12:54, 9 February 2010
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USAID is the principal USA agency providing US government assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms. USAID is an independent federal government agency that receives overall foreign policy guidance from the Secretary of State. The
Advisory Committee On Voluntary Foreign Aid (ACVFA) part of USAID, was established after World War II to serve as a link between the U.S. Government and private voluntary organizations (PVOs) active in humanitarian assistance and development work overseas. ACVFA is lead by 30 private citizens appointed as volunteers (serving without compensation) by the USAID Administrator for two-year terms. "Members embody diverse perspectives and experience and are experts on private voluntary organizations and international development."
ACVFA posts a great deal of information online, and invites public comment on some of its activities. And they listen: in October 2008, I submitted comments to the ACVFA Subcommittee on Public Outreach, as invited to do so via an ACVFA email update, and almost all of my comments (regarding how to use various Internet tools in ACVFA), were incorporated into
the final report.
Check out ACVFA's reports for yourself:
- ACVFA Public Meeting Report (pdf, 197kb)
- View video of the ACVFA Public Meeting
- ACVFA Recommendations on Monitoring and Evaluation (pdf, 291kb)
- Economic Growth Approach to Poverty Reduction and Food Security (pdf, 928kb)
- Feeding a Hungry World (pdf, 603kb)
- IEG Conference Presentation: State of the Art in Measuring Development Assistance (pdf)
- Managing for Results: The USAID Approach (pdf, 291kb)
- Beyond Success Stories: Monitoring & Evaluation for Foreign Assistance Results (pdf, 213kb)
- Key Elements of Evaluation at MCC (pdf, 294kb)
- What have we learnt about M&E? (pdf, 204kb)
- Policy Brief: Monitoring & Evaluation for Results (pdf, 326kb)
- Strengthening Evaluation at USAID (pdf, 326kb)
- Meeting Full Report (pdf, 102kb)
- An Effective U.S. Foreign Assistance Program: Reflections From The Advisory Committee On Voluntary Foreign Aid (pdf, 41kb)
- ACVFA Report on Public Outreach: Why the Story That U.S. Foreign Assistance Is Working Must be Told (pdf, 447kb)
Read a report or two. Sign up for the newsletter (
via the web site) and keep up-to-date on what ACVFA does. If you are interested in working internationally, you should know what your government is doing regarding foreign assistance, whether your country is a donor country or a recipient of aid and development funds. For people in the USA, ACVFA makes that easy.
11:34, 8 February 2010
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I volunteer with
Business Council for Peace (
BPEACE), a nonprofit organization that recruits American business people as volunteers to mentor small, fledgling businesses in Afghanistan and Rwanda. Bpeace also works to fund viable new or expanding businesses in Afghanistan and Rwanda. American business people that volunteer with Bpeace review and evaluate business plans, or just answer a few questions from the entrepreneurs (via email or Skype). This volunteering is done via the volunteers' home or office -- no travel needed! It takes just a few hours of your time.
Right now, BPEACE urgently needs people who run or manage businesses in the following areas to help review applications and assess whether the applicants have potential to grow their businesses, OR, to answer just a few questions from people starting businesses in these areas:
- Construction
- Asphalt/Gravel
- Auto parts
- Tool making (out of scrap metal)
- Franchising
Please pass this info on to anyone you know who manages or owns a business in these aforementioned fields. If they want to help, they can write me at
jc@coyotecommunications.com and I will put the person in contact with the right person at BPEACE.
08:35, 5 February 2010
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The focus on doing projects in the developing world at the direction of local community members themselves has been a mantra among aid and development agencies for a long while now, but
few organizations or governments have explored the idea of local people -- very poor local people -- donating labor as volunteers, rather than being paid for their work. On the surface, the idea may seem cruel, because these people need the project *and* the paid jobs it brings, and to ask them to work for free sounds unethical.
But sometimes, it's a great idea and it
can work. European Simon Maddrell and Kenyan farmer and engineer Joshua Mukusya founded the charity
Excellent Development in 2002, and they are not only focused developing projects exclusively at the direction of the local community, they also have come up with
a successful model for volunteer (unpaid) local labor in Kenya. Schemes such as sand dams, which provide a year-round source of filtered water, and terracing soil to reduce erosion, repay the community's investment of free labor by giving a more reliable harvest of valuable food and dramatically reducing the number of hours individuals spend walking miles to collect clean water. "Nothing comes for free," says Mr Maddrell, 44. "
It is generally true that people don't value what they are given for free as much as what they have worked for. We want communities to engage with and own the process of the project." You can read
an article about this local volunteering model at the Telegraph.
"Here's what we'll do -- what will YOU do?" is something
I heard again and again in Afghanistan when funding for a local project was offered by foreign funders, and it's not an entirely new approach; aid and donor agencies have been asking recipients of service to show how they themselves will be investing in a project and showing their support for such for at least a few years now -- maybe through donated labor, maybe through being in charge of security, maybe donating materials, etc. It creates a
real partnership through a sense of local ownership of and greater value for the project funded primarily by outsiders.
But you have to be careful in asking local poor people to volunteer (again, by volunteer, I mean to provide
unpaid labor).
The wrong approach can lead to some bad PR and a lingering bad image of the concept of
volunteering you (your agency, your government, your country) may have great difficulty in overcoming.
If you have employed this model of volunteering in an economically-poor community, please
share your experience here.
07:35, 4 February 2010
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The sermon volunteer managers keep preaching (also known as the plea the nonprofit sector keeps making): Volunteers are not free, and involving volunteers successfully takes time, resources and expertise, whether it's a student mentoring program or a one-day beach clean-up (or its online equivalent, "
micro-volunteering"). Volunteers don't just waltz in and start working on assignments laying around -- there are no assignments "laying around", and volunteers need support and guidance just as paid staff do. For volunteers to be of real value to an organization, and for them to get a return on their own time investment, assignments must be defined in writing, procedures to screen, orient and place volunteers quickly must also be defined in writing and understood by all employees, and procedures to support volunteers must also be defined, understood and used throughout the organization. And that takes time, money and expertise.
And the private sector doesn't hear the message. Corporations, government officials and the press have largely ignored the sermon (or the plea) over the years. They make speeches and launch campaigns to encourage people to volunteer and promise the volunteers incredible rewards, all without giving organizations the resources they need to involve and support volunteers. Most donors have balked at the idea of funding anything to do with volunteer management (training for staff, software for management, salary for a volunteer manager, etc.). The private sector and government haven't understood why the 20 volunteers that show up at an organization Saturday morning per the latest campaign encouraging people to volunteer are turned away -- because, after all, volunteers are FREE, right?
We've all blogged about this. Okay,
I've blogged about it more than once. But maybe the message is,
finally, getting through?
In December 2009, the
New York Times did
an article about student volunteering from the perspective of the organizations expected to involve them. It opens with a woman running a tiny nonprofit in Massachusetts who dreaded students descending on her organization each year. "Droves of students were walking through my door, interrupting my day and asking, ‘What can I do here?’ ” she says. “A whole other crowd would send résumé after résumé after résumé expecting me to call them back... It was total havoc.” But that changed when she got the resources she needed to work with these student volunteers, and the article notes that "
a positive experience usually requires a considerable investment of time and planning."
A month later, the
New York Times did
another article, highlighting the involvement of nearly 200 AmeriCorps Vista members who worked in nonprofits and schools across the city "as a kind of consulting force, helping nonprofit agencies fine-tune their programs and recruit and deploy even more volunteers." In other words,
they were deployed as volunteer managers, and the volunteer management expertise and resources they brought "resulted in 18,000 new volunteers serving 67,000 New Yorkers."
AmeriCorps Vista members are not free; they receive a stipend for their activities, and this comes from government funding. That means
it took serious cash to mobilize these people to support volunteer management functions.
Are at least the press and government officials understanding
the considerable investment of time and planning successful volunteer involvement takes? Will corporations follow suit eventually? Is the tide turning at long last?
Stay tuned...
07:50, 3 February 2010
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(Not to sound like Ric Romero, and understanding this might be obvious to many readers, also note that, believe it or not, this is news to a lot of people)
Many people attending onsite conferences write about the presentations they attend and speeches they hear, even conversations they overhear, then post their summaries online so that all those who can't attend can benefit, at least to a degree, from the information shared. Although it largely removes the blogger as an actual conference participant (they are often too busy writing to ask questions, engage with fellow onsite conference goers, etc.), blogging is quite valuable to those who can't attend the conference.
Back in 2007 or so,
Bruno Giussani and
Ethan Zuckerman engaged in an online conversation about how best to blog about a conference, to give readers the valuable information they are looking for, respect conference presenters, etc. They put together "
Tips for conference bloggers" that anyone can freely download and use. It's available in two versions, full-page and booklet format. It's a terrific resource, talking about both content and logistics (where to sit in the room, the technology to use, etc.).
If you are going to blog at a conference, in addition to reading this excellent resource, be sure to let your co-workers know beforehand, including those volunteering at your organization.
Volunteers will see it as a form of recognition for their contributions to your organization (that you are including them in such information-sharing shows you see them as important members of your organization).
What are bloggers saying about your speech at a conference? Or about the conference itself? I use both
Google Alerts and news searches via
My Yahoo to tell me if a blogger or news article mentions my name or an organization with which I'm associated. These free tools make media monitoring oh-so-easy -- and you should absolutely
be vigilant about what people are saying about you and your organization.
09:17, 1 February 2010
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Having plenty of volunteers usually isn't enough to say a volunteering program is successful. Another indicator of success is if
your volunteers represent a variety of ages, education-levels, economic levels and other demographics, or are a reflection of your local community. Most organizations don't want volunteers to be a homogeneous group; they want to reach a variety of people as volunteers (and donors and other supporters, for that matter).
This new resource on my web site will, I hope, help you recruit for diversity, or to reach a specific demographic. It includes links to academic papers on this subject as well.
Your suggestions on this topic would be welcomed!
14:11, 30 January 2010
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Living and working in a developing country presents a lot of personal and professional challenges for a foreigner, many of which we are not supposed to talk about/blog about, for fear of offending our host country. But
being a foreign woman living and working presents all sorts of challenges most aid workers don't like to talk about, let alone blog about. Men don't like to talk about the challenges because they don't want to admit such challenges exist (and acknowledgment might mean they would have to alter their own behavior). Women don't like to talk about the challenges because it makes them seem weak to their male co-workers and gives potential employers a reason to hire men instead of women for aid and development work.
While sitting in
my room in Kabul, Afghanistan in the Spring of 2007, wondering how I was going to survive through summer and feeling like I was going to go out of my mind, a girlfriend (living and working in Ukraine) brought a writer who calls herself
Carpetblogger to my attention. It was just what I needed. It was part of the reason I decided, yes, I can not only survive this, I can enjoy it. Here was a woman living and working in Turkey who was willing to mention the unmentionables. How can you not love a person whose blog subjects are things like "
How to prepare Istanbul Thanksgiving dinner for 35 people arriving from four continents, including members of Baghdad's only heavy metal band"? and "
Does Camel Toe Have Two Meanings?" It is the unfiltered, un-Diplomatic, honest voice so many of us need. Here is a voice that never says "Let's pretend" and avoids the reality of absurd, even harrowing situations so many of us face. Frequently, when getting together with girlfriends in the field, the question would be asked by someone: "Have you seen the latest Carpetblogger?"
Besides, how could I not ADORE a woman working abroad who understood the vital importance of dogs in your household to keep you sane and happy?
So it is with a great deal of sadness that I have learned that Carpetblogger is calling it quits.
"We had two dogs and they were good, but they died. After, there was a divorce. So there's that. Hopefully, the bleeding has stopped. Please? After all this, we've been pondering, 'is Carpetblog still relevant?' The answer, unfortunately, seems to be 'no.' Accordingly, we've decided to make this hiatus more or less permanent."
It's no longer relevant to my favorite blogger, given all the loss that she's dealing with, to continue
Carpetblogger, and I really, truly understand that. But it remains relevant to her readers, including me. And we'll be so happy when she comes back, in whatever incarnation.
All the best, Carpetblogger. Heal, flourish, adopt more dogs, become inspired and blog again soon. We need you.
08:31, 29 January 2010
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Having the correct email and phone number for volunteers is vital to the sustainability of volunteer involvement. Organizations struggle with keeping up-to-date information about their volunteers, because email addresses and phone numbers change so frequently (my mother has had the same phone number for the last 40 years, while mine has changed probably a dozen times in the last 25 years), and volunteers often forget to notify organizations they are helping about such changes.
The easiest way to keep volunteer information up-to-date is to make volunteers responsible for their own information, and to create frequent opportunities for volunteers to view and update their information themselves during their regular interactions with the organization.
Whatever requirements you choose, tell new volunteers about these requirements during their first volunteer orientation, and make sure they understand why you have these requirements. Volunteers won't see these requirements as heavy-handed if they understand from the beginning why having their contact information up-to-date is so important to the organization (for instance, do they realize that having the volunteer coordinator tracking down volunteers with incorrect contact info takes away from that person being able to work with and support other volunteers, or being able to mobilize volunteers quickly for a critical situation?).
Some suggestions on how to keep volunteers' contact info up-to-date:
- Require volunteers to sign in onto a paper sheet or via a computer EVERY time they come onsite for service or a meeting. If your resources allow, create a screen on a computer at the checkin point that shows each volunteer his or her contact information at the time of sign in and asks the volunteer to make sure his or her data is up-to-date. If several volunteers arrive at once, you need to make sure sign in goes as quickly as possible; volunteers don't want to stand in a long, slow-moving line just to sign in.
- An alternative to this previous step: if your time and resources allow, at that same time when a volunteer arrives for a major meeting, give each volunteer a print out of his or her contact info, and ask the volunteer to look over the information, update or confirm any information on the paper, sign it and turn the paper back in.
- Require volunteers to review their most basic contact info (email and phone number) and confirm it is up-to-date every time they sign in to a private area on your web site, or create a system so that volunteers are prompted to do this twice a year when they sign in; they cannot proceed to the next screen until they confirm the info.
- Require volunteers to sign in at least twice a year to a private online database to update their contact info, and create a computer program that will let you know who hasn't signed in to confirm or update their info. Volunteers who don't sign in do not receive new assignments or updates, or are blocked from your online group for your volunteers until they update their info.
- Thank volunteers via your online discussion group, print materials and meetings for keeping their information up-to-date, remind others to do so, and review the consequences of their not doing so for the organization, your clients, the volunteers themselves, etc.
- When you get an email returned as undeliverable, call or text the volunteer to let him or her know the email address doesn't work. This could be a task done by another volunteer regularly once or twice a month.
One of the reasons I love
YahooGroups, in addition to it being free and so feature-rich, is that, when I use it to create a group for volunteers I'm working with, I require the volunteers to keep their information up-to-date themselves. If someone writes me and says, "I've changed my email; here's the new address" I can write them back and say, "Please update your subscription information on the YahooGroup; here's how..." Eventually, volunteers learn that they are in control of their own information, and don't have to wait for me to update their email address. In addition, I can see whose email addresses are not working (click on "members", then "bouncing"), and target those volunteers at our next onsite meeting, or with a phone call.
If you are in charge of changing contact information for volunteers (rather than the volunteers themselves, via an input screen on a computer), make sure you change data within 48 hours after receiving the updated information.
More
resources to support and involve volunteers here.
12:16, 28 January 2010
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International organizations -- whether development agencies or corporations looking to invest in a developing country -- are still waking up to
the importance of considering the lives of and cultural practices regarding women in any effort in a developing country:
- You shouldn't build a well for a village without thinking about how women and girls will access it safely and easily.
- You shouldn't build a community technology center to provide Internet access and education to the general population without thinking about the circumstances in the culture that may keep women and girls from visiting the Internet access center.
- You shouldn't open a manufacturing plant and expect to have men and women working side-by-side in certain regions.
- You shouldn't create a pickup point for aid materials without thinking about the women and girls that will need to come to that pickup point.
- You shouldn't build a community transit system without thinking about the safety of women and girls that will need to use the system
Give me an hour and I could write pages more of examples...
In short,
the safety of women and girls in a region isn't a concern for just initiatives focused on safety and security; it's an issue that any development agency or business has to think about before engaging in an activity in a developing country.
Three resources I've found recently that I think are particularly helpful in mainstreaming this issue into any aid or development activity:
Women's Safety Audit: What Works and Where? (PDF document)
Offered by UN-HABITAT, this tool enables a critical evaluation of the urban environment. In many cities women and girls face violence not only in their homes and in relationships, but also in public spaces due to poor urban design and poor management of public spaces. Whether it is due to threats, intimidation, harassment, sexual attacks or rape, all aggression seriously inhibits women from moving around the city. Women and girls are often targets of violence due to their vulnerability, and this vulnerability perpetuates their position in society. One of the ways in which women can feel safer and fully benefit from the services and resources cities can offer is to actively seek changes in their physical environment by working together with municipal authorities and other community institutions and groups.
The Global Assessment on Women's Safety (PDF document)
Another resource from UN-HABITAT. Women are at risk of violence both in public and private spheres, in and around the home, in neighbourhoods and at city level. Risk is influenced by urban design choices and the organisation of public services including transport and energy, amongst other things. Women experience a higher degree of insecurity which can restrict their access and use of the city. UN-HABITAT supports sustainability and inclusiveness in our cities. But women and girls still experience a higher degree of insecurity as compared to men and boys, which limits their access to city services. To create inclusive cities that respect the rights of everyone, we need to create conditions and physical environments where women, men, girls and boys can live, work, go to school, move around, and socialise without fear of harm. We also need to change attitudes and policies that perpetuate violence against women.
"
Not Worth a Penny"
From
Human Rights Watch. This 45-page report details abuses based on gender identity and expression, including rape, beatings, extortion, and arbitrary detentions by law enforcement officials. It also documents police inaction and recurrent failure to investigate violence against transgender people.
07:21, 27 January 2010
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Here's how these charity giving popularity contests work: People join a
FaceBook fan page or "friend" an organization somehow or connect with an organization or vote for an organization through little more than clicking on something. The top vote-getter gets money from the contest's sponsor.
The most recent example of this has been the Chase Community Giving contest, which many, including myself, think has been misleading, even a fiasco. This
blog reviews some of those criticisms (read the comments on the blog as well). Even
Beth Kanter, who is usually
much more admiring of these kind of click-and-help initiatives than myself,
has turned quite a skeptical eye, with a blog that's filled with terrific links showing why they Chase Community Giving contest was poorly run, why it's NOT the best way to support nonprofits, and lessons other corporations can learn (she
blogged about misgivings about the contest earlier as well).
Here's why I hate these contests:
- they are just popularity contests, and the most already-large-and-well-funded charity, or the one with the most newsletter subscribers or Facebook friends, or the one that's the most tech-savvy and knows how to manipulate the most votes, wins. But the top vote-getters rarely are a reflection of the quality of the organizations, in terms of community impact.
- they don't educate anyone about issues or how nonprofits work. No one walks away from all the clicking with more knowledge about why people are homeless, why women die in childbirth in huge numbers in Afghanistan, why the arts are worth funding, etc.
- nonprofits often have to go through several steps just to enter the contest, and for most of those nonprofits, there will be NO return on investment for this time, as there will only be one, or a handful, of winners.
- it turns thinking about nonprofits into a competition. Is a nonprofit theater "better" than an animal shelter? Is a domestic violence shelter "better" than a hospice?
- users rarely look at all of the "competitors"; rather, they go to the voting site, vote for their favorite nonprofit, and move on.
- it gives people and companies a false sense of "I've done something tangible to help others." For most users, they've merely clicked on something; they haven't volunteered their time, contributed money, learned about an issue or become an advocate to family and friends about a cause. In other words, it's slacktivism.
- some corporations will make their philanthropy this one-time event; they will direct all nonprofits looking for grants to their "contest", and if you don't "win", tough luck! Try again next year! For these corporations and their followers, the value of a nonprofit is how many votes it gets, not the work it's doing and the results it's achieving.
- the contests are often misleading, and that reflects poorly on the nonprofits involved, rightly or wrongly.
There *are* ways to get
a *real* ROI on online activities -- more volunteers, more donors, more advocates etc. But, please, no more contests.
15:55, 26 January 2010
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One of the many
online communities I'm on recently had a posting by someone from a nonprofit organization
looking for stock photos of volunteers to use in a brochure they were producing.
And I cringed.
Stock photos are professionally-produced photos made available for companies and organizations to use to express a certain notion or idea. Stock photos are also of people who have no affiliation with the company or organization. You see stock photos in picture frames for sale. For most people, a stock photo used by a nonprofit organization is obvious -- and dishonest. To me, it screams, "
These are professional models who don't actually volunteer here/aren't actually clients here!"
Unless the identify of your volunteers or clients needs to be protected (and that certainly
does happen -- for instance, with domestic violence shelters), you should have a folder on your computer system filled with digital photos showing genuine volunteers, clients, staff and others, ready for use in your marketing materials and fund-raising proposals.
How do you compile such an archive without using a professional photographer?
Begin by ensuring that you have a signed photo release form for every volunteer at your organization. Volunteers should be asked to sign such a form at the time they attend the first orientation or volunteering session or with their completed volunteer application. If you intend to take photos at an activity or event where clients will be present, you will also need to get a photo release form for any clients (or anyone else) who might be photographed. You can find samples of photo release forms by typing in this phrase into
Google.com or your favorite online search tool:
photo release form
Next, make sure every paid staff member, every unpaid volunteer, every client and every parent or guardian of a client knows your organization's policies regarding taking photos in association with your organization's activities (again, just type
photo policy into
Google.com or your favorite online search tool to find examples of such), and
within the boundaries of those policies, invite them to take photos in association with your organization's activities and to share these photos with your organization. Remind everyone associated with your organization, via regular meetings or regular online or print communications, both of these policies and that you would like such photos shared with you (people need to hear messages more than once in order to have them in mind).
Note in your event or activity announcements if photos might be taken. Whomever takes photos should identify him or herself to those being photographed. This should be a part of your photography policies that you have communicated organization-wide.
When photographing at events where people may not know me, I ask that whomever kicks off the event to announce that I'm taking photos that could appear on our web site or in printed materials, and that if anyone does not want their photo used, they should raise their hand any time they see me taking a photo they might be a part of so that later, when going through photos later, I will delete any photo of a person who is raising their hand, or crop them out of the photo. This worked really well when I took photos at community meetings in Afghanistan (more about
Taking Photos in the Developing World, a resource I developed while working in Afghanistan in 2007).
As photos come in to you, create a folder on your computer or drive for photos you might want to use on your web site, in a brochure, in a fundraising proposal, etc. Look for photos that have at least one of these qualities:
- shows action
- shows smiles
- shows diversity
If you don't have software that allows you to organize and search photos easily, create a naming system for photos, sub-folders and files on your computer so you can easily find photos for certain kinds of images, such as photos that show:
- female participation
- senior/elder participation
- multi-cultural participation
- physical action
- enjoyment/happiness
- caring
- etc.
If you can afford to use a professional photographer and having photo setups, where volunteers pretend to be in the middle of a service activity, or where staff pretend to be engaged in their work, great! It's okay to set up a photo -- just
use your own folks, not professional models.
Stay genuine! That attracts people much more than even the slickest of stock images.
12:12, 25 January 2010
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Last week, I talked about
how micro-blogs, tweets, texts and other technology were spreading misinformation about Haiti and elsewhere. But, ofcourse, Internet technology and online volunteers can help and are helping in Haiti and other disaster areas, so I want to concentrate on those positive examples today, to reaffirm my pro-computer-tech-use street cred.
There are several competing web sites and efforts trying to track people who are alive in Haiti to connect them with family and friends outside of the country (people "lost and found"). So many, in fact, that I'm just going to skip listing them. I hope they will combine those efforts and link to each other, as having so many individual efforts is creating confusion, me thinks.
What's much more interesting, at least to me, are these examples of Internet and phone technologies helping Haiti:
- Haitians needing help can send free text messages from phones on the nation's Digicel service to the number 4636. The text messages are translated, categorized and geotagged by volunteers, including Haitian-American members of the New York City-based Service Employees International Union. This has helped the Red Cross and other relief groups dispatch rescuers, food and water. For more details, see these articles: "The Nuts and Bolts Behind 4636 in Haiti" and "4636: How four little digits are saving lives & reconnecting loved ones in Haiti".
- The OpenStreetMap "crisis mapping" project,where volunteers layer up-to-the-minute data (such as the location of new field hospitals and downed bridges) onto post-quake satellite imagery that companies including GeoEye and DigitalGlobe have made freely available. The digital cartography — informed by everything from Twitter feeds to eyewitness reports — has helped aid workers speed food, water and medicine to where it's needed most.
- A Colombian rescue team leader who uploaded the maps to his crew's portable GPS units before the team arrived on the scene and another volunteer, Talbot Brooks of Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi, has been converting the maps into letter-sized documents that aid workers have been printing out before traveling to the quake zone.
- CrisisCamp, which drew some 400 people in six cities including Washington, DC (USA), London, England (UK) and Mountain View, California (USA) to meet-ups where they devised, built and helped refine tools. Among them: a basic Creole-English dictionary for the iPhone.
These examples are highlighted in
this article.
Also see
Handheld computer technologies in community service/volunteering/advocacy, an article I wrote back in October 2001 that talked about more than a dozen similar initiatives. There is nothing new about handheld technology helping in situations like this -- we're just becoming more aware of them!
17:03, 24 January 2010
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Back in 2003, I had the pleasure of being a part of the
United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITES) team that developed and staffed a community technology center booth at the
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva, through by then employer, UNDP and the UN Volunteers programme. We walked our talk about
what a community technology center really looks like in the developing world, with free Internet access, presentations to build capacity of those who attended, a meeting space and more. We created one of the busiest and most-talked about booths in the exhibit area, received
a visit from the UN Secretary-General of the time, Kofi Annan, and got UNV's
Online Volunteering service profiled on the BBC's Click Online. Here are
some photos from that amazing time.
I was pleased to learn that UNESCO, ITU, UNCTAD and UNDP, is organizing an open consultation for a new WSIS Forum in 2010. All individuals, networks and organizations interested in this issue are invited to participate in the three-fold process, consisting of an online discussion, a questionnaire and a review meeting.
This year’s Forum, which will be held in Geneva (Switzerland) from 10 to 14 May 2010, will review progress made in the WSIS implementation and reconsider strategies for the remaining five years.
The online consultation process will be carried out in three phases:
- An online multi-stakeholder consultation is taking place on the online WSIS Community platform until 5 February. Stakeholders are invited to express and exchange their ideas in order to generate possible themes and potential speakers for the 2010 Forum.
- Stakeholders can also submit their official contributions, by 5 February, through an online questionnaire or by sending a query to: wsis@itu.int.
- All submitted comments will be examined during the Final Review Meeting, which will take place at the ITU Headquarters in Geneva on 10 February. Register for this meeting. Remote participation will also be possible via webcast, the link to which will shortly be available on the Forum’s website.
Detailed information on the preparatory process is available on the official website of the WSIS Forum 2010. Please take the opportunity to co-shape the agenda of the Forum with your ideas.
17:31, 22 January 2010
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I found out today that I'm quoted in "
Does Social Work? Measuring Community Effectiveness," an article from
EContent: Digital Content Strategies and Resources. My quote is regarding my belief that web page views and the number of
FaceBook friends, etc., are relatively meaningless in determining return on investment (ROI) in online activities, especially for nonprofits/NGOs. It's a good article, and not just because I'm quoted in it!
Also: those of you on
FaceBook probably saw lots of people posting a colour/color in their status updates recently -- just one word, or a group of words, like "pink" or "blue" or "nude" or "white with black trim." It was largely a joke: it was the color of the bra the posting person was wearing. Some people claimed it was an effort to raise awareness about breast cancer, although no organization has come forward to claim responsibility for starting such, the connection was rarely made on many user profiles, and as far as my own FaceBook connections go,
no one linked to or named a breast cancer-related organization as part of this "campaign."
I think it was a perfect example of
Slackervism, where people clicked something online, or did something equally simple online, and walked away thinking, "Wow, I really made a difference", but they didn't. And my fear is that these people then avoid doing what's really needed -- like volunteering, or making a donation -- because they think what they've done has real impact. Why make time to volunteer or why reserve any money to help others when, supposedly, just clicking helps someone somehow? Why, I can change the world just by clicking something or changing my Facebook status, right?
I've heard some media call this a "great" example of "online social action." How can it possibly be called that? There is no data whatsoever saying that this what-color-is-your-bra campaign increased the number of women getting medical checkups regarding their breast health, doing self-examinations regularly, etc. There's no data whatsoever that says someone knows about breast cancer now and how it impacts women that didn't already know that before the campaign. Yes,
Susan G. Komen for the Cure said they got some donations they think came because some people followed up their bra color status with a link to its web site. But
others reported no donations at all.
What would have made this a
true social marketing/health marketing campaign, with
real impact (changed behavior, new awareness, etc.)?
- Encouraging women to not only post the color of their bra but, later in the day, or the next day, telling their friends why they had posted their bra color, followed by a statistic about breast cancer rates or an encouragement for people to learn about breast cancer prevention, and a link to a web site for more information (not just a page that asked for donation, but rather, a page focused on educating people about breast cancer).
- Having a banner on the home page of your breast-cancer-focused organization saying, "Did you post your bra color to your FaceBook status?", which links to a page focused on educating people about breast cancer and encouraging people to participate in the campaign.
- Having a FaceBook fan page specifically associated with this campaign, and using it to not only educate about breast cancer, but also, to survey fans about the impact of the campaign regarding their actions (did they have a discussion this week with friends about breast cancer, or just bra colors?)
Online volunteering / virtual volunteering is not Slackervism. Here's more on
what ROI for online action really looks like.
08:22, 20 January 2010
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As she woke up, she began deciphering the rumors. “Everyone was just passing on the story they heard via cellphone from ‘a friend’ or ‘my family.’
The press and various bloggers love to get breathless about Twitter, the micro-blogging tool that many people use to send and receive breaking news via their cell phones. People in Iran used Twitter/cell phone messages to organize massive anti-government rallies in Iran last year and people in Haiti used Twitter and text messages to let their family and friends know they were alive, and press and various bloggers couldn't talk about it enough. But ignored in these Twitter-is-the-greatest-thing-ever stories are the times that
micro-blogging is used to spread rumors and myths:
Now I'm blogging again, about
how cell phone text messages lead to two widespread misunderstandings.
First, there's the CNN story of how
Twitter users spread at least a few myths regarding helping Haiti. One was a myth that several airlines were flying any USA doctors and nurses who wanted to help in Haiti free of charge. Twitter users also circulated a rumor that UPS would ship for free any package under 50 lbs. to Haiti. Neither was true.
Next, "
The Ghanaian Earthquake Hoax," as Ethan Zuckerman calls it: Many Ghanaians spent last Sunday night sleeping outside, for fear that a major earthquake would hit Accra. A rumor of an impending Earthquake had spread through cell phone text messages and blogs, and Zuckerman says "
it's like a textbook example of how bad information spreads and how hard it can be to contain." The opening quote to my blog is from Zuckerman's blog.
Zuckerman notes that radio stations neither confirmed nor denied the rumors in the early morning hours. He says that,
according to BBC’s David Amanour,
PeaceFM – one of Accra’s radio stations – began calling the phone messages a hoax early in the morning, helping calm people’s fears. "Unfortunately, by the time government ministers began taking to the airwaves to calm people, thousands – perhaps millions – had left their homes."
Since 2004, I have been gathering and sharing both
examples of this phenomena, and
recommendations on
preventing folklore, rumors and urban myths from interfering with development and aid/relief efforts and government initiatives. I'm not saying Twitter, micro-blogging or cell phones are evil.
But governments, aid agencies and the media must be aware of just how easy it is to use these tools to spread misinformation, and have a strategy for preventing such or dealing with such when it happens. This problem is going to keep happening and, eventually, it's going to have deadly consequences.
(full disclosure: yes,
I have a Twitter account. No, I don't believe everything I read on it -- or on blogs or in media reports, for that matter)
07:23, 19 January 2010
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The number of free applications available to nonprofits (and any organization, actually) to communicate and collaborate is staggering. I can't believe just how much is available
for free to allow organizations to easily, effectively manage information and interact with volunteers, donors, clients, the general public and each other.
In most cases, these tools specifically for online collaboration allow you to make a work space as public or as private as you like, and allow you as much control you want: you can be the only person allowed to change or add content, you can allow only certain other people to do so, you can allow people to submit information that isn't shared until you approve it, etc.
GoogleApps is a suite of free web-based applications (you can pay for an upgrade to more advanced features). The most popular free tool among GoogleApps is
Gmail (which gives you an email address and various email-management functions). There's also
GoogleGroups (for creating and managing online discussion groups or email distribution lists),
GoogleCalendar (which can be entirely private, or can be shared with a small group, or even
with everyone),
GoogleTalk (which allows for instant messaging) and
GoogleDocs (which allows collaboration on documents and spreadsheets), and
GoogleFriend connect (which
I'm using, but I'm not sure I understand it yet). They are also currently beta-testing
GoogleWave.
Yahoo! also has a
suite of terrific web-based applications for free. The most popular is also the mail program,
YahooMail. My favorite is
YahooGroups, which has tons of great features, like a shared calendar just for the individual group, and tools that allow members to share information and photos, allow group owners to configure the group a number of different ways, and allow each individual group member to decide exactly how he or she wants to relate to the group (via individual emails, via digest, or via the web). Yahoo also has a very popular
Instant messaging tool (which can be used cross platform with other company's chat tools), and a
calendar.
What I like about either of these suite of tools, other than all the features they offer and that they are free:
- You can pick and choose which apps you want to use, a la carte; you can use YahooMail but Google for your calendar. You can use your Yahoo email address to log in to your Google account.
- These are great tools for training yourself in how to collaborate online with no financial investment required.
- These are great starter-tools that will help you make more informed choices about fee-based software in the future, should you find yourself needing such.
Google is encouraging
GoogleApps use by nonprofits. Over on
TechSoup.org, a site about computer and Internet technologies for nonprofits, there is a
thread asking for GoogleApps success stories.
I'm particularly interested in how nonprofit organizations, community initiatives, government offices, schools, or university students working together on a project are using any of the following tools to collaborate with volunteers, clients, staff, donors or each other:
My questions for you, as a representative of a nonprofit organizations, community initiative, government office, school, or university students working together on a project, which I hope you will answer over on
my own Google Network, or you can
email answers to me directly:
- What are you actually using GoogleGroups, YahooGroups, GoogleCalendar, Yahoo calendar, or GoogleDocs?
- What challenges did you face in getting people (volunteers, staff, clients, students, etc.) to use GoogleGroups, YahooGroups, GoogleCalendar, Yahoo calendar, or GoogleDocs?
- What carrot and/or stick strategies did you use to get everyone using such?
- What was most important in training effectively?
- What are non-tech staff actually using Google Apps for?
Looking forward to more discussion!
10:25, 14 January 2010
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Whenever a disaster strikes, hundreds -- even thousands -- of citizens in the USA start contacting various organizations in an effort to try to volunteer onsite at the disaster site. The images and stories motivate these people to help immediately, in-person.
But what most of these people don't realize is that
spontaneous volunteers with no training and no affiliation can actually cause more problems than they alleviate in a disaster situation, particularly regarding disaster locations far from their home. The priority in these situations is helping the people affected by the disaster, NOT giving spontaneous, unaffiliated volunteers an outlet for their desire to help.
During and after disasters, what's desperately needed is equipment, supplies and expertise in disaster situations -- that's the priority.
These are incredibly complicated situations that require people with a very high degree of qualifications and long-term commitment, not just good will, a sense of urgency and short-term availability. Unless you have a formal affiliation with a recognized disaster relief organization, and training with that organization, you are probably going to be turned away if you want to help onsite, particularly in other countries.
If you have been moved by a disaster to help in some way immediately, please consider donating financially. Money is desperately needed in these situations to purchase food, up-to-date medicine, shelter, transportation, and supplies. Disaster relief organizations cannot rely only on donations of these materials, and don't have the resources in a crisis situation to go through them and make sure they are appropriate, clean, not expired, etc.; having finances means they can buy what they need, often in-country, and move much more quickly -- and time is of the essence in these situations.
In addition to giving funds yourself, you can help by making sure friends and associates know how to give (you might be surprised how many people don't know where or how to). A simple link on your own site or blog, a link at the end of your emails, an update on your status on
FaceBook or
MySpace or whatever, telling people how to donate financially, can be a huge help.
If you REALLY want to make a difference for the desperate situation in Haiti right now, please make a financial donation to
MercyCorps or the
American Red Cross. These orgs know how to work quickly in chaos zones, but these efforts (up-to-date medicines, supply planes, fuel, etc.) are *crazy expensive*. Please, no clothing drives or food drives --
it's CASH that will pay for the things people need right now. Update your online profiles/status pages to encourage your friends to do the same.
If you want to truly help with a disaster beyond financial donations, start thinking NOW about ways to get the training and affiliations you need to do such effectively for future emergency situations. There are many ways you can put yourself into a position for such in the future.
Here's why you need such training, and ways to get it:.
07:44, 13 January 2010
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If you REALLY want to make a difference for the desperate situation in Haiti right now (& reports say it's as bad as it can be), please make a financial donation to
MercyCorps,
CARE, or the
American Red Cross. These orgs know how to work quickly in chaos zones, but these efforts (up-to-date medicines, supply planes, fuel, etc.) are *crazy expensive*. Please, no clothing drives or food drives --
it's CASH that will pay for the things people need right now.
I've got a lot of UN friends there right - HQ collapsed & there's no word on casualties. Very worried.
20:33, 11 January 2010
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Women in Afghanistan -- a subject almost always on my mind, a subject I wish was on the media, the military and politicans' minds.
Here are three resources I've found quite interesting recently regarding women in Afghanistan:
- "We Have the Promises of the World”: Women’s Rights in Afghanistan". This 96-page report details emblematic cases of ongoing rights violations in five areas: attacks on women in public life; violence against women; child and forced marriage; access to justice; and girls' access to secondary education." Available in English, Dari and Pashto.
- "2009 Afghanistan Report: Amplifying the Voices of Women in Afghanistan." This survey and report series serves as the linchpin of a campaign to raise awareness about the connection between women’s economic, social and political participation in society and the overall strength of a nation, based on the argument that when women are progressing in areas like education, health, role in society, and legal status, other positive developments occur for the society as a whole.
- Back in February 2009, Sarah Chayes joined Fresh Air to explain how the Taliban is using both fear and persuasion to once again expand its power in Afghanistan.
Want to help women in Afghanistan? I recommend gifts to
CARE and/or
BPeace.
11:36, 9 January 2010
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Yahoo has a web site called
Shine which is supposed to be focused on women and the issues Yahoo thinks women care about. And what does Yahoo think women care about? Let's look at the site's primary headers:
- Manage Your Life
- Fashion + Beauty
- Healthy Living
- Parenting
- Love + Sex
- Food
- Astrology
Oh, it just gets better (she said dripping with sarcasm). Featured on Shine this week:
- Celeb Fasion Video
- This Week in Books
- New Year, New You
- 2010 Horoscopes
Hey, Yahoo! Stereotype much? Geesh, is this the 1950s?
There is a lot more to American women than people like the folks at Shine think there is.
Here's the subject headings (in no particular order) that would have kept me and
lots of other women from a variety of age groups coming back to
Shine, most of which are either completely ignored by Yahoo's site or are buried so far in the site I can't find them:
- Travel & Outdoors
- Sports (with a particular focus on women's sports)
- Personal & Spiritual Growth (WIth just as many stories about ethics and atheism as there are about faith-based beliefs, including astrology)
- Money (with a particular focus on women... do I have to keep saying that?)
- Career
- Home & Health (which would include love, sex, parenting, etc.)
- Science (with a particular focus on women)
- Entertainment (not just celebrity, but also books and theater)
If you are like me and are looking for information that actually has
relevance to your life and interests as a women, whatever age, in the USA, try subscribing to
BUST magazine. It's well worth the price of your subscription, and its articles and ads will turn you on to all sorts of fascinating, relevant information, stories and people that Yahoo's Shine site ignores.
