Engaging volunteers ‘virtually’

How can organisations harness the web to turn supporters into fully-fledged volunteers?

In the past few years civil society organisations have become increasingly effective in using online tools to support their fundraising and campaigning activities. Hosted email systems make highly targeted communication with supporters easy and deliver vital insights about audience attitudes and behaviour. Great efforts have also been made in optimising the donor ‘journey’ to maximise fundraising return.

While many organisations are playing catch-up, there are loads of examples of good practice across the sector. For me, the new challenge is how organisations can use the internet to develop potentially more valuable forms of engagement with their supporters by leveraging the expertise, enthusiasm, and free time of willing volunteers.

Cognitive surplus

New media expert Clay Shirky has coined the phrase ‘cognitive surplus‘ to describe this concept, and argues that this is a huge untapped resource that we are only just starting to realise the potential of. He observes that

‘Americans alone watch about 200bn hours of television a year, which represents about 2,000 times the total human hours that have gone so far into creating Wikipedia’.

The internet has been the catalyst for people migrating from passive forms of entertainment to the more social, interactive and arguably more meaningful. With 2 billion people online across the world and more than 3 billion with mobile phones, this presents an opportunity. But who is helping to bridge the gap between the civil society organisations and the willing ‘virtual’ volunteers?

Sparked

Sparked is a ‘micro-volunteering network’ that help non-profits access free help with creative design, marketing, strategy, media, tech and more. Their model combines self-contained small projects for volunteers with a ‘crowd-sourcing’ approach that seeks to get input from many people.

Idealist.org

This is a portal for individuals and organisations interested in human rights, the environment, and development. As well as jobs, internships and traditional volunteer options, Idealist.org is the home for a wide range of ‘virtual’ placements that allow supporters of a cause to contribute from anywhere.

UN Online Volunteers

This site allows visitors to choose from a range of tasks (such as ‘Writing and editing’ or ‘Research’), development topics, and regions to find a project that suits them. So whether you want to develop a human rights programme in Uganda or help translate a youth magazine into French for a Togo based NGO, you will find the right project here.

Will it work?

For me, the quality of the brief is absolutely crucial. Organisations that provide clearly defined projects and that are realistic about the skills and time commitment required of the volunteer are likely to see genuine benefit. Open-ended or nebulous projects will end in tears. Attracting the right volunteers is also crucial, so the onus will be on the marketing and communications teams to promote the benefits of volunteering to new and existing supporters.

Our experience

We experienced the value of engaging volunteers online through our project to redevelop the Mencap website.  A key component of the new site was the forums, which were designed to offer parents and carers a sympathetic space in which they could discuss all aspects of supporting people with a learning disability.  As well as people coming for advice, the forums provided a focal point for volunteers who had been through the same experiences and felt that they could offer sympathetic and constructive support online.