Safety in Service Delivery/Client Support by Online Volunteers


I have written a lot about safety in volunteering programs, not just virtual volunteering, and there is extensive information in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook about ensuring safety in engaging with volunteers online.

But because of the massive rise in engaging with employees, consultants, volunteers and clients online per the current global pandemic, I'm getting a lot of questions about ensuring safety in online service delivery by volunteers, where volunteers are interacting with members of the client and the public. 

The information below isn't a set of guidelines you should follow for safety but, rather, a list of considerations - 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.   

Current policies

If your service delivery has been onsite, with volunteers working together face-to-face, then your nonprofit, non-governmental organization, charity, school or government program probably already has policies and procedures meant to keep clients safe in their interactions with volunteers. Your policies probably talk about social media and online communications already and these policies have been communicated to your volunteers already (right?). As you ramp up your online interactions, it's a good idea to revisit these policies and make sure they are up-to-date, and to make sure they have been recently reiterated to your volunteers.


Options for keeping a device and network safe

Whether you decide to make these options, recommendations or requirements in your program is up to you - to your program managers and maybe even to your legal counsel. How you apply state and federal laws regarding regarding client safety also will matter.

Note that many of these recommendations are things that volunteers are going to need one-on-one help with to set up any of the following. Your program should consider having an email or phone number volunteers can call to ask IT-related questions if you have to institute this level of tech-security: 
  • Encourage or require volunteers to set permissions on files or folders. They can password-protect important files or folders on their computers by editing the permissions settings, which control who can view or edit those items. By editing the permissions settings of a folder the computer user can grant or deny access to specific users that use that computer. Here's how one site says how to do it:
-- In Windows, right-click the folder, go to Properties, and open the Security tab. Then click the Edit button. You can then select a group or user name and choose to deny access to the folder. Someone trying to access it will be required to put in an administrator password.
-- In Mac, this works similarly. Go to the info properties of the folder and under Sharing & Permissions, you can set users' privilege (read only, read & write, no access).

Also remind volunteers that they should set up password protection on their networks attached storage or any drives shared over the network on their computers.

The FTC has a terrific guide to CyberSecurity. It reinforces a lot of the above and goes into depth about some of the aforementioned topics.

Also, remind volunteers that they can use *67 to block their numbers and on on cell phone they change settings for caller ID, if they are going to use their device with clients or the public (though clients will need to know they may get calls from "caller not identified" numbers as a result.


More Meeting, Practice & Policy Guidance

These are recommendations mostly from other organizations regarding using tech to keep clients and their information safe as you move to more online service delivery:


If you want detailed information on addressing online safety and reducing risk, policy development and how to fully integrate virtual volunteering in to all of your community engagement, including how to set up and support an online mentoring program, 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.



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