A free resource for nonprofit organizations, NGOs, civil society organizations,
charities, schools, public sector agencies & other mission-based agencies
by Jayne Cravens
via coyotecommunications.com & coyoteboard.com (same web site)

Creating One-Time, Short-Term Group Volunteering Activities

Including Virtual Volunteering Ideas

(Note: this page is for nonprofits and programs looking to involve volunteers in groups in one-time two-hour, half-day or full-day activities. If you represent a group that is looking for group volunteering activities, see this resource, Finding Community Service and Volunteering for Groups)

Welcome to one of the most popular pages on my web site!

Many people want to volunteer as a team or group, from five people to 500 - even more. They may be employees from a particular company, members of a club or association, a group of friends who would like to spend time together at a volunteer activity, or people that don't know each other but would like to meet others through volunteering. They may be adults, teens, or pre-teens. A group may also be a family. They may be from a community of faith (church, mosque, temple). They want their group volunteering activity to take from two to seven hours. They want to be all together as much as possible, to socialize throughout the experience - they don't want to be isolated from each other individually (though they are usually willing to be broken up into smaller groups). And they usually don't want to have any obligation beyond that one-time volunteering experience; they want the experience to feel like they show up, they volunteer, they have fun, they make a difference, and then they leave and never have to help again (though they often welcome invitations for further involvement, as individuals).

However, the reality is that, for most nonprofits and community programs, group volunteers aren't worth the trouble to involve. Most organizations don't have volunteering tasks laying around that could be done by a large group of untrained, one-time volunteers - or even an untrained individual volunteer. Even at Habitat for Humanity, it takes a tremendous amount of resources, time and coordination to create the one-day, one-time group volunteering experiences they are best known for - and often, more experienced volunteers with real carpentry skills have to come in and redo what the volunteers have done.

It's most efficient, economical and beneficial for most programs to involve adult volunteers longer than just a day or two; they prefer volunteers who have at least some skills and can successfully complete a project, from start to finish, with minimum supervision or volunteers willing to provide time and expertise over weeks, even months, not just a few hours.

In short, most organizations simply do not have the money, staff, time and other resources to create two-hour, half-day or one-day, one-time group volunteering activities, especially for teens and children.

That said, group volunteering can be worthwhile for an organization or program. The key benefits of volunteering for a hosting organization or program is that involving a group volunteers can be used to quickly build awareness or interest about whatever cause the organization or program is trying to promote. That new interest or awareness can be used to encourage people to volunteer again, in a longer-term, more meaningful way as individual volunteers, or to encourage people to donate financially. When involving groups of volunteers, a hosting organization should always be looking at how to entice group members to further support the organization.

The first step in thinking about creating group volunteering activities is for your organization or program to think carefully about what is in it for you, the organization or program. What benefit are you looking for?:

measurable results regarding participant or community awareness of a particular issue, program or your organization
candidates for longer-term volunteering in more substantive activities regarding service delivery
cultivation of donors
activities that fulfill your organization's mission (the group volunteering experience results in activities that reach part of your organization's mission - for instance, if your program has a specific mission to bring people from starkly different backgrounds together, you can use group volunteering to do this)
press coverage that could lead to more longer-term volunteers, more donations, more awareness of the organization's work, etc.

Indeed, you might be one of those unique organizations that really does have a huge task that would best be done by a large group of volunteers who participate only for a couple of hours, for half-a-day or a full day, like an organization that is focused just on cleaning up trash in public spaces -- in which case you have no need to brainstorm, create or reserve tasks specifically for such group volunteers as this page advises. Even if that's the case for your organization, you should still consider how the short-term group volunteering will also provide those other aforementioned benefits.

Onsite Two-Hour, Half-Day or Full-Day Group Volunteering Activities for Any Skill Level

Let's start with volunteering by adults over 18 - the easiest kind of group volunteering to create. These activities can include:

staffing an event or performance: decorating, setting up, checking tickets, ushering, and cleaning up
staffing a walk-a-thon, dance-a-thon, triathlon, etc.: setting up, handing out participant materials, ushering participants to where they should be, bringing problems during the event to the appropriate person's attention, and cleaning up
setting up a facility for a meal, serving that meal, and cleaning up after
putting together information packets or mailings
taking digital photos and videos with their own devices of a public event, then uploading these digital images and videos to a central spot where someone will go through them and create a program video, or a series of videos, use the materials for marketing, etc.
simple landscaping/yard work and gardening (pulling weeds, digging, raking, spreading mulch, hoeing, planting, transporting yard waste into compost piles, stirring compost piles, putting together boards for raised beds, cutting grass, simple pruning, etc.)
gleaning a field
painting items (furniture, rocks, old dishes) or several walls
putting together gift baskets, gift bags, gift boxes, etc.
sorting a vast amount of information or items (boxes of photos or boxes of clothes that take up an entire room)
distributing a vast amount of information or items to hundreds of people (shoes, clothes, gift baskets, information folders, etc.)
picking up and sorting items from a food, clothing or book drive
cleaning an entire facility
cleaning a beach, a field, or a river bank
any activity that can be done by simple, repetitive action, like cutting fabric or paper from a form, putting stickers on something, gluing different pieces together or coloring paper, such as making greeting cards for a particular group (children in a hospital's pediatric unit during the holidays, soldiers, patients at a VA hospital, etc.)

All of these activities take many hours by the volunteer hosting organization to prepare the site or experience for the group of volunteers to show up, engage in the activity, and leave after two-to-seven hours - and to leave the site or the work done in such a way that the organization or program isn't left with even more work for staff.

In addition, note that there are restrictions on volunteers and paid staff handling or serving food or alcohol, on volunteers handling equipment by union musicians, etc.; if you are thinking of volunteers engaging in these activities, you must first check with your legal council or nonprofit support center for details on these restrictions. Failure to do so could result in lawsuits, fines, or worse.

As well, note that there are restrictions on volunteers interacting with children, unsupervised, there are ethics around taking photos of children, and that you need to be aware of volunteer access to confidential information of participants, clients, etc. You may also need to purchase extra insurance to involve these one-time group volunteers.

And, finally, most of these activities require the organization provide all materials needed to undertake the activity.

In communicating with these groups, you must make sure that each volunteer understands:

what they may, and may not do as a volunteer (be clear about prohibited activities)
if they can bring friends along
if they can bring children under 18 along
what will and won't be provided in terms of equipment, food, refreshments, and bathrooms
why they will be engaging in this activity, what the results of their work will be, why it matters to your organization, your program, your clients, the community, etc.
any minimal or maximum time commitment requirements
any other relevant policies and procedures

Group Activities for Particularly-Skilled Volunteers (Onsite or Online)

It's possible to create short-term activities that can be done onsite or online for volunteers that all have a particular skill and that skills is needed for the volunteering activity. For instance, CreateAthons are 24-hour volunteering marathons held by local marketing, advertising and public relations groups with the purpose of providing pro bono marketing services for local nonprofits. They are similar to hackathons, which bring together volunteers with particular IT skills to build web pages, mobile apps or other tech tools in a short period, or edit-a-thons, where volunteers with a particular area of expertise edit Wikipedia regarding a particular issue or subject area. You could bring in a group of people from the marketing and sales department of a corporation and have them brainstorm social media messaging for a new program you are launching, or to brainstorm slogans.

Common Impact, a nonprofit that promotes corporate/nonprofit partnerships around employee volunteering, describes two options for online, pro bono consulting this way:

A “day” of virtual flash consulting in which teams of employees consult and create deliverables to address a specific, scoped nonprofit challenge. A single team or multiple teams can participate once in a classic event style format or over a defined period of time spanning one week to one month.

Teams of 5-8 skilled volunteers progress on a critical capacity building challenge with a nonprofit across a 6-week to 6-month time frame.

For both of these types of pro bono consulting, a nonprofit is expected to come up with a meaningful project for the volunteers to work on - and this can be very difficult for nonprofits. The place to start thinking about projects is not corporations asking, "What could we do at your program in just an hour, with all of us working remotely/with a team working over several weeks?" Instead, nonprofits - clients - should take the lead: the place to start generating project ideas is for the nonprofit or individual program staff (marketing director, client services manager, training academy director, database manager, facilities manager, box office manager, etc.) to EACH ask themselves a series of questions, and the questions and answers should be shared with the organizers of the employee volunteer team (and maybe the whole team):

What are the most critical issues I'm facing in meeting the requirements of my role? Let the corporation that wants to partner with you review your answers and make suggestions on ways a team could contribute in some way.
What are the most critical issues this organization is facing in delivering the service we're supposed to for clients? What obstacles do we face, big and small, in delivering this service? Again, let the corporation that wants to partner with you review your answers and decide if they might be able to contribute.
If money were no object, what kind of consultant would I hire to help me in my work and what would they do? Share this with the corporation that wants to partner with you and make suggestions on ways a team could contribute in some way.

For examples of one-day group volunteering activities for particularly-skilled volunteers, including web fix-a-thons (to, in one day, to make a web site more accessible), Wikipedia edit-a-thons, PDF transcribe-a-thon or scanned-documment transcribe-a-thon, web site fix-a-thons to make a web site more accessible for people with disabilities, picture tagging marathons, etc., see these ideas for One(-ish) Day "Tech" Activities for Volunteers and these ideas for Short-term Assignments for Tech Volunteers.

There's also this list of high-impact virtual volunteering projects, which would take several weeks or even months to undertake (not just a few hours or a few days). This includes online mentoring and some of the ideas require very specifically-skilled online volunteers.

You could recruit volunteers with specific carpentry skills for a restoration project, a fence-building project (for a wildlife refuge, for instance), or other project where people need to already know how to use specific tools and already know how to be safe around things like hammers, nails, saws, etc.

Teen and Children Volunteers in Groups

Some group volunteering activities could be done by youth as young as 13, but most organizations and programs prohibit such participation because of safety and liability; their insurance may not cover the involvement of youth under 18, and they may not be able to provide the necessary supervision to ensure the safety of the youth. If you want to involve youth under 18, you have to find out what city, state and federal laws are applicable.

But what about group volunteering activities for children under 13? That gets even trickier, because children under 13 aren't capable of doing the same things teens and adults are capable of. You first need to check into insurance, state and federal laws regarding youth participation, and your own safety procedures. For volunteers under the age of 18, you will probably have to ensure at least a 1:5 adult to youth volunteer ratio. Once you have navigated that legal and procedural minefield, you have to think about what children can do as volunteers, in a group, at your organization. For instance, it's doubtful children could engage in simple landscaping work, but they might be able to do some simple gardening tasks, with a LOT o adult supervision. They are certainly capable of putting together gift baskets or gift bags. They can even glean a field (as a group of Brownies and Junior Girl Scouts did in Oregon in 2010 for their local food bank, resulting in their receiving a governor's volunteering award).

Photos

Have all participants sign a waiver regarding use of their photos. You will want to take plenty, and encourage participants to share the photos they take with you as well after the event. Use these photos on your web site, your Flickr account, etc. You need to talk to volunteers about appropriateness and ethics of taking photos of anyone under 18 - even if taking photos aren't a part of the group volunteering activities, we live in the age of social media, and people like taking out their phone and sharing things on social media.

Capture Information

You should capture key information of all adult volunteers (and youth volunteers, as appropriate) - full names, phone numbers, email addresses - for further contact. After the event, contact these volunteers about signing up for your email newsletter, friending or liking you on Facebook, sharing photos they may have taken, pointing them to the photos your organization's staff took during the event or viewing your other available volunteering activities. Also thank them and let them know what difference their volunteering made.

Time and Financial Costs and Budgeting

You need to document exactly what the day or event is going to look like from both the supervising staff members' perspective and from the group volunteers perspective. What time does staff need to be there to supervise the volunteers? How will staff know exactly what support and supervision the volunteers need? What time do group volunteers need to show up? Where do they park and how far is the nearest bus or train stop? How do you ensure they check-in before they begin work? How will you communicate information to volunteers? How will volunteers end their tasks? Imagine different problems and how you will handle such.

In addition, identify every financial cost associated with this group volunteering activity, including:

insurance
materials and equipment
staff time (not just for the time the group is present, but also before and after the group participates - and remember that there are still costs even if support staff are volunteers themselves)

As a result of this time and financial cost analysis, how much money will involving group volunteers cost? You may find that the cost is simply too much for your organization to bear.

It's NOT unreasonable to take a look at these costs and ask groups to pay a fee to cover these costs, so long as you are transparent about what these costs are. My formula: ask the group to donate $50 per hour the group will be on site per staff member the nonprofit or other hosting agency will have to provide for preparation and supervision - regardless of whether or not that staff member is a volunteer or a paid person at the host organization. So, if the group wants a two-hour experience, and the nonprofit will need to have two people supervising and supporting that group, that's $200 the group should donate to the nonprofit. If a group wants a four-hour experience, and it will take just one nonprofit staff member, that's also $200 the group is going to donate to the nonprofit. And, no, "in-kind" donations don't count: it needs to be actual money.

One More Consideration: Making It a Multiple-Day Event

Your organization should not think that the only short-term group volunteering is an activity that takes a day or less. A lot of organizations find that a group volunteering effort that involves volunteers for even just three days, not just one day, is much more beneficial for the organization and the cause it serves, and gives the volunteers a much more satisfying experience.

For instance, Girl Scouts of the USA welcomes group volunteers to put on badge workshops for troop members, where Girl Scouts engage in activities in two-three hours in one location and earn at least two badges at the end of the day. A group from a corporation, a club or other organization or association deliver the activities for the girls at the workshop. However, there needs to be at least one meeting of the volunteers before the event, to train them on delivering the activities to the girls. It's still short-term group volunteering, but it takes two-three days instead of just one.

If you represent a group that is looking for group volunteering activities, see Finding Community Service and Volunteering for Groups.

A caution for folks in the United Kingdom: For those of you in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, you are greatly restricted in what you can put into writing regarding a volunteering activity, even for groups, per the laws in the UK. NCVO has a resource page on what can and cannot go into written communications with volunteers regarding commitments and expectations.

To see many of these recommendations in practice, check out the resources from the National Environmental Education Foundation for National Public Lands Day, the USA's largest single-day volunteer event for public lands, held annually on the fourth Saturday in September, including their recommendations for site managers to leverage virtual volunteering. The pages are focused on volunteers, but if you scroll down, you will see information for site managers to create volunteering events for the day.

Also see

Is group volunteering all its cracked up to be? A blog commentary by me.
One(-ish) Day "Tech" Activities for Volunteers
Volunteers are getting together for intense, one-day events, or events of just a few days, to build web pages, to write code, to edit Wikipedia pages, and more. These are gatherings of onsite volunteers, where everyone is in one location, together, to do an online-related project in one day, or a few days. It's a form of episodic volunteering, because volunteers don't have to make an ongoing commitment - they can come to the event, contribute their services, and then leave and never volunteer again. Because computers are involved, these events are sometimes called hackathons, even if coding isn't involved. This page provides advice on how to put together a one-day event, or just-a-few-days-of activity, for a group of tech volunteers onsite, working together, for a nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO), community-focused government program, school or other mission-based organization - or association of such.
Short-term Assignments for Tech Volunteers
There are a variety of ways for mission-based organizations to involve volunteers to help with short-term projects relating to computers and the Internet, and short-term assignments are what are sought after most by potential "tech" volunteers. But there is a disconnect: most organizations have trouble identifying such short-term projects. This is a list of short-term projects for "tech" volunteers -- assignments that might takes days, weeks or just a couple of months to complete.
Dos & don'ts for technical assistance volunteers / volunteers donating expertise
There are many people that want to donate - to volunteer - their professional skills or expertise to a nonprofit, NGO, charity, school or a community or environmental project. They are sometimes called "skilled volunteers." These volunteers might build a web site, or build an app, or build a garden, or design a building, or provide legal assistance, and on and on, for a nonprofit, or even a government program that engages volunteers and supports a particular community, like a women's shelter or a home for people with addicted issues. These are volunteers that are going to work primarily with a program's staff, including other volunteers, rather than directly with clients, but the result of their service may directly affect clients. But these type of volunteering gigs don't always work out, leaving both volunteers and programs frustrated and disappointed. The advice on this page will help everyone involved have a more worthwhile experience.
Group Volunteering Handbook: Tools and Resources for Organizations and Volunteer Centres — A detailed publication from Volunteer Canada meant to show organizations how to create group volunteering opportunities.
Hosting International Volunteers: A Where-To-Start Guide For Local Organizations In Developing Countries
Microvolunteering and Crowd-Sourcing: Not-So-New Trends in Virtual Volunteering/Online Volunteering.
Advice for those assigning or supervising court-ordered community service
Mandatory community service or a "Court Referral Program" is an alternate sentencing option for Superior, Municipal, Traffic and Juvenile Courts in the USA. Community service is considered restitution by an offender through helping his or her community. The service means actions, activity, engagement -- doing something that needs to be done and that helps the community or a cause. Too often, the goals of court-ordered community service aren't happening, and instead, people who need the service cannot find a place to do their service hours, and nonprofits expected to host these volunteers cannot do so. This new resource is for judges, probation officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and other criminal justice practitioners that are involved in assigning and supervising court-ordered community service.

Finding a Computer/Network Consultant
Staff at mission-based organizations (nonprofits, civil society organizations, and public sector agencies) often have to rely on consultants, either paid or volunteer, for expertise in computer hardware, software and networks. Staff may feel unable to understand, question nor challenge whatever that consultant recommends. What can mission-based organizations do to recruit the "right" consultant for "tech" related issues, one that will not make them feel out-of-the-loop or out-of-control when it comes to tech-related discussions?
Myths About Online Volunteering (Virtual Volunteering)
Online volunteering means unpaid service that is given by volunteers via the Internet. It's also known as virtual volunteering, online mentoring, ementoring, evolunteering, cyber volunteering, cyber service, telementoring, online engagement, and on and on. Here is a list of common myths about online volunteering, and my attempt to counter them.
Studies and Research Regarding Online Volunteering / Virtual Volunteering
While there is a plethora of articles and information about online volunteering, there has been very little research published regarding the subject. This is a compilation of publicly-available research regarding online volunteering, and a list of suggested possible angles for researching online volunteering. New contributions to this page are welcomed, including regarding online mentoring programs.
Incorporating virtual volunteering into a corporate employee volunteer program (a resource for businesses / for-profit companies)
Virtual volunteering - volunteers providing service via a computer, smart phone, tablet or other networked advice - presents a great opportunity for companies to expand their employee philanthropic offerings. Through virtual volunteering, some employees will choose to help organizations online that they are already helping onsite. Other employees who are unable to volunteer onsite at a nonprofit or school will choose to volunteer online because of the convenience.
Recruiting Local Volunteers To Increase Diversity Among the Ranks
Having plenty of volunteers usually isn't enough to say a volunteering program is successful. Another indicator of success is if your volunteers represent a variety of ages, education-levels, economic levels and other demographics, or are a reflection of your local community. Most organizations don't want volunteers to be a homogeneous group; they want to reach a variety of people as volunteers (and donors and other supporters, for that matter). This resource will help you think about how to recruit for diversity, or to reach a specific demographic.
Using Third Party Web Sites Like VolunteerMatch to Recruit Volunteers
There are lots and lots of web sites out there to help your organization recruit volunteers. You don't have to use them all, but you do need to make sure you use them correctly in order to get the maximum response to your posts.
Using Video to Support Online Volunteers/Remote Volunteers.
Video is a great way to further support volunteers, and your computer probably already has all of the tools you need to make a video, or to engage in a live video conversation with others. Video isn't something to use only with online volunteers or remote volunteers (those providing onsite service at a different location than yours). It's also a tool you can use with new and current volunteers. In addition to an organization producing videos for volunteers, it can also work the other way around: volunteers can produce videos for organizations. This resource provides information on your options, and links to my own short video on the subject.
Recognizing Online Volunteers & Using the Internet to Honor ALL Volunteers
Recognition helps volunteers stay committed to your organization, and gets the attention of potential volunteers -- and donors -- as well. Organizations need to fully recognize the efforts of remote, online volunteers, as well as those onsite, and not differentiate the value of these two forms of service. Organizations should also incorporate use of the Internet to recognize the efforts of ALL volunteers, both online and onsite. With cyberspace, it's never been easier to show volunteers -- and the world -- that volunteers are a key part of your organization's successes. This new resource provides a long list of suggestions for both honoring online volunteers and using the Internet to recognize ALL volunteers that contribute to your organization.

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