Future Wave Web Technology Blog

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: nav­i­ga­tion, search

A major con­trib­u­tor to this arti­cle appears to have a close con­nec­tion with its sub­ject. It may require cleanup to com­ply with Wikipedia’s con­tent poli­cies, par­tic­u­larly neu­tral point of view. Please dis­cuss fur­ther on the talk page. (March 2010)

Virtual vol­un­teer­ing is a term describ­ing a vol­un­teer who com­pletes tasks, in whole or in part, off­site from the orga­ni­za­tion being assisted, using the Internet and a home, school, tele­cen­ter or work com­puter or other Internet-connected device. Virtual vol­un­teer­ing is also known as online vol­un­teer­ing, cyber ser­vice, tele­men­tor­ing, and tele­tu­tor­ing, and var­i­ous other names. Virtual vol­un­teer­ing is sim­i­lar to telecom­mut­ing, except that, instead of online employ­ees who are paid, these are online vol­un­teers who are not paid, and they are work­ing to ben­e­fit a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion, school, gov­ern­ment pro­gram or other not-for-profit entity, as opposed to a for-profit business.

Contents [hide] 1 In prac­tice 2 Early his­tory of the practice 3 Current state of the practice 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

[edit] In prac­tice

People engaged in vir­tual vol­un­teer­ing under­take a vari­ety of activ­i­ties from loca­tions remote to the orga­ni­za­tion or peo­ple they are assist­ing, via a com­puter or other Internet-connected device, such as:

• trans­lat­ing documents
• research­ing subjects
• cre­at­ing web pages
• edit­ing or writ­ing pro­pos­als, press releases, newslet­ter arti­cles, etc.
• devel­op­ing mate­r­ial for a curriculum
• design­ing a database
• design­ing graphics
• pro­vid­ing legal, busi­ness, med­ical, agri­cul­tural or any other expertise
• coun­sel­ing people
• tutor­ing or men­tor­ing students
• mod­er­at­ing online dis­cus­sion groups
• writ­ing songs
• cre­at­ing a pod­cast
• edit­ing a video
• mon­i­tor­ing the news
• answer­ing questions
• tag­ging pho­tos and files
• man­ag­ing other online vol­un­teers^[1][2][3]

[edit] Early his­tory of the practice

The prac­tice of vir­tual vol­un­teer­ing to ben­e­fit non­profit ini­tia­tives dates back to at least the early 1970s, when Project Gutenberg began involv­ing online vol­un­teers to pro­vide elec­tronic ver­sions of works in the pub­lic domain.^[4]

In 1995, a new non­profit orga­ni­za­tion called Impact Online (now called VolunteerMatch), based in Palo Alto, California, began pro­mot­ing the idea of “vir­tual vol­un­teers”.^[5] In 1996, Impact Online received a grant from the James Irvine Foundation to launch an ini­tia­tive to research the prac­tice of vir­tual vol­un­teer­ing and to pro­mote the prac­tice to non­profit orga­ni­za­tions in the USA. This new ini­tia­tive was dubbed the Virtual Volunteering Project, and the web site was launched in early 1997.^[6] After one year of oper­a­tions, the Virtual Volunteering Project moved to the Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas at Austin. In 2002, the Virtual Volunteering Project moved within the uni­ver­sity to the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.

The first two years of the Virtual Volunteer Project were spent review­ing and adapt­ing telecom­mut­ing man­u­als^[7] and exist­ing vol­un­teer man­age­ment guide­lines with regard­ing to vir­tual vol­un­teer­ing, as well as iden­ti­fy­ing orga­ni­za­tions that were involv­ing online vol­un­teers. By April 1999, almost 100 orga­ni­za­tions had been iden­ti­fied by the Virtual Volunteering Project as involv­ing online vol­un­teers and were listed on the web site.^[8]

Due to the grow­ing num­bers of non­profit orga­ni­za­tions, schools, gov­ern­ment pro­grams and other not-for-profit enti­ties involv­ing online vol­un­teers, the Virtual Volunteering Project stopped list­ing every such orga­ni­za­tion involv­ing online vol­un­teers on its web site in 2000, and focused its efforts on pro­mot­ing the prac­tice, pro­fil­ing orga­ni­za­tions with large or unique online vol­un­teer­ing pro­grams, and cre­at­ing guide­lines for the involve­ment of online volunteers.

Until January 2001, the Virtual Volunteering Project listed all tele­men­tor­ing and tele­tu­tor­ing pro­grams in the USA (pro­grams where online vol­un­teers men­tor or tutor oth­ers, through a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion or school). At that time, 40 were iden­ti­fied.^[9]

[edit] Current state of the practice

Virtual vol­un­teer­ing has been adopted by at least a few thou­sand non­profit thou­sand orga­ni­za­tions and ini­tia­tives.^[10] There is no orga­ni­za­tion cur­rently track­ing best prac­tices in online vol­un­teer­ing in the USA or world­wide, how many peo­ple are engaged in online vol­un­teer­ing, or how many orga­ni­za­tions are involv­ing online vol­un­teers, and stud­ies regard­ing vol­un­teer­ing, such as reports on vol­un­teer­ing trends in the USA, rarely include infor­ma­tion about online vol­un­teer­ing (for instance, a search of the term vir­tual vol­un­teer­ing on the Corporation for National Service’s “Volunteering in America” yields no results.^[11])

The United Nations runs an online vol­un­teer­ing ser­vice, for­merly a part of NetAid, that allows orga­ni­za­tions work­ing in or for the devel­op­ing world to recruit online vol­un­teers, and does have sta­tis­tics avail­able regard­ing num­bers of online vol­un­teers and orga­ni­za­tions involv­ing such through its ser­vice. Several other match­ing ser­vices, such as VolunteerMatch and Idealist, also offer vir­tual vol­un­teer­ing posi­tions with non­profit orga­ni­za­tions in addi­tion to tra­di­tional, onsite vol­un­teer­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. VolunteerMatch cur­rently reports that around 5 per­cent of its active vol­un­teer list­ings are vir­tual in nature. As of June 2010, its direc­tory included more than 2,770 such list­ings includ­ing roles in inter­ac­tive mar­ket­ing, fundrais­ing, account­ing, social media, and busi­ness men­tor­ing. The per­cent­age of vir­tual list­ings has dropped since 2006, when it peaked at close to 8 per­cent of over­all vol­un­teer oppor­tu­ni­ties in the VolunteerMatch system.

Wikipedia and other Wikimedia endeav­ors are exam­ples of online vol­un­teer­ing, in the form of crowd­sourc­ing; the major­ity of Wikipedia con­tribut­ing vol­un­teers aren’t required to undergo any screen­ing or train­ing by the non­profit for their role as researchers, writ­ers or edi­tors, and do not have to make a spe­cific time com­mit­ment to the orga­ni­za­tion in order to con­tribute service.

Micro-volunteering is also an exam­ple of vir­tual vol­un­teer­ing and crowd-sourcing, where vol­un­teers under­take assign­ments via their PDAs or smart­phones. These vol­un­teers aren’t required to undergo any screen­ing or train­ing by the non­profit for such tasks, and do not have to make any other com­mit­ment once a micro-task is com­pleted.^[12] Micro-volunteering was invented by a San Francisco-based social enter­prise called The Extraordinaries in 2008.^[13][14][15]

[edit] See also

• Volunteer
• Telecommuting
• Online tutor­ing
• Online men­tor­ing
• Virtual man­age­ment

[edit] References

1. ^ “What are exam­ples of vir­tual vol­un­teer­ing?”. AIDSvolunteers.ca. http://www.aidsvolunteers.ca/vvfacts/general.html#examples. Retrieved 5 October 2009. 
2. ^ “exam­ples of vir­tual vol­un­teer­ing”. University of Texas at Austin. http://www.serviceleader.org/old/vv/examples.html. Retrieved 5 October 2009. 
3. ^ “Make a Difference From Home: Be a Virtual Volunteer”. theextraordinaries.org. http://www.theextraordinaries.org/2008/11/make-a-difference-from-home-be-a-virtual-volunteer.html. Retrieved 5 October 2009. 
4. ^ Cravens, Jayne (Spring 2007). “Online Volunteering Enters Middle Age — And Changes Management Paradigms”. Nonprofit Quarterly (Nonprofit Quarterly). 
5. ^ Green, Marc (Fall, 1995). “Fundraising in Cyberspace: Direct E-Mail Campaigns, Virtual Volunteers, Annual Fund Drives Online. Does the Information Superhighway lead to new hori­zons or a dead end?”. The Grantsmanship Center Magazine (The Grantsmanship Center). 
6. ^ Cravens, Jayne (February 2001). “who funds the vir­tual vol­un­teer­ing project?”. The Virtual Volunteering Project (University of Texas at Austin). 
7. ^ Cravens, Jayne (April 2001). “related resources”. The Virtual Volunteering Project (University of Texas at Austin). 
8. ^ Cravens, Jayne (February 2001). “Virtual Volunteering Project”. The Virtual Volunteering Project (University of Texas at Austin). 
9. ^ Cravens, Jayne (February 2001). “[http://www.serviceleader.org/old/vv/orgs/mentor.html agen­cies and ini­tia­tives that involve online vol­un­teers as men­tors or tutors]”. The Virtual Volunteering Project (University of Texas at Austin). 
10. ^ Cravens, Jayne (Spring 2007). “Online Volunteering Enters Middle Age — And Changes Management Paradigms”. Nonprofit Quarterly (Nonprofit Quarterly). 
11. ^ volunteeringinamerica.gov. Retrieved 09/24/2009.
12. ^ http://nonprofit.about.com/od/volunteers/a/microvol.htm
13. ^ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106118736
14. ^ http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Responsible-Tech/2009/0804/smart-phone-app-lets-you-do-good-deeds-in-your-spare-time
15. ^ http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/assignment_7&id=7162300

[edit] External links

• The Virtual Volunteering Project
• The Virtual Volunteering Guidebook
• Virtual Volunteer oppor­tu­ni­ties at VolunteerMatch.org

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_volunteering”

Categories: Volunteerism | Community Service | Civil soci­ety | Free labor | Philanthropy | Giving

Hidden cat­e­gories: Wikipedia arti­cles with pos­si­ble con­flicts of inter­est from March 2010

This is a great idea for non-profits. I won­der how one finds vol­un­teers? This is some­thing that I want to dis­cover.
Bruce Whealton
http://brucewhealton.us