Virtual volunteers: how to keep engagement with micro-volunteering

MeganKeane

What do you think? What keeps you engaged in virtual volunteering? Post your suggestions and ideas here!

There's been so much written about how to keep online volunteers engaged but, unfortunately, despite pleas from myself and many others, Ben Rigby and the folks behind The Extraordinaries just won't read all these excellent materials!

For most nonprofit organizations, creating micro-volunteering activities isn't worth the tremendous time and effort (just as for most organizations, creating one-day, just-show-up group volunteering efforts also isn't worth the effort -- just talk to schools who are constantly pressured by corporations for such activities to know what I mean). The ROI is quite small, and as nonprofit resources are so limited, it's just not worth trying to create and support opportunities for one-day/one-hour volunteers. To increase the ROI on such short-term folks, organizations focus on turning one-day, just-show-up volunteers, such as beach clean up volunteers, into longer-term volunteers and even financial donors -- that's usually the real reason behind a one-day/short-term gig.

Retaining one-off volunteers, whether they are engaged online through so-called "micro-volunteering" or offline at a one-day event, involves:

• encouraging these volunteers to sign up for the email newsletter, or even paper (gasp!) newsletter. This keeps volunteers up-to-date on what's happening at the organization, what difference the organization is making, and how they (the volunteers) are a part of it.
• encouraging to volunteers to subscribe to the organization's or volunteering program's blog
• letting these "micro" volunteers know about more-substantial volunteering opportunities at the organization, both online and onsite, assignments that will take a week, a month, several weeks or even a few months of commitment.
• encouraging volunteers to join an online community of all volunteers, both those that provide services onsite and those that provide services online, so that the volunteers see that they are a part of something *much* bigger. It will help them see just how much time and resources it takes to develop these "micro-volunteering" activities
• encouraging volunteers to become a fan of the organization or the volunteering program on FaceBook, to follow the organization or the volunteering program on Twitter, etc.

Reading the plethora of books and resources regarding traditional volunteer management will provide a person with tremendous insight into volunteer management, whether onsite or online, whether the volunteers are short-term one-day just-show-up folks or people ready to make a longer-term commitment. My favorite resource for such is Energize, Inc.

Sorry to be snarky, but the volunteer management community -- the people who create and support volunteers -- has reached out to those behind The Extraordinaries many times -- but we just don't seem to be getting through.

Hello Megan,
I enjoyed Ben's talk and thus this conversation. Also, thanks to MeiMei for her stellar note taking blog.

You asked for ideas on keeping volunteers engaged in micro-volunteering. I like when experienced volunteers help (in a public way) the new volunteers. The newbies get trained properly, and the sense of a caring community  helps engage the newbies.  The experienced get to showoff (peacock) their hard-earned tips and best practices. Win-win.
_______
Dear Jayne,
Thanks for your post and the links to your detailed writing. I agree that in many cases, the effort to set up micro-volunteering may not have good ROI. But in some (edge?) cases, volunteering online with bits of time works GREAT and there is no need to have a accompanying in person component.

For example:
* Ben's example of museums using folks to tag/describe digital copies of their collection
* I used folks to answer kids questions, and leverage the expertise of wise ones

Other ways to keep volunteers engaged?
Yours, Marc in San Jose

• a list of 50 influential bloggers in your cause area
• a list of 50 people who tweet about your cause area
• 25 suggestions for blog post topics
• a Yahoo Pipes social media monitor set up for your cause
• 50 keyword suggestions for your Keyword Universe
• an audit of your nonprofits presence in social media

• 3 logos designed for the First Aid Corp
• 16 study tips written for School on Wheels (for their teachers)
• 4 research packets completed for World Savvy (also for their teachers)
• 2 4-page micro-loan applications translated into spanish for Zafen
• A well digging company was located for a Masaai villager Amboseli, Kenya for AVIF

benrigby

Jayne, I challenge you to post a "required reading list" for anyone doing work with volunteers. So the next time we interact, I'll have the chance to know what specifically you're referring to when you say that I haven't been reading the right things... and I'll have a roadmap for better understanding your perspective. Other than the reading list comment above, I'm finding it difficult to know what you mean by "pleas" and "reaching out" -  but am all ears to your suggestions, comments, and further critique. 

I've said so much of this before to you and in posts about The Extraordinaries. But here it is, yet again, both in response to your challenge and to help anyone who is interested in working with nonprofits, particularly volunteer managers:

• What I mean by "reaching out" is to use the channels and fora that volunteer managers are already using. Post to the various online discussion groups for volunteer managers, like CYBERVPM, UKVPMS and OZVPM. Don't just post press releases; engage in the conversations, as appropriate. Go meet face-to-face with individual DOVIA organizations. Go meet face-to-face with volunteer managers at major volunteer management conferences. Engage with volunteer managers via their long-established communication and networking channels, online and off -- don't just talk to them, but listen to them. Let them tell you what they need, rather than your telling them what they need.

• I list what I consider the essentials in volunteer management here. I know you haven't read most of these, like the information about risk management, per some of your astounding comments about how people will be protected (for instance, children being protected from inappropriate material or from people who don't have their best interests in mind) via your micro-volunteering schemes. 

• Between being involved in the networking activities of volunteer managers, both online and offline, and reading volunteer management resources, you will learn about trends in volunteer management -- like that organizations do NOT have lots of work just laying around, waiting for volunteers to come do. That volunteers are not just "free labor." That the reason to involve volunteers is NEVER just to get work done -- that it's to create donors and long-time supporters. That involving volunteers COSTS MONEY. There is nothing free about involving volunteers -- including so-called "micro-volunteers." I've brought up the costs of one-day-just-show-up beach-clean-up volunteers as an offline example more than once.

I have learned so much in promoting virtual volunteering, including micro-volunteering (which we called "byte-sized" online volunteering once upon a time), to volunteer managers since the mid-1990s -- like how the more I referred back to the tried-and-true basics of successful volunteer management, the more successful volunteer managers were in working with online volunteers, including "micro-volunteers". Those lessons came from missteps myself, like thinking that online activities would provide all the education needed for organizations to successfully engage with online volunteers. Or thinking I didn't need to go to those "old-fashioned", traditional associations like DOVIAs. Or thinking that the people who were fearful of technology would be easily won over. I've also seen oh-so-many "we're-from-the-corporate-sector-and-we-know-best!" initiatives focused on nonprofits come and go -- lots of new names for old practices.

I'm certainly not a Luddite. I'll continue to counter old-fashioned claims that volunteering is just about free labor, etc. Nonprofits deserve better. If my criticisms have had an impact on The Extraordinaries, I'm shocked to hear it, as I certainly haven't seen it at all. I'm still open to being won over.