Back in the 1990s, when the Virtual
Volunteering Project was documenting best practices in involving
and supporting volunteers via the Internet, one of the methods for
involving online volunteers was creating what I called byte-sized
volunteering assignments. These are assignments that:
- do not take long to complete (a few hours over one day, or just a
few days, maybe even two weeks, but no more).
- do not involve high security or the handling of proprietary data.
- do not require any supervision of the volunteer on the part of
the manager of the volunteer; the volunteer gets the assignment and
does it, period.
- do not require any training of the volunteer on the part of the
manager of the volunteer (the volunteer already has the necessary
skillset).
- are important, as all volunteering activities should be, but not
immediately or highly
critical (as in, if volunteers do not get these tasks done within
the next two weeks, it will not bring your organization to a
screeching halt, it will not cause a huge problem at the
organization, etc.).
- can be done by a person on his or her own, rather than requiring
an organized team with different members relying on the work of
others in order to complete their part of the assignment.
I loved the term byte-sized
volunteering and it's how I enticed a lot of new volunteers into
longer-term support for the Virtual
Volunteering Project.
Years ago, the hot term for this type of very short-term volunteer
became microvolunteering or micro volunteering
(sometimes with space, sometimes without) or microtasks. That
name has, for the most part, stuck.
Some people include offline, just-show-up-volunteering activities in
their definition of microvolunteering, others don't and limit it to
only short-term online volunteering tasks. Others narrow the
definition even further than that and say microvolunteering is a word
to describe only those volunteering activities that are mobile-ready,
that are tasks that can be done on a smart phone.
However you choose define it, at its heart, microvolunteering
no different than the term that's been used for years for short-term
offline volunteering: episodic volunteering: just as
volunteers who come to a beach cleanup or participate in a Habitat
for Humanity work day don't undergo a criminal background check,
don't receive a lengthy pre-service orientation, don't fill out a
lengthy volunteer application form, don't have to have special skills
and may never volunteer with the organization again - they feel like
they just show up and get to work - online volunteers that participate
in a microvolunteering may get started on their assignment just a few
minutes after expressing interest. The keyword is may,
because that happens only if the organization has the
right, tried-and-true volunteer management standards in place that
create the conditions necessary for an online volunteer to get started
right away.
Most sites that talk about microvolunteering or a byte-sized
assignment don't offer any specifics on what microtasks look like -
they just focus on "it takes just a few minutes!"
By contrast, here's the longest list you will find anywhere of
microvolunteering in practice. However, note that this list would be
very shorter if your definition of microvolunteering is limited to
only mobile-ready volunteering (the task can easily be done on a
mobile phone):
- Translating just a few paragraphs into another language (as
opposed to an entire web site, or entire brochure, or an entire
report).
- Transcribing a short historical document that's been digitally
scanned.
- Gathering online information on one very specific and relatively
simple topic (identifying nonprofit organizations in a large city
focused on children, finding conferences in the next six months
focused on human resources management, finding samples of volunteer
policies online, finding samples of company social networking
policies online, etc.).
- Editing a short press release, newsletter article, or new Web
page.
- Posting a request by a nonprofit to the volunteer's various
networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), to see if anyone
could answer or help ("We need a free meeting space for 30 of our
volunteers to do a this Saturday, from noon to 3 p.m." or "We need a
meeting table that could accommodate at least 10 people. Does anyone
know of an organization that is looking to get rid of such? or "We
have a survey for teenagers on our web site regarding what program
activities they would be interested in. Please help us get the word
out!").
- Providing feedback on a graphic, a proposed name for a program or
an event theme.
- Providing feedback on a short strategy or short proposal.
- Setting up an account on an online social networking site for an
organization or program, such as FaceBook, Twitter, Tik Tok, Reddit,
etc.
- Analyzing information on a short spreadsheet or looking at a bit
of data and offering a short narrative on what the data might mean.
- Doing a Web search to seek out resources and activities that are
needed for clients in a specific geographic location: summer camps,
vocational training, child care, government programs to help a
particular group of people, etc.
- Checking grant proposal submission guidelines on the Web sites of
various potential funders, such as foundations or corporations
(although this often requires a greater commitment than just a few
minutes).
- Creating a new Web page on an existing site (putting up a
newsletter article as a new Web page, for instance).
- Web site testing to make sure the site works on a variety of
computers and Web browsers, and identifying any problems so that IT
staff can take action to make a site more accessible.
- Compiling a list of online communities relating to a particular
field of expertise, a specific topic, a specific geographic area,
etc.
- Compiling a list of blogs relating to a specific topic.
- Compiling a list of Twitter accounts of people or organizations
that tweet regularly on a particular topic.
- Compiling a list of Facebook pages of people or organizations
that post information regularly regularly on a particular topic.
- Screen-capturing certain tweets, Facebook status updates and
comments, etc., to use in a presentation, brochure, on a web site,
in a report, etc.
- Researching which Web sites link to your organization's Web site,
and researching which Web sites should link to your organization's
Web site but do not currently.
- Identifying which groups on Flickr or another photo-sharing web
site your organization might want to sometimes post photos to, in
order to get the word about your work and events.
- Adding new tags to photos already uploaded on a photo-sharing web
site, such as Flickr, to ensure they will come up on a search of
certain keywords.
- Reviewing the work of other volunteers engaged in
microvolunteering.
Again: these are tasks that will take just a few minutes or a few hours
to complete, and can happen in one day or over a few days, even a couple
of weeks. Note that some require a bit of expertise: a person might have
to be fluent in two languages, or know about web accessibility, or be
terrific at finding very specific information online.
To ensure success with such short-term tasks, any microvolunteering
assignment should have:
Mid-assignment reporting requirements might also be necessary if the
deadline is a week or more after the assignment is given - many times,
organizations can't just assume people are working on assignments,
only to find out, once they need the work, that the volunteers didn't
do it.
A volunteer can complete a micro assignment and then walk away from
ever volunteering with your program again. But that would make it just
drive-by volunteering - no relationship is established or
cultivated, and you have no idea if the experience created greater
awareness for the volunteer about your organization's work and those
it serves. Your organization deserves more than that! and, as studies
have shown, volunteers want more than that.
Your Goal for Microvolunteering
Your goal with microvolunteering assignments should be much more than
to get some work done, if you want it to be worthwhile for your
program to involve such short-term volunteers. The reality is that
it's very hard to come up with micro task for volunteers that the
organization really needs, or that are best done by a group of
volunteers in little bits each rather than just one volunteer doing it
all.
Your goal in creating micro tasks and engaging online volunteers in
such should be to create such a positive experience that the volunteer
stays interested and takes on another small task, or a task with more
responsibility or greater time commitment, as well as becoming a fan
of your organization, talking about your good work to colleagues,
friends and family. You might even turn such a volunteer into a
financial donor. More on that later.
Crowd-Sourcing
Part of the microvolunteering phenomena is crowd-sourcing, a practice
that is as old as the Internet itself, dating back to the 1970s.
Before the World Wide Web, a popular Internet tool was USENET
newsgroups, which were online communities put together around various
interests, professions and topics, and much of the activity on these
was what we now call crowd-sourcing (soc.org.nonprofit
was a particularly popular crowd-sourcing resource for nonprofit
representatives).
Crowd-sourcing is when a task or question is offered up online to
anyone who might see it and would like to take it on, without that
person having to sign up to participate as a volunteer. It can be as
simple as writing, "How would you handle the following situation..."
to an online community of volunteer resources managers. Or asking "How
could we improve our online volunteer orientation" to your online
community of volunteers. Or asking an online community for HR
managers, "Would anyone be willing to share their company's dress
code? We're looking for ideas." Or writing all of your current
volunteers and saying, "What do you think of our new logo?"
Crowd-sourcing is also called distributed problem-solving.
It's usually not called virtual volunteering, but that's what
it is.
Crowd-sourcing is not just for feedback and questions. For instance:
- The free, open system software movement is driven by
crowd-sourcing: anyone can participate, at any time, in helping to
write the code for these software products.
- Wikipedia is an online
encyclopedia that anyone can edit at any time.
- ClickWorkers was a small NASA project begun in 2001 that
engaged online volunteers in scientific-related tasks that required
just a person's perception and common sense, but not scientific
training, like identifying craters on Mars in photos the project
posted online. Clickworkers worked whenever and for however long
they chose. You can read more about this now defunct project by
going to archive.org and
cutting and pasting in this URL:
clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov
(choose the earliest version of the site available).
- TechSoup.org allows anyone
to answer questions or comment on discussions on its online
community forum. TechSoup sends out tweets, tagged with
#DonateYrBrain, to highlight discussions needing input from online
volunteers.
Crowd-sourcing can involve people who are not a part of your
organization -- anyone visiting your web site, anyone on an online
discussion group run by another organization, etc. -- or it can be
reserved only for vetted volunteers on your
online discussion group for such.
What About the Ice-Bucket Challenge?
As long as someone was including the name of the organization that
this was supposed to benefit
(usually the ALS Association) from the ice bucket challenge, and
the web site address so people could donate more money, sure, I would
consider the Ice-Bucket Challenge as micro volunteering. But you have
to be careful with these types of campaigns - a lot of people uploaded
videos of themselves dumping ice water on themselves without ever
naming the charity it was supposed to benefit, and that means it was just
slacktavism or slackervism.
It's Always About Building Relationships
A misconception about microvolunteering and crowd-sourcing -- and,
indeed, about all volunteering, including in its most traditional
forms -- is that the primary goal is to get work done, or to get work
done for free. These are old paradigms regarding volunteering that so
many of us have worked for a very long time to move away from.
Volunteering is about so much more: it's about building relationships
with the community, increasing the number of people advocating for
your organization and even supporting it financially, demonstrating
transparency, and even targeting specific demographics for involvement
in your work. Microvolunteering shouldn't be just drive-by
volunteering; it takes far too much time to create microtasks for
volunteers to make that worthwhile
The biggest advantage to creating microvolunteering
and crowd-sourcing opportunities isn't getting work done; rather,
it's giving current volunteers more and different ways to
participate (believe it or not, many of your volunteers want to do
more for you!), creating a way for you to cultivate new supporters
and build awareness of your organization and its mission among more
people. If you aren't thinking of microvolunteering as a form of
community engagement but, rather, about just getting some tasks
done, you're doing it wrong!
Consider this
research study by Points of Light American that measured interest
in civic engagement in the USA as of May 2020. According to the survey,
from the volunteer perspective, a worthwhile experience is:
- discoverable. Can be easily found online.
- local. Addresses an issue important to my community.
- credible. Delivered by an organization with local/issue
expertise.
- social. Allows me to invite my friends and family.
- authentic. Explains why my actions will matter, upfront.
- personal. Allows me to engage with beneficiaries.
- impactful. Shows me the outcomes of my actions.
- repeatable. Provides an avenue for me to reengage.
Note what's not there: an assignment that is really short.
Never think of the primary
goal of microvolunteering as getting work done. Your goal should
always be to cultivate new supporters or to build awareness about a
cause. You want to turn people who answer your question on a
discussion group or take on a small online volunteering assignment
into long-term supporters, people who tell family and friends about
your organization, who have their perception changed about a
particular issue your organization is involved with (why people are
homeless, why the arts are important to teens, why there are
misunderstandings about HIV/AIDS, why increasing literacy improves
women's health, etc.), who take on more assignments for your
organization and, hopefully, are so moved by your work that they make
a financial donation.
Therefore, if your organization decides to make microvolunteering or
crowd-sourcing activities available to people beyond your corps of
vetted volunteers, make sure you have ways to capture their key
contact information and provide followup to them regarding the project
or issue they contributed to. Encourage these contributors to complete
the briefest of online volunteering applications, to join an online
discussion group, and/or to subscribe to your email newsletter.
This page is for organizations that involve
volunteers; what about people that want to do microvolunteering?
People that want to online volunteers that take on microtasks should
see Finding
Online Volunteering / Virtual Volunteering / Online
Microvolunteering & Home-Based Volunteering, a free online
resource especially for people that want to volunteer.
For organizations that want to know more, see:
The
Last Virtual Volunteering
Guidebook
available for purchase as a paperback
& an ebook
from Energize,
Inc.
Completely revised and updated, & includes lots
more advice about microvolunteering!
Published January 2014.
- Microvolunteering
is virtual volunteering
A rebuttal on my blog to the claim that microvolunteering isn't
virtual volunteering.
- Short-term Assignments for Tech
Volunteers
There are a variety of ways for mission-based organizations to
involve volunteers to help with short-term projects
relating to computers and the Internet, and short-term assignments
are what are sought after most by potential "tech" volunteers. But
there is a disconnect: most organizations have trouble identifying
such short-term projects. This is a list of short-term projects for
"tech" volunteers -- assignments that might takes days, weeks or
just a couple of months to complete.
- One(-ish) Day "Tech" Activities
for Volunteers
Volunteers are getting together for intense, one-day events, or
events of just a few days, to build web pages, to write code, to
edit Wikipedia pages, and more. These are gatherings of onsite
volunteers, where everyone is in one location, together, to do an
online-related project in one day, or a few days. It's a form of
episodic volunteering, because volunteers don't have to make an
ongoing commitment - they can come to the event, contribute their
services, and then leave and never volunteer again. Because
computers are involved, these events are sometimes called
hackathons, even if coding isn't involved. This page provides advice
on how to put together a one-day event, or just-a-few-days-of
activity, for a group of tech volunteers onsite, working together,
for a nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO),
community-focused government program, school or other mission-based
organization - or association of such.
- Finding a Computer/Network
Consultant
Staff at mission-based organizations (nonprofits, civil society
organizations, and public sector agencies) often have to rely on
consultants, either paid or volunteer, for expertise in computer
hardware, software and networks. Staff may feel unable to
understand, question nor challenge whatever that consultant
recommends. What can mission-based organizations do to recruit the
"right" consultant for "tech" related issues, one that will not make
them feel out-of-the-loop or out-of-control when it comes to
tech-related discussions?
- Myths About Online
Volunteering (Virtual Volunteering)
Online volunteering means unpaid service that is given by volunteers
via the Internet. It's also known as virtual volunteering, online
mentoring, ementoring, evolunteering, cyber volunteering, cyber
service, telementoring, online engagement, and on and on. Here is a
list of common myths about online volunteering, and my attempt to
counter them.
- Studies and Research
Regarding Online Volunteering / Virtual Volunteering
While there is a plethora of articles and information about online
volunteering, there has been very little research published
regarding the subject. This is a compilation of publicly-available
research regarding online volunteering, and a list of suggested
possible angles for researching online volunteering. New
contributions to this page are welcomed, including regarding online
mentoring programs.
- Incorporating virtual
volunteering into a corporate employee volunteer program (a
resource for businesses / for-profit companies)
Virtual volunteering - volunteers providing service via a computer,
smart phone, tablet or other networked advice - presents a great
opportunity for companies to expand their employee philanthropic
offerings. Through virtual volunteering, some employees will choose
to help organizations online that they are already helping onsite.
Other employees who are unable to volunteer onsite at a nonprofit or
school will choose to volunteer online because of the convenience.
- Considerations for
ensuring safety in online service delivery by volunteers,
where volunteers are interacting with members of the client
and the public. Not all of these suggestions are
appropriate for every volunteer engagement scheme. These
suggestions are written specifically for NON tech staff - instead,
for the people that manage client programs and manage volunteers,
and the people that manage IT staff, so they can come to this
issue from a human support, human management issue FIRST, rather
than a tech issue.
- Creating One-Time, Short-Term Group
Volunteering Activities
Details on not just what groups of volunteers can do in a two-hour,
half-day or all-day event, but also just how much an organization or
program will need to do to prepare a site for group volunteering.
It's an expensive, time-consuming endeavor - are you ready? Is it
worth it?
- Recruiting Local
Volunteers To Increase Diversity Among the Ranks
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
resource will help you think about how to recruit for diversity, or
to reach a specific demographic.
- Using Third Party Web Sites Like
VolunteerMatch to Recruit Volunteers
There are lots and lots of web sites out there to help your
organization recruit volunteers. You don't have to use them all, but
you do need to make sure you use them correctly in order to
get the maximum response to your posts.
- Recognizing Online Volunteers &
Using the Internet to Honor ALL Volunteers
Recognition helps volunteers stay committed to your organization,
and gets the attention of potential volunteers -- and donors -- as
well. Organizations need to fully recognize the efforts of remote,
online volunteers, as well as those onsite, and not differentiate
the value of these two forms of service. Organizations should also
incorporate use of the Internet to recognize the efforts of ALL
volunteers, both online and onsite. With cyberspace, it's never been
easier to show volunteers -- and the world -- that volunteers are a
key part of your organization's successes. This new resource
provides a long list of suggestions for both honoring online
volunteers and using the Internet to recognize ALL volunteers that
contribute to your organization.