Why should you trust the information on this web page?
Ideas for High Impact Virtual
Volunteering Activities
This page is for people seeking ideas for
an online project that will mobilize online volunteers and lead to a
sustainable, lasting benefit to a community or cause, particularly for
a community or audience that is at-risk or under-served.
credits and disclaimer
Available
for further guidance:
The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook available
for purchase as a paperback & an ebook
This book, available for purchase, is for both organizations new to
virtual volunteering and organizations already involving online
volunteers who want to improve or expand their programs. If you are a
program that intends to oversee online volunteers involved in high
impact virtual volunteering roles, you should consider purchasing this
book. If you are going to manage other online volunteers, you should
consider purchasing this book. The last chapter of the book is
especially for online volunteers themselves.
This page which you are reading now is for people seeking ideas for a
project that will mobilize online volunteers in activities that lead to a
sustainable, lasting benefits to a community or cause, particularly for a
community or audience that is at-risk or under-served. It was created
especially for programs looking for ways to engage online volunteers in high-responsibility,
high-impact tasks focused on communities in the developing world,
because onsite volunteering abroad is not an option - which is the reality
in 2020, and probably 2021, because of Coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19), an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory
syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). These online volunteering ideas
absolutely can be adapted for remote volunteering within the same country
where the online volunteers live as well - "remote" could mean across town
rather than around the world.
Relief & Charity "vs." Development?
Assistance to people and communities can be put into two categories:
- relief/aid/comfort, such as giving food, providing emergency
shelter, providing emergency medical aid, putting on a show for sick
kids to cheer them up, making blankets for children in cancer wards,
collecting food for a food bank, etc.). This is also called charitable
giving.
- development, such as educating people about HIV/AIDS,
educating people about organic farming, providing preventative medical
care, creating more awareness about land use rights, educating people
about the importance of spaying and neutering pets, creating a community
garden that provides food, educates about food production and builds
community, etc.).
#1 usually doesn't change anything long-term, nor create a widespread or
sustainable change -- it helps just in an immediate moment. That is not a
bad approach; sometimes, that's exactly what's needed most in a moment,
such as in the case of immediately after a disaster.
#2 changes things long-term; it changes people's behavior or changes how
people think about something or helps people to not need emergency aid any
more or helps create a service or program that can be mobilized quickly to
help in emergency situations, as needed.
Some situations call for approach #1, and some call for approach #2.
Also, don't think that there are strict borders between these two kinds of
volunteering; if you volunteered to lead the creation of a program that
trains volunteers to help in disaster relief, you would be engaging in
BOTH kinds of volunteering. If you created a permanent food bank so people
could donate food and others in need could receive it, you would be
engaging in BOTH kinds of volunteering.
This web page is focused on the #2 kind of assistance, in
virtual volunteering contexts, but it's worth noting that development can
mean activities that create relief/aid/comfort on an ongoing
basis, not just at one feel-good event.
Characteristics of High-Impact Virtual Volunteering For a More Lasting
Benefit to a Community or Cause
Virtual
volunteering is a practice that has existed since at least the 1970s.
It is nearly as old as the Internet itself.
Many virtual volunteering activities and
roles are simple: they are based on short-term tasks and,
while they may require certain skills on the part of the volunteer, they
don't require much time on the part of a volunteer, they don't require
leadership skills on the part of the volunteer, and a volunteer can do the
activities with just a little interaction with a project manager or any
other volunteers. This kind of online volunteering includes things like an
online volunteer translating text from one language to another, or an
online volunteer developing a simple web site, or a volunteer designing a
new logo. Some of these activities are even micro tasks that take just a
few hours: tagging photos with keywords, writing a summary of a multi-page
document, transcribing a very short video, etc.
There's also one-day, or a
few-day, virtual volunteering projects for teams:
edit-a-thons, hackathons, web-site-fix-a-thons, transcribe-a-thons and
more.
By contrast to most virtual volunteering projects, including short-term
virtual volunteering projects for teams, the web page you are viewing now
is focused on high-impact virtual volunteering projects that:
- are highly collaborative (a volunteer could not do them mostly or
entirely on their own),
- take a substantial amount of hours and a commitment of several weeks
(IMO, at least 120 hours over at least six weeks),
- require a lot of planning and flexibility as projects evolve,
- require outstanding communications skills and leadership on the part
of the volunteer (and, often, other participants),
- will build the skills of those being assisted, in addition to those of
the volunteer.
None of these ideas on this page for high-impact virtual volunteering
are quick nor easy. But they aren't meant to be quick nor easy;
rather, they are meant to address substantial causes and issues. These
kinds of intensive virtual volunteering activities are already happening -
this is not a theoretical exercise. When possible, examples of these ideas
are linked in the list below.
The project ideas on this page are especially geared toward those who are
seeking ways to create or lead a
sustainable, lasting benefit to a community, to have a leadership role
as a volunteer. All of these projects require the project
leader, the lead volunteer, to involve members of the community to be
served, as volunteers and collaborators. Most would require
already-established, strong partnerships with other groups - schools,
school groups, civic associations, government programs, nonprofits,
clinics, etc. - because of the difficulty in working with people remotely
if you do not already have an established relationship with a
program they are a part of. This is in contrast to other
types of virtual volunteering where projects are already established,
others lead and you sign on to help.
Completing any of these high-impact virtual volunteering activities would
demonstrate the skills of the lead volunteer in problem-solving, research,
networking, persuasive speaking and consensus-building.
For a high-impact virtual volunteering activity, a lead volunteer, or a
group of core volunteers, would be in charge of:
- gathering data to show the project will address some kind of issue in
the target community.
- identifying all the tasks that need to be done to complete this
project, from beginning to end, and the tools and resources for that to
happen.
- recruiting other volunteers to help; this could be volunteers with
particular expertise, depending on the project.
- preparing and supporting the other online volunteers who will be
involved.
- preparing and supporting the staff at the partner organization who
will be involved in developing and delivering the activities and most of
this preparation and support may be done remotely.
- gathering data that shows the impact of such a project.
- preparing documentation that shows what this project is/was, why it
was launched and its impact.
- sharing information about the project on social media, via social
media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever), and blogging
about the project as it happens, to help educate your network about the
community or cause you are supporting.
The premise behind this guidance is that a lead volunteer will document
your activities so that they can be reviewed for many years to come, will
engage in activities to increase awareness about whatever cause you are
focusing on, that activities will help build the capacity of communities
being helped and you want to help to create greater impact for your
efforts beyond just your own individual activities.
There is just one catch: most of these projects couldn't be instituted by
a volunteer by themselves. High-impact projects like these require a
coordinating program that has a very strong, well-established relationship
with the target community or target program that the volunteer will serve.
That coordinating program recruits and vets the volunteers that want to
participate and, often, those volunteers are enrolled in some kind of
program with the coordinating program.
Activities Vital for Any Project Volunteers Undertake:
- Identify and employ methods to evaluate the impact of your project,
and have these identified BEFORE you begin. For instance, conduct
interviews with participants -- both those being served and volunteers
-- to understand how their attitudes evolve and their knowledge about a
particular issue is built as they participate in your project. Interview
them before AND after the project - otherwise, you won't be able to show
how their perceptions have changed! You could even ask participants to
take a survey before and after the project, by video conference, phone
or via text-based method, to see if you changed any minds or behaviors.
Present the results of these interviews in written form (for instance,
on your blog, or in a report you publish online) or through an edited
video that you share online.
- Think about ways to sustain the project after you have moved on. Will
the organizations and volunteers you involved in your project continue
the activities after you have finished your involvement? Will the
organizations and volunteers you involved in your project incorporate
any of the activities into their own activities or work? Will any videos
or reports or blogs you have produced stay available online for anyone
to read or watch and learn from for at least a year?
Volunteers in these kinds of high-impact assignments aren't just doing
tasks; roles and assignments should be, at least to a degree,
transformative experiences, learning experiences, for the volunteers. To
that end, a program may want to ask volunteers to do some of the following
activities, both to help volunteers do more than finish tasks and to
continuously improve the program for future volunteers:
- Write or record a testimonial about time as a volunteer in a
particular project, talking a bit about what the volunteer did, how they
prepared, what they wish they had known beforehand, what they learned,
how they have grown professionally or personally, what was
challenging, etc.
- Create a set of tips for future volunteers, including advice on
self-care, online resources that helped you as a volunteer, advice for
getting to know remote staff/clients, etc. That could be a simple tip
sheet, a series of blogs, or a dynamic wiki that is continually updated
by other volunteers.
- Research and curate free online and offline resources that were
helpful to those you worked with online and/or that might be helpful for
future volunteers in their work with these clients.
Note
If you use my advice to create a program or event, please contact
me after you have finished the event or program, or while it is
underway, and let me know how it turned out or how it is going, what
program you picked, the address of your blog or web site, etc.. This
will help me improve the information I provide others about high-impact
virtual volunteering.
Ideas for High-Impact Virtual Volunteering Projects
- If you are going to have a group of online volunteers support a
program or community that is remote to them, all working under the
auspices of one overall project or program, that initiative is going to
need an associated online space that allows volunteers to
collaborate, ask questions, share resources, document what they are
doing, etc. Setting up and managing such a platform is a virtual
volunteering role in and of itself. I recommend these free resources, groups.io
and/or Google Drive, although,
if you have the budget for Basecamp
or wiki platform everyone can edit, that would be even better.
- Survey participants in a project, that have been targeted by an
awareness campaign, that have been a part of a training, etc., or survey
people that will be targeted for a training, an awareness campaign, etc.
Sometimes, having a person who is gathering this information who is not
an onsite staff member of program that will conduct the campaign,
training or other campaign can get more honest answers from those being
questioned, because the survey taker is seen as neutral. The survey
could also be done as video interviews, to gather video testimonials
about why a program is needed.
- Create a mentoring and training experience for professionals or
volunteers, where people that work at an NGO, a government
program, community program, activist group, small business in an at-risk
area, etc., are matched for one-on-one online mentoring and training, or
group mentoring or training, with people who have the knowledge and
training those people desire most. For instance, matching LBGTQ
advocates in one country with successful, experienced advocates in
another, to talk about strategies for advocacy in a highly-religious
community. Or matching people working to address domestic violence with
those who are doing so successfully in other countries, to talk about
strategies in a highly-patriarchal community. Or matching a various
professionals with counterparts elsewhere, such as a communications
manager in Kabul working in a government-based water and sanitation
program with a professional that can help her by editing press releases,
donor reports, video scripts, making suggestions regarding social media,
training regarding social media, making suggestions about international
reporters to contact to pitch stories, etc. (FYI, this is something I do
myself - I've been doing it for years with a colleague I knew when I
worked in Afghanistan).
- VSO, as of May 2020 is recruiting Remote
Volunteer Education Advisors / E-Volunteers to work with its
Education Programme Team "to provide quality technical support to
VSO field staff members and volunteers and foster knowledge sharing,
teacher training, reflection and learning to improve the quality of
our inclusive education programme."
- BPeace, a
nonprofit in the USA, recruits USA-based online volunteers with
extensive business experience ("Skillanthropists") to mentor
entrepreneurs in El Salvador and Guatemala, and they have previous
experience doing such programs in Rwanda and Afghanistan.
- Jobberman
is based in Nigeria and is the largest recruitment platform in
sub-Saharan Africa. Jobberman connects job seekers to new work. But
it has found that many job seekers lack the skills, specifically
soft skills, to succeed in the workplace. In an attempt to improve
job seekers’ employability and ensure young people are better
prepared for the workplace, the platform created Youth
Engagement and Learning arm. The platform launched a
free, six-week virtual soft skills training program for 18-35 year
olds. Jobberman’s youth engagement team, supported by a team
of 20 volunteers, delivers the training via Zoom in keeping with
COVID-19 social distancing rules. The volunteers and facilitators
continue to engage the participants on various Telegram channels,
outside the Zoom class. Each Telegram group is hosted by members of
Jobberman’s Youth engagement team who answer trainees’ questions and
test the participants’ knowledge through mini exercises.
- In partnership with the Worldwide Veterinary Service, BEVA
Trust is looking for veterinarians willing to deliver online
teaching sessions, as online volunteers, between 17th and 28th
August 2020. As part of the WVS Academy, sessions (1-2 hours) will
be delivered between noon and 3pm and uploaded onto a learning
platform for Ethiopian Vets to access. The general theme is
“Ambulatory practice” and the aim is to provide vets with the basic
skill/knowledge needed in the field. Volunteers need to have
experience of lecturing and be comfortable delivering the material
via an online platform (such as Zoom). This opportunity may suit
those who already have presentations prepared. The programme topics
include; Clinical exam, Dermatology, Cardiovascular, Field
procedures, Orthopaedics, Reproductive and Gastro-Intestinal.
- The University of Manchester has an initiative, Team
Rwanda, that sends student volunteers to Rwanda for four weeks
each summer to volunteer alongside Rwandan students from the
University of Rwanda like storytelling through media, data gathering
and business development. During the global pandemic, with the
onsite experience suspended, student volunteers will undertake
remote volunteering with Azizi Life. Volunteers will work either
individually or in small teams on the following projects: dusiness
development - supporting the urgent task of finding new markets and
increasing online sales in the US and the UK Social media - creating
vibrant promotional content and planning and implementing campaigns;
PR - Writing blogs and putting together packs for various media;
Community impact reporting - pulling together data into engaging
reports for use with donors and prospective retailers; and
Fundraising - planning and delivering fundraising campaigns.
- In 2008, I was an mentor for new women bloggers in Kenya,
organized by two local NGOs, Fahamu and the Women's Technology
Empowerment Centre (W.TEC), to help the women learn to use blogs as
a method of democratic expression and empowerment. 2008. That same
year, I was also an online mentor for the inaugural Blogs for
African Women (BAWo) Mentoring Project, focused on women living in
Nigeria, with similar goals. An existing program you could look at
for ideas is World
Pulse.
- Purdue
Farmer-to-Farmer Program Goes Virtual. In 2020, Purdue
University began switching to a virtual volunteering model for its
USAID Farmer-to-Farmer agriculture program supporting Trinidad and
Tobago. Purdue's F2F provides technical assistance from U.S.
volunteers to farmers, farm groups, agribusinesses, and other
agriculture sector institutions in developing and transitional
countries. Purdue says the virtual assignments will provide both
real-time and pre-recorded trainings. The assignments will have a
deliverable-based program with a longer timeline. The first virtual
volunteering assignment will provide the Network of Rural Women
Producers Trinidad and Tobago with training in online event hosting
and social media marketing, helping women learn how to set up a
virtual market and launch their first virtual event. The second
virtual volunteering assignment will assist the agricultural arm of
the Unemployment Relief Programme in Tobago, with an online
volunteer providing assistance so members of the agricultural arm of
URP-Tobago will be able to set up their own nursery and manage it
effectively to produce healthy young plants.
- Create an online mentoring program for a group of teen girls,
teen boys, college students, etc., focused on adult volunteers
helping the students with with resume development, interview skills,
public speaking, how local volunteering can improve their networking and
skills, etc. An example of this is Infinite
Family, an online mentoring program matching adults and families
in the USA with at-risk, impoverished children in South Africa. You
could spend several weeks developing this project and training the
mentors and other participants (and helping your local partner
organization do so), and then launch the program (I recommend the actual
mentoring happen at least over a three month period, but no more than a
year). Here is a list of
online mentoring programs. Note: StreetWise
provides young adults and skilled immigrants who are unemployed or
working in low-wage, low-growth jobs with critical mentorship to unlock
careers traditionally unavailable to them. StreetWise has shifted its
in-person mentorship approach to a series of virtual programs that
engages volunteers and clients in one-on-one employment support and
emergency needs; virtual mock interviews; and a 13-week remote workforce
mentoring program. How
a face-to-face mentoring program, StreetWise Partners in New York
City, is transitioning to virtual volunteering during the Covid-19
pandemic is a case study by Gallup, one of the program's funders,
about this transition during COVID-19, from March 2020.
In the May 2020 newsletter of the Big
Brothers Big Sisters of San Luis Obispo County, California sent
out their May 2020 newsletter and someone passed it on to me. They
spotlight the first meetings of a new Big Brother (a volunteer mentor)
and his Little Brother (his protogé), and a new Big Sister with her
little sister - online, because face-to-face meetings can not happen at
this time. They are interesting examples of what online mentoring of
teens and older kids can look like.
Little Brother Simon and Big Brother Frank were matched because they
both share an interest for fishing and outdoor activities and like to
have fun. Though their match introduction meeting was virtual, the two
clicked right away and started talking about their interest in sports
and fishing. During their first online outing, they gave each other a
house tour. For their next outing, they introduced their dogs to each
other over video call.
Since they are still sheltering in place, they can't go fishing yet
but Frank will show Simon his fishing rods next time and they will
talk about what bait to use when they are able to go on their first
"in-person" outing.
Little Sister Angela and Big Sister Tisha gave each other a virtual
tour of their house on their first outing. Then they painted flowers
for a Mother's Day card and LS Angela taught BS Tisha how to say
"goodbye Little Sister" in Spanish.
They are excited to get together on their next virtual outing to make
beaded bracelets. BS Tisha has already sent the material to her Little
so they can work together. They share a passion for being creative and
can't wait until they are able to go out and go new places together.
- Help to support the development of a locally-based outreach
project regarding a public health initiative. An example of this
is, back in the 1990s, with the Media
and Youth Development Project, Tanzania, where a group of online
volunteers provided an NGO in Tanzania with research and outreach
material-development about HIV/AIDS, prevention and care. The volunteers
also advised the NGO on how to conduct youth seminars and debates. Even
more online volunteers helped the NGO complete and edit booklets the NGO
would later distribute in its local community in Tanzania.
- Help a local initiative create short radio dramas or radio PSAs
about a public health issue: hand washing, safer sex, domestic
violence, maternal health, COVID-19 prevention, treatment of people with
disabilities, alcoholism, lead poisoning, etc. Or something with regard
to some aspect to agriculture, respecting immigrants, conservation,
inter-cultural understanding, etc. You could help local people design
the project and tasks, write scripts, test messages, design an outreach
campaign, etc, recruit other online volunteers to support you
(particularly if they have expertise you might lack), and offer
suggestions on how to work with local media and local elected officials
to support the campaign. The volunteers that participate in this should
also compile a list of programs that can serve as models, such as Farm
Radio International and
- Help a local initiative create social media messages that
target different groups regarding a public health issue, and a plan for
regularly sharing those messages. Or to translate messages into local
languages. For instance, messages about COVID-19 prevention that target
older adults who are particularly vulnerable to the disease may be very
different than those targeting teens and 20 somethings, who are at
greatest risk of spreading the disease. You could help local people
design the project and tasks, approach local NGOs and local officials
about sharing the messages, recruit other online volunteers to support
you (particularly if they have expertise you might lack), etc. You could
also help the group devise a way to evaluate the social media campaigns.
Example: In March 2020, a report said that that 50%
of what Ghanaians know about the coronavirus is misinformation.
Amid the COVID-19 outbreak and the proliferation of misinformation, a
network of online volunteers emerged in Ghana to translate health
messages into local languages so residents can access accurate
information. Elisabeth Efua lead efforts, collaborating with
Farmerline, a company based in Ghana that uses technology to support
farmers and was also looking to translate health messages. Elisabeth, an
artist and performer, used information from the World Health
Organization (WHO) to write scripts about hand washing, COVID-19
symptoms, and common terms associated with the virus such as social
distancing and flattening the curve. She put out a call on social media
and dozens of people responded, wanting to help translate. Within 48
hours, she’d received translations in 15 languages including Twi, Ga,
Ewe, and Hausa. The health messages are recorded as voice notes on
WhatsApp, which volunteers have been disseminating and asking recipients
to forward to others who speak the language, akin to chain mail.
- Help staff at an NGO create a comic book that educates about a
specific aspect of public health, about a human rights issue, about
voting rights, about online literacy/misinformation, about people with
disabilities, etc. For instance, Girl Scout Gold Award recipient Julie
Averbach of New Jersey, USA wrote, edited, and published Adventures
From My World (AFMW), a comic book to support siblings of
individuals with special needs. More than 8,000 copies are currently
being distributed through hospitals, community support organizations,
sibling support groups, schools, and psychology practices in 18 states
as well as in Canada, Brazil, England, and Australia. What would the
Kenyan version of such an effort be? What would an effort in India look
like?
- Create an interactive online workshop for teachers, students and/or
parents about online safety, and/or about media literacy/misinformation.
It would focus on how to avoid scams, how to protect personal
information, how to use WhatsApp responsibility, how to avoid
misinformation, etc. The goal could be not only to educate attendees but
also to educate teachers and teens on how to deliver their own workshops
to peers/other students.
- Create a series of online workshops and/or video tutorials
regarding specific physiotherapy techniques, or specific speech or
hearing therapy techniques, or any medical therapy / technique
where one person physically interacts with another, with an online space
or web site of curated, vetted resources that therapists can rely on in
the future when they need reliable information, get questions answered,
continue their professional development, etc. You could also have live
workshops where participants watch the person engaged in techniques and
can ask questions as they watch. A search of this on Duck Duck Go or
Google shows a variety of online classes:
online training in physiotherapy
- Organize a program where online volunteers provide one-on-one online
digital literacy training for people remote to them. You could use Learn
My Way - Resources that teach the very basics of digital
literacy. Produced by a nonprofit organizations based in the
United Kingdom, these free online courses teach the very basics of
digital literacy:
- The
basics of using a device: using a keyboard, a mouse, a touchscreen
- The
basics of using online tools: online forms, email, search engines
- The
basics of using office programs: creating documents, spreadsheets,
slide shows/presentations / stacks
- Safety
and security - keeping your device safe, being safe online, keeping
personal data safe, Video calling
- Video
calling
- Online
shopping
- Socializing
online
- Using
Facebook
- Using
a digital camera
- Watching
and listening online
- Help local teens and other young people learn to mentor older
people in their community regarding (1) the dangers of online
misinformation and how to recognize it. (2) How to recognize and not
fall for online scams. (3) Apps on their phone that can help them
regarding their health, regarding their work (checking market prices in
large cities for something they grow), etc.
- Organize a week-long online discussion on women's access to
tech, issues women face online, issues faced by teens in a particular
country (pressures regarding sex, pressures regarding drug and alcohol
use, etc.) - really, any subject that would be of value to local people.
An example: back in August 2003, the nonprofit TechSoup
hosted an online discussion on its community forum about the issues
faced by women online and accessing community Internet centers -
Internet cafés. It was hosted by myself and a Latifat Kadir of Lagos,
Nigeria, a graduate of the University of Lagos, Nigeria and The Nigerian
Law School and online volunteer with the United
Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS). The discussion is
no longer available online but, in summary: (1) many men in the
discussion expressed doubt at the idea that women face any challenges in
accessing public Internet spaces, while women talked about the
harassment they had faced, lack of help from staff, etc. (2) from that
conversation came this online resource, Women's
Access to Public Internet Centers in Transitional and Developing
Countries.
- Help the program you are supporting that is remote from you to create
a video or series of videos, or podcast or series of podcasts, or
photo gallery that illustrates the cause they are trying to
address and what they are doing to address that cause. You will need to:
- Find out what kind of smartphones and laptops the local, remote
program or community members have and if those devices have webcams
or quality microphones.
- Find volunteers to coach them both on how to create the videos or
audios with clear audio and how to upload it, or how to record them
in an interview scenario, or how to take and crop photos, etc.
- Find an online space for these materials to be uploaded or kept.
- Mobilize volunteers to edit the videos or audios, transcribe the
videos or audios, etc.
Also create a plan for sharing and promoting the video or podcasts, both
via social media and specifically to elected officials, how to respond
to elected officials that make an inquiry about the presentations, etc.
You can share videos on YouTube and/or share photos on Flickr
or a web site you create for this gallery. Also review with participants
how to get permission from people they take photos of, how to label
photos properly online, how to make participants comfortable, etc.
Students could look at each other's photos or videos and talk about what
they like of each other's work. You could have a virtual photography or
video opening, inviting the press, family members of participants, and
city officials to look and comment on the work.
- Help a local program design and undertake activities to improve
safety for pedestrians and bicyclists: (1) develop a safer streets
campaign, creating more awareness among car drivers and other motorized
vehicles to be more aware and respectful of pedestrians and bicyclists.
(2) Mentor participants in how to approach local officials about better
law enforcement to protect pedestrians and bicyclists. (3) Mentor local
participants in working with other NGOs, civic groups, religious groups,
etc. (4) Mentor participants in creating their own community bike and
ped safety committee, and bring them together in a conversation with
such a group in Ireland in a similar-sized town.
- Lead live online classes/workshops via online video conferencing
for elderly people or people with intellectual disabilities who need
to be isolated because of COVID-19. In May 2020, for instance, Independent
Living Movement Ireland was looking for online volunteers to lead
sessions with residents in various living facilities, such as meditation
and mindfulness practice, nutrition / healthy eating advice, healthy
eating/cooking session, creating art, storytelling, tai chi, even how to
do a comedy routine.
- Create a web accessibility
fix-a-thon for an NGO, where a group of volunteers work
together to make an NGO's current web site more content-rich, more
up-to-date and more accessible for people with disabilities: for people
using screen readers (people who are blind and have a tool that reads a
web site's content to them), people who have low vision and use a tool
that makes a web page bigger on their device, people who have mobility
issues and don't use a mouse, someone with hearing impairments, etc. As
a result, these web sites become more accessible for EVERYONE. Your goal
is not only to design or re-design a web site that is more content rich
and more welcoming for people with disabilities, you should also work to
increase awareness about the importance of digital inclusion to
employees and volunteers at the NGO.
- Create an
edit-a-thon, where you get a group of people to edit Wikipedia
to help improve particular content with regard to a particular subject.
For instance, look at how the region or culture of the remote community
you are supporting is represented on Wikipedia. Is there information
lacking? For instance, for the Wikipedia
entry for my home town back in Kentucky, the history starts in the
18th century - yet, there were settlements here, of American
Indians/Native Americans, prior to that. It's also lacking information
about civil rights-related events in the city, which were substantial. A
lead volunteer could recruit other online volunteers and train those
volunteers on how to add, improve or expand Wikipedia pages regarding a
particular region, culture or history. You could also do edit-a-thons
that improve or add entries regarding important women in a particular
city, region, profession, culture, etc. (Wikipedia is severely-lacking
in profiles of women).
- Identify a need that could be addressed with a mobile phone app,
and design a project to design or use that app. Could an NGO addressing
domestic violence use WhatsApp in someway to support women experiencing
domestic violence? Could a custom app help women avoid or report street
harassment? How could a combination of apps readily available on most
smart phones be used to work with public health field workers (calendar
reminders, WhastApp groups, GoogleDrive, a GPS app)? Some places to see
examples of these kinds of projects are the TechSoup
Tech4Impact community and www.mediamattersforwomen.org
- Help a community with low-tech ways to reach women and girls
at risk of violence, who are in isolation at home because of COVID-19
fears. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) controls in many countries have
lead to the suspension of gender-based violence (GBV) services. Some
services are now phone-based, but this is not a solution that works for
all. This
short discussion note from UNICEF for GBV specialists explores
low-tech ways to reach women and girls at risk of violence.
- Create a series of online training for staff at a local NGO on
public relations, grant writing, social media use, etc., featuring
different experts volunteering their time to lead short webinars.
- Help an NGO better support its local volunteers and better recruit new
ones: help make sure the
web site is as robust as it should be, create an online
application form that works on a mobile phone (or recruit someone to
help you do this), help them identify tasks for volunteers, help them
know how to screen volunteers,
help them develop a
fast on-boarding process, help them consider all of the safety
measures they need to have to protect children, women, volunteers
themselves, the NGO's assets, etc.
- Help a local community create a volunteer ambassador program
related to domestic animal care that helps people understand the
importance of having dogs and cats spayed or neutered, encourages
responsible pet care, etc. This could include presentations,
demonstrations, videos, etc. Could this lead to the creation of a local
animal welfare NGO that could partner with local school clubs, local
civic groups, communities of faith and ethical societies, senior centers
and others in your target community?
- Interview local nonprofit organizations to find information to create
a web site that lists at least 25 community service ideas for youth
under 16 in the specific city/county/region, allows youth to blog
about their experience as volunteers, etc. Do interviews with young
people to talk about why and how they would like to volunteer, what
challenges they face in trying to volunteer, etc., and post the results
of your interviews on this web site.
- Help local teens and other young people coordinate a series of community
movement classes, emphasizing social distancing. Train them on
how to identify the best places for such classes, what types of movement
is appropriate, cultural considerations (not having women in front of
men, for instance - would this be a concern?), how to promote the
activity, how to get permission for such, etc. Have the local leaders
take videos of these classes and of interviews with seniors/elders about
their experience in these classes and create a video you share online
that shows what the impact is of having such classes for participants
and the volunteers helping them.
- Help local people start a bat education program for area youth
clubs, schools, the community at large, etc. Help them learn the
importance of bats to all ecosystems and dispel myths regarding bats and
COVID-19.
- Explore challenges to people, particularly women, in using mass /
public transit and/or bicycles for transportation in your
community, and explore ways to address one or more of those challenges.
- Help teens to advocate locally, to local media and local officials,
about something that is important to them. That could be anything from
concern about the quality and availability of public education to the
treatment of girls to why a skate park or BMX track/park
or climbing wall center would contribute to the community. NOTE:
DofE
participants won an award in 2011 for their skate park film.
- Help a local initiative develop a business plan to launch a business
or nonprofit that will recycle, resell and properly dispose of
electronic waste in community. You would need to identify
potential partner organizations who might volunteer their expertise and
resources (and support those who will reach out to them as potential
partners), knowledgeable people willing to donate their service as tech
volunteers, and volunteers willing to help with non-technology issues.
- Cuso
International’s e-volunteering program connects volunteers to
CUSO's international partners remotely. Volunteers engage in activities
related to Business Development (project management, accounting,
business planning and market research), Communications, Design,
Education (curriculum and instructional design, e-learning, webinars,
language training) and IT Support (website design, publishing support,
mobile app development, data analysis).
- Support a local community creating a music, theater or other arts
festival, or support the production of a series of podcasts or
audio files devoted to a particular community or type of music.
- In
1997, a core group of members of an email-based online community
called Postcard2 (also known as P2), who were devotees of a
particular kind of music, worked together as volunteers and created
what has become an
annual music festival in St. Louis, Missouri called Twangfest.
The majority of organizing for the first festivals in the late 1990s
were done entirely online by these volunteers all over the
USA: marketing/branding, band negotiations, negotiating with a local
ISP to live cast the event, contacting potential donors and
sponsors, setting up ticket sales, etc. 2019 was the 23rd year of
the festival, which is now run by a nonprofit formed by the core
group of volunteers and still managed by volunteers, both onsite and
online (the 2020 festival was canceled because of COVID-19). Here's
a profile: Twang in Cyberspace:
How one music-related online community blurs the line between
"real" and "virtual".
- In
association with the 2001 International
Year of Volunteers, the UN Volunteers Program solicited
original songs from volunteers anywhere in the world that celebrated
volunteerism in some way. The result was a CD of songs that were
also offered online by UNV (this
archived site shows what this looked like). The songs were
available online for several years (the author of the web page you
are reading now has an archive of these offline, FYI).
- Create a project that will mobilize many online volunteers to
support a project. This is a list of virtual
volunteering where projects are already established, that others
lead and you sign on to help. You could model your own program
after any of these. For even more ideas, type the URL into the
Wayback Machine and see older versions of this page, which list
programs that are now defunct.
- Create an in-depth virtual volunteering for teens program at a public
library. Because of COVID-19, the public library in Piscataway, New
Jersey, converted its entire teen volunteering program online. It's a
great model for other libraries looking to do something similar: Due
to the ongoing pandemic, all of our volunteer opportunities for teens
have gone virtual. Join us on Facebook Live to learn about the
exciting virtual volunteer opportunities available this summer. Learn
new skills, earn community service hours, and make a positive
difference in your community. Register for and participate in virtual
volunteer projects from the comfort of your own home!... Volunteer
opportunities are divided into two categories: opportunities that
require working with library patrons/peers and opportunities that are
completed individually. Opportunities: Book
Club Leader, Reading
Buddies, Talk
It Out, Tech
Support, Teen
Advisory Board, Virtual
Program Assistant, Book
& Movie Reviews, Skills
Tutorial. To log completed volunteer hours, teens use the Teen
Volunteer Hour Log form. Some opportunities require that a
volunteer have a library card. Some require volunteers attend training
sessions. Some require a basic understanding of Zoom, Hoopla Digital or
Google Meet, or a strong willingness to learn. Just one requires the
volunteer already have an understanding of the library's electronic
resources (eLibraryNJ, hoopla digital, RB Digital, etc.). More
information about these opportunities and how to sign up.
Don't be limited by any of these lists! You can apply any of the
aforementioned ideas or methods to initiatives focused on:
- Suicide prevention
- Addressing mental health challenges / depression
- Disaster preparation
- Child marriage
- Drunk or impaired driving
- Addiction
- Local history (the history of a particular community, region, culture)
- The challenges faced by immigrants, refugees or ethnic minorities in a
particular region
- The lives of people with disabilities, the challenges they face, the
talents they offer
- The lives of caregivers, the challenges they face, the support they
need
- Inclusion in schools or the workplace
- Plastic waste and recycling
- Women's self defense
- Voter registration/ voting
- Participating in government
- Anti-bullying / anti-harassment
- Gay rights, Trans rights,
- Literacy
- Inter-religious understanding
- Hospitality management (restaurant management, youth hostel
management, campsite creation) in an economically-challenged community
- Countering misinformation
Here's how a returned Peace Corps member in the USA wrote to me on Reddit
about her continued support for the community in another country where she
was placed previously:
I miss my country & community more than anything so staying
involved has been great for my personal mental health and for the people
I left behind. I do a few things for my communities: I first joined the
Friends of [Host Country] non-profit group (a lot of PC countries have
this sort of group that supports other projects on the ground) in an
administrative capacity. We have specific COVID task force so we're
trying to do what we can during the crisis. My last school is continuing
distance learning so I helped my co-teacher develop phonics/literacy
lessons that could be completed at home. It's tricky to teach sounds and
letter combinations without a classroom but we worked together to make
it work! I also work with one local staff member a few times a week on
building his literacy skills: we whatsapp video call and go through
phonics lessons (using more or less the same program I was teaching
with). It's one of our favorite parts of the week! I stayed connected
with an NGO from one of my sites and I'm trying to get them involved
with a TCP
Global microloan program for them to be able to support a lot of
members of the community during this crisis. The program strongly
suggests a PCV mentor so I'm likely going to remain a big part of that
program from afar! Basically, any opportunity that has risen to continue
supporting my host country is something I jump onto.
There will never be a comprehensive list of high-impact virtual
volunteering - it's impossible to compile everything that is already
happening, let alone possibilities for new activities. This page isn't
meant to be a comprehensive list, but I would welcome submissions from
anyone who has undertaken such a project remotely.
You can see even more ideas and examples of the aforementioned ideas on
my list of online volunteering I have
done myself.
But what about online volunteers doing fundraising for an NGO,
especially one in a developing country? That's fine... but it's often the
only thing NGOs want from remote volunteers, and it's not at all what MOST
online volunteers want to do, especially if they don't already have a
strong relationship with the local NGO. My advice: do not recruit online
volunteers to lead a fundraising campaign for your NGO unless (1) you
recruit only from among those volunteers with whom you already have a
relationship with, in the sense that they have volunteered in other ways
with you, online or onsite, and they have worked with you for at least
MANY weeks or a few months (2) you are ready to thank each and every
individual donor YOURSELF, with a personal email message, and ready to
provide an update at least one month after the campaign ends to all donors
on how the money has been used. Here is a resource on fundraising
for small NGOs in the developing world and another on crowdfunding.
My final thoughts on high-impact virtual volunteering: the key to
your success is excellent project planning and strong, trusting local
ties with the target community.
Also see these books:
Exploring
Leadership: For College Students Who Want to Make a Difference
The
Most Good You Can Do
Doing
Good Better: How Effective Altruism
Also see these resources
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