans who work in public service careers for at least a decade.”

My thoughts: initially, President Trump proposed eliminating all of the current USA national service programs – AmeriCorps, SeniorCorps, etc. – so any recommendation to actually expand national service would be DOA during this administration. Also, mandatory service is VERY expensive to implement: this new, additional workforce, even if they are entirely unpaid, must be properly screened, trained and supported in whatever volunteer role they take on, and organizations will need funding to create roles for this new volunteer workforce – where will those additional funds come from? Young people who engage in community service for several weeks will need to receive something substantial, such as a living stipend (in lieu of paid work – money they very much need), or significant breaks on tuition. Finally, Germany got rid of its mandatory service requirements a few years back – it was just way, way too expensive to maintain anymore.

Your thoughts?

review of latest data on volunteering in the USA

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The Corporation for National Service has released its annual report on volunteering in the USA. And, once again, the way they present the data, and the old-fashioned view of volunteering, has disappointed me greatly.

How was the data gathered? I can’t find anything on the web site to tell me. How many people were interviewed? Or how many organizations provided data regarding their volunteers? Where is a report I can read, to get more in-depth info, not just graphics and summary paragraphs? I spent a lot of time on the web site and searching on Google and cannot find this information anywhere.

Once again, the Corporation is focused on a dollar value for measuring the impact of volunteering: “Over the past 15 years, Americans volunteered 120 billion hours, estimated to be worth $2.8 trillion” and in the year for this report, volunteers gave $167 billion in economic value. That’s right – volunteers mean you can eliminate paid staff! And also contributes to the mistaken belief that volunteers are free (they aren’t).

The Corporation summary of the report breaks down volunteering activities in these categories:

  • Fundraise or sell items to raise money
  • Collect, prepare, distribute, or serve food
  • Collect, make or distribute clothing, crafts, or goods other than food.
  • Mentor youth
  • Tutor or teach
  • Engage in general labor; supply transportation for people
  • Provide professional or management assistance including serving on a board or committee
  • Usher, greeter, or minister
  • Engage in music, performance, or other artistic activities
  • Coach, referee, or supervise sports teams
  • Provide general office services
  • Provide counseling, medical care, fire/EMS, or protective services
  • Other types of volunteer activity

Sigh… so, where do these common volunteering activities go?

  • Participating in hackathons and wikipedia edit-a-thons? What if I’m not doing anything at the computer – I’m walking around serving drinks?
  • Supporting artistic activities but not actually supplying them? Would a theater usher be under the “usher” category or hear?
  • Volunteering to register voters go?

And what about this range of typical virtual volunteering activities go?

  • Managing an online discussion group
  • Facilitating an online video chat/event
  • creating web pages (designing the pages or writing the content)
  • editing or writing proposals, press releases, newsletter articles, video scripts, etc.
  • transcribing scanned documents
  • monitoring the news to look for specific subjects
  • managing social media activities
  • tagging photos and files

And, as always: where is the information about the resources it takes to engage volunteers? It takes money and time – yet the report never says a word about this. Volunteers do not magically happen.

I have all the same complaints about CNCS and its report on volunteerism that I had in 2014, so I won’t repeat myself here. But please, CNCS, read it. Drag yourself into the 21st Century and let’s get the data we truly need to help politicans and the general public understand and value volunteerism.

#GoVolunteer

Also see:

Volunteering to help national public lands cleanup after shutdown

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Updated February 1, 2019, at the bottom of the blog entry:

The House and Senate have passed a bill to reopen the government until February 15, and the President is expected to sign it – it may be signed by the time this blog is published.

The impact of the shut down on US public lands – national parks, national forests, national monuments and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land – is still being assessed, but we already know, per numerous press reports and social media reports by visitors, that it’s been bad: trash, graffiti, plant destruction, trail destruction and more.

Official groups that volunteer on US public lands have all been somewhat or entirely inactive as well during the shutdown because they are under the auspices of official partnerships with federal offices, and their liaisons have all been out during the shutdown. Many have been making plans during the shutdown on what to do immediately when the shutdown ends, and many will be starting activities ASAP to address the damage that’s been done to national public lands.

If you want to help volunteer in the next two weeks in particular to address the damage on US public lands during the shutdown, look for “Friends of…” groups that support specific national parks, national forests, etc. You can find these using Google, Bing and Facebook. Check their social media accounts for updates on what their immediate volunteering activities will be and apply to volunteer via their web sites. If they don’t have a way to fill out an application on their web site, email them and ask how you can become a part of their efforts.

These groups do not provide transportation to the public lands they support, nor do they provide accommodations – that means if, say, you want to help at the Grand Canyon, you have to get yourself to the Grand Canyon, find and pay for a hotel or motel room somewhere, etc., all paid for by you. If you decide you want to join in on these volunteering efforts, you need to be prepared to be self-funded and get to wherever the group wants you to be on your own.

You also need to apply to become an official volunteer with any volunteering group you want to help – don’t just show up at the gates of a national park, national forest, etc., and say, “Here I am!” These groups have information on their web sites on how they do this. You may want to apply to volunteer with more than one group – I have no idea if they are getting lots of applications or very few, nor any idea if you will get a quick response, or any response at all.

These groups could all be shut down again on Feb. 15, if no more permanent legislation is passed.

Also, remember that these groups need help year-round – when there’s not a shutdown happening. Many would welcome your support running their gift shops (which raise money for their efforts), building and restoring trails, leading groups and more.

Update: I curated tweets sent by various people and organizations about #volunteers helping on public lands – national parks, forests, monuments, BLM land, etc. – during the 2018-2019 US Federal government #shutdown. The tweets have a lot of links to news articles. I’ve posted this list of curated tweets to Wakelet.

One of the social messages that went viral during this shutdown was a video of a group of spontaneous, unaffiliated community volunteers being told they had to stop cleaning up in the Shiloh National Military Park in Tennessee. Again: official groups that volunteer on US public lands had to be inactive during the shutdown because they are under the auspices of official partnerships with federal offices, and their liaisons were all out during the shutdown. The park worker or law enforcement person or whoever it is in the video did a very poor job of trying to say this in explaining why the people had to stop trying to clean up the park, and his explanation left these community members confused and angry. What he should have said was this:

Thank you. I know you all really care about this park and it’s bothering you to see trash and other debris laying around. These are public lands, your lands, and of course, you feel like you want to clean them up. However, even when the government isn’t shut down, even when there is staff in the parks, people cannot just show up at the park and “volunteer” here. We don’t allow people to spontaneously volunteer, without any formal affiliation with our park, because of liability risks and because of the risk, however small, that unsupervised volunteers will do damage. I so appreciate what you are doing, but park policy says you need to stop. Here is the name of the person you can call the day after the shutdown stops so that your group can volunteer.

Of course, if you’ve watched the video, based on the logic used by the worker, all those unaffiliated volunteers had to do was say, “Oh, we’re not volunteers. I’m an individual citizen enjoying the park and this is how I choose to enjoy it.”  They might have gotten away with it.

Sadly, there have been cases where even “official” volunteers on public lands have caused damage. For instance, 30 miles of dirt trails and primitive roads in Deschutes National Forest in Oregon were deliberately wrecked in 2014 by unsupervised volunteers who were supposed to be doing necessary, environmentally-appropriate trail maintenance. They caused more than $200,000 in damage.

Also see:

Online volunteers help with database of fugitive slave ads

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The Freedom on the Move (FOTM) public database project at Cornell University is a major digital database effort to bring together North American fugitive slave advertisements in newspapers from regional, state, and other collections – and online volunteers will be invited to add data tags to the screened entries and to transcribe the ads. This online public engagement by FOTM will allow database users to examine spatial patterns and compare trends over time.

“Ironically, in trying to retrieve their property — the people they claimed as things — enslavers left us mounds of evidence about the humanity of the people they bought and sold,” said Dr. Mary Niall Mitchell, professor of early American history at the University of New Orleans and one of the three lead historians on FOTM.

Mitchell explained. “At what time of year were enslaved people most likely to run? What places did they frequent? What skills did they have? How many could read and write? Or were likely to ‘pass’ for white, or claim to be free? What did they wear? Where were they suspected to be hiding and with whom? Under what circumstances did women run away?”

FOTM received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) digital humanities grants.

Here is an excellent article on about the database, from which I took Dr. Mitchell’s quotes.

Anyway, I gave it a try. I transcribed one ad. I would have liked to have done more, but I kept getting an error message on final submission, so I wasn’t sure if my attempt was even received. I’m wondering if I’m going to receive any sort of update or email from the project, if there is going to be any effort to keep me in the loop about the project and encourage me to transcribe more ads, if there will be any effort to survey me about my experience, or if there will be any solicitations for funding.

I’m also still thinking about that young woman I read about, who had fled someone in South Carolina and was suspected of being harbored by her enslaved mother somewhere… she’s a real person to me now. I hope she was never captured. I hope she got away. I hope she got to reach some dreams. I hope she was happy. Are other volunteers similarly connecting with the information the are transcribing on a human level?

vvbooklittleA shame organizers aren’t calling this a virtual volunteering initiative – because it is! Instead, they use the term “crowdsourcing.” It’s also a micro-volunteering initiative. I hope at least the organizers of this initiative will consider reading The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. The book, which I co-wrote with Susan Ellis, has lots of detailed suggestions and specifics about virtual volunteering, including task and role development, suggestions on support and supervision of online volunteers, guidelines for evaluating virtual volunteering activities, suggestions for risk management, online safety, ensuring client and volunteer confidentiality and setting boundaries for relationships in virtual volunteering, and much more. The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is available both as a traditional printed book and as a digital book.

Honoring volunteers engaged in economic & social development

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersThere are volunteers all over the world, right now, who are working to help impoverished people start small businesses and generate the income they desperately need to care for themselves and their families. They are training people in sustainable farming methods and ecological land management. They are helping build the computer literacy of a variety of people. They are training women in public speaking and in how to lead. They are training rural people in how to set up and operate groups that will identify their own most pressing community needs and communicate those needs to government and potential donors. They are helping refugees and immigrants learn local languages and participate in local civic life. They are helping to educate communities about HIV/AIDS and to not be afraid of those among them who are HIV positive. They are working to stop female genital mutilation. They are using theater as a tool to educate about something, to build awareness, even to change behavior.

Some of these volunteers live in their own homes and engage in these activities in the same communities they are from, or in nearby communities. Some travel thousands of miles away and live in a compound or a guest house or with a local family. Some face hostilities, dangerous situations, even violence, as they try to this service. Some are killed in the line of duty. Many endure sexual harassment and assault. Many suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but will not seek help because they know that, if they do, they could be jeopardizing their chances of continuing volunteer service, or they do not have access to PTSD treatment.

These volunteers don’t get statues or parades or school assemblies that honor their service. Songs aren’t written and sung in their honor. People don’t post to social media to thank them for their service. And I don’t know of any such volunteers asking for such, though they would most certainly like local and national press to pay more attention to the communities they are trying to help and causes they are trying to address.

These are volunteers who are engaged in economic and social development, and December 5th is the day to honor them: International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development, as declared by the United Nations General Assembly per its resolution 40/212 in 1985.

This is not a day to honor only international volunteers; the international in the title describes the day, not the volunteer. It’s a day to honor, specifically, those volunteers who contribute to economic and social development. Such volunteers deserve their own day. This includes local volunteers, not just international volunteers.

I say this every year in conversations and on social media and repeatedly on my blog: I think it’s a shame to try to turn December 5 into just another day to celebrate any volunteer, another day to give volunteers a meme with a happy kitten that says “thanks!” There are PLENTY of days and weeks to honor all volunteers and encourage more volunteering and to hug a volunteer.

Let’s keep December 5 specifically for volunteers who contribute to economic and social development, per its original intention; let’s give these unique volunteers their due, as per the original purpose of this day’s designation. Let’s honor their sacrifices, the stress they deal with, the service they give and the work they are trying to do.

Thank you to the many volunteers who help with the range of economic and social development needs in the world! Today is all about YOU and the incredible service you undertake.

Here are all the times I’ve tried to remind people of what IVD used to be about and should be again:

Also see:

research on why NGOs recruit international volunteers

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I am a frequent blogger about voluntourism – mostly to say, “Don’t do it – don’t pay to volunteer for two-weeks abroad. It’s not only ineffective, it’s potentially, sometimes actually, harmful.” Most recently, earlier this year, I blogged about volunteers themselves speaking out about voluntourism. I so appreciate these honest accounts of people who have paid to volunteer abroad and found the experience lacking in terms of actually helping local people or the environment – and even found it to be harmful.

My consulting colleague, sometimes presentation partner and all-around amazing human Dr. Erin Barnhardt wrote about her own experience as a pay-to-volunteer-abroad experience in her 2012 PhD thesis, Engaging Global Service: Organizational Motivations for and Perceived Benefits of Hosting International Volunteers. She notes in the introduction to her research:

While my experience in Jordan was on the whole overwhelmingly positive, I was surprised and somewhat disappointed to discover that I was in fact a largely ineffective volunteer. I knew that staying for only two weeks meant that my contributions would be severely limited and that my lack of Arabic language skills would further hamper my impact, but I’d assumed that coming in with a professional expertise meant that I could make some kind of lasting contribution during my very short tenure. What I discovered though was, despite having gone through a reputable volunteer-sending organization to an organization that regularly hosted international volunteers, the infrastructure to put me to work was minimal and somewhat ad hoc. I came to the Jordanian NGO with a genuine interest in helping out, only to discover that there was in fact little for me to do.

I so appreciate Erin’s honesty – and the honesty of all those who have paid-to-volunteer abroad and are now speaking out about their negative experiences.

Erin’s academic research after her Jordan experience came from her desire to know why some NGOs recruit volunteers from other countries. Erin’s research started with an initial survey of 248 NGOs that are not based in the USA and host international volunteers – people from outside of country of the location of the host NGO. Then she conducted a more in-depth survey of 31 NGOs from that group or 18.8% of the original 248. I wish she had limited her research to what I’m most interested in: those programs where volunteers are required to pay a fee to a volunteer-sending organization or to the host NGO – perhaps someone else will do that. Erin’s research was much broader: she looked at a range of NGOs, including those that do NOT charge any fees from volunteers. In fact, a majority of NGOs that responded to Erin’s surveys do not charge fees from volunteers, only 13.3% partnered with a volunteer-sending organization and just 8.5% had international volunteers placed with them by other kinds of partner organizations such as universities and faith groups. In addition, just 37.1% of responding organizations said international volunteers pay them a fee to volunteer with their organization. In addition, the survey was limited to NGOs who had registered on the Idealist.org web site, which means these NGOs are quite tech-savvy and independent – two qualities I don’t think are had by most local NGOs that host international volunteers in pay-to-volunteer-abroad schemes.

With all that said, the research is worth reading, to see how Internet-savvy, independent NGOs view international volunteers and the services they provide. I see these NGOs in Erin’s research as the kind of organizations that I recommend DIY volunteers abroad try to partner with when they want to travel and do good.

Here are some items from her research that are especially interesting – at least to me, because I think that these three findings would very likely be true of research that was limited to programs where international volunteers are charged a fee for their service:

  • Just over half of respondents – 50.4% – reported that they began hosting international volunteers only within the past five years, while 78.3% of respondents began hosting international volunteers within the past decade.
  • Overall, respondents reported that shorter terms of service were more common for their international volunteers than longer terms. For example, while 69.2% of respondents reported that international volunteers almost always or occasionally served for between 67 two weeks and one month, just over half as many reported having international volunteers almost always or occasionally stay for over one year.
  • Types of volunteer projects and roles varied widely with, by far, the most common type being teaching, classroom assistance, tutoring, and/or community education (61.3%). The next most common types of volunteer projects were construction and/or infrastructure development or improvements like painting, installations, etc. (17.8%), technology tasks like building websites (15.6%), and research, data collection, and reporting (12.4%).

I so hope someone out there will do similar research specifically on programs where volunteers are required to pay a fee to a volunteer-sending organization or to the host NGO. I hope they will take the research even farther and find out:

  • who identifies assignments for international volunteers (does the NGO define the assignment, do potential volunteers say “Here is how I would like to help and what I can do,” or does the volunteer sending agency say, “Here are volunteers and how you will use them”?)
  • not only if applicants need to meet minimal skills requirements, but how those requirements are verified
  • if the programs have written policies and procedures regarding sexual harassment and safety
  • what percentage of overall applicants that have the ability to pay are rejected from service by the agency, and what the reasons for those rejections are
  • how many of these agencies have conducted formal evaluations with resulting documentation regarding the impact these volunteers have on the agency or those that the agency services – not just satisfaction surveys among volunteers.

I would also love to know more about the process local NGOs must go through to request long-term international volunteers from

There is such a thing as effective short-term international volunteering. There is such a thing as quality program where volunteers need to pay a fee to the host organization. In fact, there are volunteering abroad programs where volunteers pay nothing, such as UN Volunteers, VSO and PeaceCorps – but such programs require a much, much longer commitment of volunteers than a few weeks.

My other blogs related to voluntourism:

Online volunteers help children & families separated by US Government / ICE at border

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An excellent example of virtual volunteering as digital activism: in this 25 June 2018 article, Wired.com notes how librarians and other humanities academics and geeks across the USA banded together to figure out where the government had sent immigrant children snatched from their parents at the border, to help their parents find them again and, eventually, reunite these families.

Excerpts from this Wired article:

Alex Gil was IMing with his colleague Manan Ahmed when they decided they had to do something about children being separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border… Gil, a father of two, knew they could be useful. As the digital scholarship librarian at Columbia University, Gil’s job is to use technology to help people find information—skills he had put to use in times of crisis before. Gil and Ahmed, a historian at Columbia, assembled a team of what Gil calls “digital ninjas” for a “crisis researchathon.” These volunteers were professors, graduate students, researchers, and fellows from across the country with varied academic focus, but they all had two things in common: an interest in the history of colonialism, empire, and borders; and the belief that classical research methods can be used not just to understand the past but to reveal the present.

You can read the latest news about virtual volunteering, including online microvlunteering, digital activism, crowdsourcing for good and more at the Virtual Volunteering Wiki – specifically, the section on news.

The Virtual Volunteering Wiki was developed in association with The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, a book available from Energize, Inc.

tasks for a university intern at your organization

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One of the most under-utilized resources for nonprofits is university students who want (and need) a high-responsibility work experience in association with whatever degree they are studying. There are business management, marketing, human resources management, accounting and other types of students who have the time, skills and mandate to work at a nonprofit anywhere from a month to four months, often for an entire university semester, but they struggle to find placements.

Your organization should regularly brainstorm what such an intern could do at your organization. Here are some of my ideas, which skew heavily to marketing and public relations, per my own work:

  • explore, compile and index a photo and video archive for your organization
  • develop an online archive of photos, with proper keywords and descriptions, at Flickr or another online photo archive
  • explore and compile your organization’s FAQs
  • survey participants in an event or program about their experience. This is one of my very favorite assignments for an intern, because it’s something I really need done and, often, the targets of the survey are more likely to speak freely with a university student than me (they don’t want to hurt my feelings).
  • review past surveys looking for pull quotes specifically for grant applications and marketing materials
  • explore, compile and index a paper archive of publications your organization has produced over the years
  • design a brochure, newsletter, or other publication
  • review your web site for ways it could be more accessible, and implement at least some of the recommendations (replacing all “click here” and “read more” links with descriptive links instead, adding in alt tags for photos, making sure every page has a title, etc.)
  • creating a more robust section of your web site regarding volunteering, including an online version of your volunteer application, a list of what volunteers do at your organization, your volunteer policies, etc.
  • compile and index an archive of press coverage about your organization or a particular program, since your organization launched or for just a set period
  • research and compile a list of reporters at area media outlets who have written or produced stories about a particular topic and, therefore, might be interested in writing or producing a story about your organization
  • manage an online community your organization hosts, helping with technical support, answering questions (as appropriate) and bringing urgent issues to the attention of the appropriate person  (but remember that at least one regular staff member should still be reading the group regularly and responding)
  • help at an event, such as at the registration table
  • populate Twitter lists
  • transcribe/caption your YouTube videos or podcasts
  • be your official photographer/videographer at various activities and events, and then splicing together the material into a promotional video (remind them to use copyright-free music if they decide to use music)
  • create a display for your lobby or front of office about a program, an event, a particular subject your nonprofit addresses, etc.
  • research public outdoor events in your area – dates, times, places – where your nonprofit could have an information table or booth
  • researching and compiling a list of commercial kitchens in a town or neighborhood that your organization might be able to use for an event (at senior centers, churches or other communities of faith, cultural centers, etc.), and profiling each in terms of costs, parking, access to public transit, accessibility, etc.

What I won’t put an intern in charge of is social media. This is a high-profit interactive public task that should always be managed by someone permanently at your organization. It’s too important of a role to leave to a temporary staff person, whether intern or consultant.

Whether paid or unpaid, an internship at a nonprofit or government agency, in my opinion, should have these characteristics:

  • It should give the intern an opportunity coordinate, even direct, a project, one he or she can take credit for directing or coordinating.
  • It should give the intern an opportunity to suggest, perhaps even formally design, approaches and solutions.
  • It should include the intern attending staff meetings – and that includes staff meetings outside of the department where the intern will be working.

If it’s an unpaid internship, it also needs to be 20  hours or less and be as flexible as possible, since the intern will probably have a paid job to earn income some he or she can participate in this internship. That means some tasks need to be able to be done in the evenings, on weekends, and remotely from the workplace. My thoughts on the ethics of not paying interns can be found here.

Remember that, at the end of such an internship, you need to talk with the intern about what they learned, what they accomplished, and how the internship might affect their future studies or career. Otherwise, you are ignoring the learning experience that is supposed to be at the heart of an internship.