The Virtual Volunteering Guidebook

Fully Integrating Online Service into Volunteer Involvement

By Jayne Cravens and Susan J. Ellis

 

 

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Are you still struggling with fully integrating online service into all volunteer engagement? This book looks at all aspects of online volunteering from designing virtual volunteering assignments to recruiting, training, and supporting online volunteers.

The authors maintain that the basic principles of volunteer management should apply equally to volunteers working online or onsite. This book will show you how to lead online volunteers successfully by:

  • Overcoming resistance to online volunteer service.
  • Designing virtual volunteering assignments, from micro-volunteering to long-term projects, from Web research to working directly with clients via the Internet
  • Adding a virtual component to any volunteer’s service 
  • Interviewing and screening online volunteers
  • Managing risk and protecting confidentiality in online interactions
  • Creating online communities for volunteers
  • Offering orientation and training via Internet tools
  • Recruiting new volunteers successfully through the Web and social media
  • Assuring accessibility and diversity among online volunteers
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Choosing the Best Websites for Posting Volunteer Opportunities

By Jayne Cravens and Susan J. Ellis
From , Energize, Inc., 2014, chapter 8, p. 157.

There are too many of these volunteer recruitment Web sites for you to try to use them all—there are not enough hours in the day! So, which of the many online databases of volunteering opportunities should you use to recruit online volunteers? Applying any of the following criteria will help:

  • Which has been most successful in recruiting onsite volunteers for you in the past?
  • Which allow for the specific recruitment of online volunteers (they allow you to tag the opportunity somehow as being online or virtual)?
  • Is the site focused on the particular type of volunteer or geographic region that you need to reach?
  • Have any been endorsed by a colleague who tells you, “I have recruited a lot of very reliable online volunteers via this Web site”?

...You should definitely try VolunteerMatch as a tool for recruiting online volunteers; it is one of the only sites that allows opportunities to be designated as virtual and is probably the most popular volunteer recruitment site, in terms of Web traffic and number of assignments posted. Otherwise, start by choosing just two Web sites available to you. Keep track of the number and quality of responses. Experiment with other sites if you are not getting enough candidates from your first two choices or you are not satisfied with responses.

You may come upon “aggregator” sites that pull postings from several different online registries to provide a wider range of volunteer opportunity choices than a single database might contain. Such sites do not always clearly identify themselves as using data gathered by others (especially ones posted by government agencies). There is nothing wrong with aggregators, but try to find out whether using one site automatically makes your vacancies accessible on other sites and track results. Also, before you
re-post new information into a new registry, check to make sure this is not unnecessary duplication.

Related Topics:
Recruitment
Virtual Volunteering
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Table of Contents
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Details
Publisher 
Energize, Inc.
Publication Year 
2014
Pages 
210
ISBN 
paperback: ISBN 978-0-940576-65-0, e-book (PDF): ISBN 978-0-940576-67-4
Editorial Reviews

olunteers are critical to the success of many nonprofits, but all too often organizations don’t have a strategy in place for volunteer management. We believe that meaningful volunteer engagement can become a strategic advantage…We were heartened to see [this] guidebook with up-to-date insights and advice on integrating online activities into volunteer management, especially considering the rapid change and innovation of the last decade. If you seek a easy-to-use and forward-thinking guide to integrated volunteer involvement, look no further!

—Taylor Chamberlin, Blue Garnet

Ellis and Cravens reunite to revise a classic. The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook shows how online service has evolved into an essential element of all volunteer involvement. It takes a look back at more than a decade of change and brings you up to date on the latest insights and advice on navigating the ever-changing world of technology to successfully engage volunteers, online and off. VolunteerMatch doesn’t just recommend this guide; we use it.

—Greg Baldwin, President, VolunteerMatch

What a great resource! This book can be accessed for specific content or as a complete learning experience. I chose to read it from start to finish, and am glad I did. Even after forty years of working in this field, the authors provided me with new ways to think about leadership challenges in the online world. We can all use more suggestions on how to use online resources to communicate with today’s volunteers, whether they are beside us or halfway around the world. This one definitely belongs on every volunteer management bookshelf.

 — Kathleen Joy, Executive Director, Oregon Volunteers

If your project or organization relies on volunteers, go get this book! Its guidance is straightforward, practical, and applicable to the broadest range of volunteer challenges. The book goes beyond online interactions and provides winning strategies for working with all volunteers. I especially love the way questions of diversity and disability, often separated into “silos,” are fully integrated, creating vibrant volunteer involvement that will help your organization in ways you may not anticipate. This is a resource you will not want to be without!  

— Sharron Rush, Executive Director, Knowbility

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