Volunteer Tasks
Note: Coyote Helps does not yet exist as a
nonprofit. All of the information on this web site is PROPOSED.
Please see the home page for more information about this idea
for a nonprofit.
Once you have been accepted as a volunteer for Coyote Helps, you can
get started on the activities listed below. In fact, you do NOT
have to be accepted as a volunteer for Coyote Helps to do 90% of
the tasks noted here - you can just do them, on your own,
without ever talking to us and without being affiliated with us. The
reason to enroll as an official volunteer with Coyote Helps (application not yet launched) is so
that you can get a letter affirming what you did as a volunteer (and
when), so that you can frame these online activities as supporting a
nonprofit organization, and to get guidance from Coyote Helps
leadership about online moderating and facilitating (though we'd
probably help you with that anyway if you just asked).
The goal of sharing content across social media channels and Reddit
communities is to remind people in your community - and everywhere -
that there are great ways to come together for good, whether it's a
local nonprofit farmer's market, a chalk art festival, a small music
festival, a children's theater production, or any opportunity to
volunteer. It's a small way to counter the negative information,
endless criticism and personal attacks, and AI slop that is
permeating online spaces.
The Minimum:
You need to choose which social media platform(s) and online
community/ies you are going to use as a part of your volunteering
with Coyote Helps. You need to choose at least one platform or
community to start - and you never have to do more if you don't
want to.
Once you have decided which platform(s) or online community/ies
you are going to use, you will be sent a form that you will
complete and return to us, providing Coyote Helps the names of
your social media accounts that you will be using as a part of
your volunteering. You can always expand the number of social
media accounts you want to use.
Don't look at this page that you are reading now and think, "I
can't do all of this!" No, you can't! Please don't try! Instead,
think about what you already do on the Internet and where it could
fit among these tasks. Maybe you are JUST going to focus on
leveraging Reddit. Maybe you are going to just leverage Facebook.
Maybe you are just going to blog. Maybe you are going to try to
leverage just two platforms. Maybe you are going to focus entirely
on video production/vlogging. What you choose to do is entirely up
to YOU.
We also ask that, whatever you choose to do to start off, you
commit to doing that for two months: 60 days. At the end of your
60 days, decide if you want to do more, do less, or withdraw
altogether. If you do withdraw, we ask that you contact Coyote
Helps leadership and let them know you won't be continuing in your
volunteer role.
Here are the activities you can choose from as a new volunteer.
If you need or want to do the maximum number of volunteering
hours possible via Coyote Helps, in the shortest time
possible, you need to have an account on Reddit that you will use in
association with your volunteering.
Advanced (& far more hours):
Once you have volunteered via Coyote Helps for a while and you have
proven yourself, through your online activities, to be a reliable,
credible volunteer and online persona (or you already are one), you
can take on other responsibilities:
- Advanced Reddit Volunteering.
- Video 4 Good (YouTube, Vimeo,
Facebook & Instagram Reels, etc.).
- Editing Wikipedia regarding a topic that Coyote Helps
leadership feels is somehow related to the mission of Coyote
Helps. This requires pre-approval from Coyote Helps leadership
(you need to say what page you want to edit or create and
why). If approved, Coyote Helps WILL provide documentation
that confirms hours contributed by people who contribute content
and ensure content credibility on Wikipedia, provided that
those Wikipedians are also officially
enrolled as Coyote Helps volunteers and provide adequate
proof of their contributions. Note that CoyoteHelps has no
formal affiliation with Wikimedia, the nonprofit that runs
Wikipedia..
- Leadership volunteering via Coyote Helps (moderating a
subreddit, managing other volunteers, serving on the board).
Always Remember the Goal.
The primary goal of Coyote Helps is simple: to help make the
Internet a kinder place, one that is filled with opportunities and
information to help people engage with their communities and engage
in causes that are important to them, or to learn about causes that
help bring people together or build understanding among people.
Please do NOT start on any volunteering tasks
until you have received written notification from Coyote Helps that
you are now an official volunteer.
Reporting.
Reporting your activities each month
to Coyote Helps leadership is part of your commitment as a
volunteer.
Are you making a difference?
Once you get started, you may ask yourself if you making a
difference in doing these aforementioned activities. Are you making
certain corners of the Internet nicer? Are you helping more people
to volunteer? Are you creating more civic engagement in your
community?
It can be so, so hard to say, for sure. A nonprofit may post in
response to something you have posted and say, "Wow, thanks, we had
double the number of volunteers at our summer camp this year!" Or a
person may comment, "Thank you! I went to this because I saw this
post and I had a great time!" Those are all comments worth
celebrating and you should pass them on in your monthly report
to Coyote Helps!
But the reality is that you will probably never get any concrete
data to know if you are making a difference. And that is SO
frustrating! But we can tell you this: all of the suggestions on
this page are based on things the founder of Coyote Helps has done
for her own community and, sometimes, for a specific nonprofit or
cause she is supporting, and she has regularly heard people say they
had a bigger turnout, or more volunteers, or even more donations,
because of her online activities. In fact, three times, she has
ended up getting short term, paid consultancy gigs because of
contributing to various subreddits and moderating various online
communities, as well as her social media activities.
Applying to volunteer via Coyote Helps
If you wish to be an official volunteer,
you will be eligible for:
- using the time you
spend doing these tasks towards court-ordered or
school-required community service.
- a letter from Coyote Helps affirming your number of volunteer
hours and a description of your volunteering activities, which
you can use as you like/need, including for graduation
requirements, court-ordered community service and scholarship
applications.
- training from Coyote Helps on how to appropriately and
effectively manage online communities and engage in online
outreach.
- training in cause-based online outreach and marketing.
The first thing to do if you might be interested in volunteering
is to read through our Code of Conduct /
Volunteer guidelines. If you feel these are too many rules to
follow and too much to read, then volunteering officially through
Coyote Helps isn't for you. And then read
more about volunteering with us.
volunteer with us | volunteer policies | Coyote Helps leadership |
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