Volunteer Time Equals Computer Use

While this interactive graphic from the New York Times has many fascinating aspects, one of the most thought-provoking for me is the trendline for volunteering.
According to the NYT, Americans spend about an hour a week on volunteer activities, including tutoring, coaching teams, working in a soup kitchen, ushering at church and handing out political fliers. [...]

Top 5 Roles for Virtual Volunteers

Wondering what virtual volunteers can do for you?
First, you need to put your creative thinking hat on. It’s about breaking the traditional volunteer position into much smaller pieces. For me, Carter McNamara has long been a go-to resource regarding non-profit management. It’s no different for volunteers, where he’s updated his list of [...]

Evidently Even I Can Podcast!

Podcasts are really just a way, like TV, of diplaying audio and video content. And iTunes is the TVGuide of podcasts.
Podcasting for Nonprofits 101 is one of the workshops covered at NTEN’s National Technology Conference 2009–blowing all economic predictions out of the water with a record and 300+ over expectiations 1500 attendees. [...]

Engaging Techie Volunteers

From the TechSoup webinar, Managing IT Volunteers.
A techie can be ‘into social media’, an enthusiastic learner, or can be from the IT profession–with specific skills and interests. Since I’m engaging virtual volunteers, I’ve modified some of the in-person hardware/software type suggestions to include working with virtual tech volunteers, too.
Step 1: List tasks.
Ask staff, [...]

Meet. Up.

I’ve finally taken the Meetup.com plunge.

I’ve been a lurker, joining some groups around town, and even a few in other places just to see how different groups operate. I’ve even attended a few area meetups. Wow–was that a personal challenge for this introvert, or what?! I feel comfortable with the online interface as [...]

Readings in Virtual Volunteerism

Since only about a fourth of the U.S. volunteers, this writer posits that we’ve tapped out the market until we get a little more creative. There’s definitely a need with virtual volunteers to the ‘chunk it up’ theory of dividing volunteer tasks into tiny bits for our busy world.

While it’s still of the utmost [...]

Web 2.0 for Volunteer Management

Here’s an article on Enhancing Your Youth Program With Web 2.0 Tools, which is really a basic overview of 2.0 tools for your non-profit. There’s a bibilography of links to the tools and other info on virtual volunteering.
This is Susan Ellis’ Energize, Inc. (volunteer management guru) ‘bible’ to virtual volunteering.
Get informed, get connected: [...]