What's Interesting To Me These Days.

Below is a list of my current professional priorities -- issues and trends that I'm actively researching, reading and writing about. With more time and funding, I would love to engage in any of these areas even more fully.

I'm sharing this because it might lead to collaboration, it might lead to paid work, and it clarifies why I do what I do.

This list changes about once a year. And to keep up to date with what's interesting to me, you can follow me on social media:              

What's Interesting To Me These Days:

• The impact of rumor, myths and "urban legends" on development interventions, aid work and relief efforts, including disaster relief and response and public health initiatives, ways such have been addressed in various situations, and ways to prevent such from becoming a problem that defeats a much-needed program or activity. I've been interested in this since the 1990s, when I was directing the Virtual Volunteering Project, and I've been actively researching this since 2004, before it was called "fake news," and long before the global pandemic. Coupled with that is an interest in Media Literacy, a lack of understanding of which (about how to critically evaluate information from the Internet, television and radio) are leading to problems that aren't just annoying -- they are a threat to understanding among different cultures, to development interventions, and, in my belief, to our safety and security. And related to that is an interest in Communication That Changes Minds / Propaganda For Good / Communication to Build Trust. Propaganda is communications not just to create awareness, but to persuade, to change minds, and to create advocates. These are communications activities undertaken by governments, media, corporations, nonprofits, public health advocates, politicians, religious leaders/associations, terrorist groups, and on and on, and they aren’t automatically bad activities: such messaging has inspired people to wear seat belts even before there were laws requiring such, to not drink and then drive, to engage in activities for sex that prevent HIV, to read to their children, to spay and neuter their pets, to a lessening of intolerance among different groups, and on and on.
   
  

• Ways that religious and cultural barriers prevent:
  • the education of girls and women
  • women from engaging in business, from farming to selling things on the street to owning a shop
  • women from engaging in government or leadership roles
  • the use of condoms for disease prevention and pregnancy prevention
  and how various organizations and advocates have worked to overcome such.
   
  

• Capacity-Building for nonprofits/civil society in the developing world
  So many civil society organizations are doing fantastic work, but lack the skills on how to document that work and promote it to potential supporters, as well as how to evaluate their work, record successes and identify obstacles -- all of which lead to their being able to do more fantastic work. I'm interested in efforts to help mission-based organizations (nonprofits, non-governmental organizations/NGOs, and public agencies) serving in the developing world to be well-run, transparent, results-oriented and attractive to potential supporters, as well as to build their capacities to publicize their efforts and to cultivate support. This includes capacity-building in volunteer management practices in the developing world.
   
  

• Promoting virtual volunteering / online volunteering
  I continue to research, speak, write and train regarding this subject frequently, and the resources I've developed regarding online volunteering are linked from my web site.
   
  

• Court-ordered community service
  I have blogged about this regularly over the years, more than any other consultant or practitioner regarding volunteer engagement. I feel rather alone in talking about this, in fact - there seems to be a reluctance by organizations that promote volunteerism, by associations of managers of volunteers and by managers themselves to talk about people who undertake volunteer - UNPAID - service for nonprofits and charities. I explore the volunteering opportunities available to people sentenced to community service by the court, if virtual volunteering can be an option for them (it can), and how to best supervise and support people online in virtual volunteering roles.
   
  

• Ethics in volunteer engagement
  The only volunteer management consultant I ever heard address ethics in volunteer engagement in years' past was Mary Merrill. When we lost Mary, we lost a hugely important voice to discuss this topic. I've tried to start instigating discussions about ethics in volunteer engagement on my blog and on various online communities in which I participate. In addition, there are certain kinds of activities branded as “volunteering” that I find unethical and that I regularly research, blog about and talk about on social media:
   
  • Voluntourism, where unskilled Westerners go abroad to “volunteer” – usually for a fee – and do work that either isn’t something local people see as a priority or is something local people would like to be paid for, and there is no screening for the volunteers: whoever can pay the fee gets to go.
     
  • Paying to volunteer in any capacity in a program that seems to be more about giving an individual money than about actually serving a community or cause.
     
  • Companies that charge a fee for a letter that says a person engaged in volunteering that the person uses to fulfill court-ordered volunteering.
   
  

• Advocating that talk about digital inclusion and addressing the digital divide include addressing the needs of people with disabilities. It's something I've been passionate about since the 1990s, in fact, since the first year I got on the web in 1994 or so. Nonprofits need to be taking the lead in this - all nonprofits, not just those focused on people with disabilities, but arts organizations, animal shelters, environmental groups and more.
   
  

• Educating USA Citizens About International Affairs
  Americans do not receive much information about the world abroad. The major TV channels provide little information about other people and cultures, and their incomplete information about the United Nations has lead to gross misunderstandings about the important, vital work of the UN and how the organization is administered. Local chapters of the UN Association, as well as other organizations, need larger, younger membership and much higher profiles, in order to counter this lack of information.
   
  

• Developing Sustainable Tourism & Alternative Tourism
  As a long-time, avid traveler for both fun and for business, I've seen first hand the impact that tourism can have on a variety of countries and communities, and benefited from what traveling has given me. I love the good that tourism can do for small local businesses and for the traveler as well. I'm very interested in initiatives that help build the capacities of communities, particularly those in transitional countries, to develop a sustainable travel industry that benefits local people and appeals to a variety of travelers - ecotourists, adventure travelers, budget travelers, business travelers, and women travelers from any of those groups, not just luxury travelers or package tours (though those are important as well). I created a page of Advice for Hotels, Hostels & Campgrounds in Transitional & Developing Countries: The Qualities of Great, Cheap Accommodations based on my own experiences in more than 30 countries, but I would so love to do more to help communities create sustainable tourism, helping them to: create a variety of accommodations for a variety of travelers, offer quality local restaurants for a variety of budgets, offer safety for all travelers, particularly women, ensure that visitors can get around via bicycle or by walking, offer transportation to and from larger cities, and on and on. Read more about developing sustainable tourism and alternative tourism.
   
  

• Factors for Success in using theater as a tool for development
  This was the subject of my Master's Degree project.
   
  

• Some more personal, more specific project ideas I have toyed with that I would love to lead, co-organize, or just help someone else with. I would love to find others interested in these. I would love to discover there's already a nonprofit addressing any one of these.