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Ability OnLine Support Network
http://209.146.155.200/public/default.htm
An electronic mail system that connects young people with disabilities or chronic illness to disabled and non-disabled peers and mentors. This network gives "wings" to thousands of children and adolescents by removing the social barriers that can come with having a disability and illness, and by providing opportunities to form friendships, build self-confidence, exchange information, and share hope and encouragement through e-mail messages.

 
America Online
Representatives from AOL, based in Virginia attended one of the first extensive virtual volunteering workshops, held in Virginia in 1997, to learn more and to share their own experiences working with online volunteers. AOL involves online volunteers to help manage its many online forums, and is now collaborating with the National Mentoring Partnership and the VV Project on its own online mentoring campaign.

 
Aspire²b
http://www.aspire2b.org
This is a non-profitorganization based in Augusta, Georgia. Its primary mission is to provide teenagers with a structured means of "thinking about and planning for their lives." The organization utilizes web communities, print, and broadcast media to accomplish its goals. The organization sponsors an online mentoring program, and its web site includes mentor guidelines and information about the screening of volunteers, and a mentor's kit to train volunteers for their mentoring activities.

 
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Bucks County (Pennsylvania)
Internet Mentoring Program
http://www.bbbsbc.org
This local affiliate in Bucks County, Pennsylvania launched its online program in the Fall of 1999 to bring together online adults and students from a local middle school. During the 2000-01 school year, the program is targeting students who have good grades, some basic computer ability, and at least one other risk factor in their lives (terminally ill family member, lack of support at home, new student with adjustment problems, etc.). In addition to exchanges using special e-mail addresses each week between students and mentors, the program arranges for face-to-face meetings at the initial match and at the end of the school year. Mentors are screened in the same way as the BBBS mentoring program (references check, child abuse history clearance, criminal background check, application and face-to-face interview). Online volunteer mentors complete a form each month and submit it via e-mail to the program coordinator regarding their online activities. The goals of the Internet Mentoring Program are the same as the BBBS traditional mentoring activities.

 
Boggy Creek Gang Camp
http://www.boggycreek.org
This agency is Eustis, Florida serves young people with disabilities in a variety of activities. Many participants are involved in Convomania (see below)

 
California State Telemation Program - Telementor Projects
http://www.etc.sccoe.k12.ca.us/telemat/telemat.htm
A list of 19 telementoring projects undertaken in the California school system in 1996 as part of its "Telemation" program, with details on the curricular category each project covered (art, language, social studies, mathmatics, technology, etc.), the telecommunication resources used in each project (Internet newsgroups, e-mail, gophers, a particular software program, etc.) and the contact information for each project. A good resource for teachers looking for telementoring activities.

 
Coalition for Positive Sexuality
http://www.positive.org
This national organization, based in Chicago, Illinois, works to distribute sex education materials and frank advice to young people, and have resident "sexperts" who answer questions by phone and e-mail.

 
ConvoNation (formerly known as Convomania)
http://www.convonation.org
Based in Calfifornia, this national endeavor was begun by Apple Computer as a way for kids with a serious illness and/or disability to share experiences with each other via the Internet. They worked in partnership with San Jose Children's Musical Theater to produce an original musical about youth with disabilities.

 
Cyberangels
http://www.cyberangels.org
A national program begun in 1995 by the Guardian Angels and based in New York City, it's the largest online safety and educational program in cyberspace. Its mission is to help create a user-friendly and safe online surfing experience for everyone. Cyberangels involves online volunteers in a variety of activities, including: Angels Match (mentoring young people), CyberMoms (monitoring cyber-playgrounds and parenting resources), Net Patrol (patrolling the Internet looking for child pornography, stalkers, child predators, groups advocating child abuse and pedophilia, scam artists and, working with other child advocacy groups compiling and updating lists of sites harmful to children), and Teen Angels (helping to build and maintain a fun and safe place to "hang-out," teach the younger kids , and learn important skills). Their screening and online safety systems for online volunteers are fully outlined on the Cyberangels site and are models for any organization looking to match volunteers with clients or potentially vulnerable populations online.

 
Cyberspace Seniors/InterAge CyberPals Classroom Project
http://aztec.asu.edu/cyberspaceseniors/CSS01.html
This pilot project based in Tucson, Arizona brought together teachers, students and seniors to engage in "Curriculum and Casual Correspondence" via e-mail. "I send weekly e-mail reports to the adults and also manage a discussion roster in which the adults express their thoughts about the Programs successes and failures," says the project director, Martha Gore. "I keep in close touch with the adults to make sure they understand how important their contributions are in the lives of these students, some of whom come from rather sad home environments."

 
Digital Clubhouse Network
http://www.digiclub.org
A not-for-profit organization, spun out from NASA, that is developing a 21st century learning center where people of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds can master networked multimedia technology tools. The Network maintains a Digital Clubhouses in Sunnyvale, California and at the New York Information Technology Center in Wall Street. One of the Clubhouse activities is the Digitally Abled Producers Project, http://dap.digiclub.org/, which pairs youth with disabilities ages 14-24 together with youth without disabilities, and teaches them multimedia, Universally Accessible webpage production, networking, and career skills. Participants use the Internet to communicate with each other through email and through chat rooms.

 
Digital Heroes
http://nmp.mentoring.org/dhc_people/
This online mentoring program serves youth involved in PowerUP, a nonprofit organization working to help America's underserved young people acquire the skills, experiences and resources they need to succeed in the digital age. PowerUP has technology centers around the U.S., many of them in public schools and working in partnership with other organizations and programs. The brand new Digital Heroes online mentoring program connects youth in PowerUP with employees of America Online (the primary sponsor of PowerUP) and with celebrity "notables" recruited by People Magazine. Online exchanges take place through a special password-protected web site created by America Online, and exchanges are supervised by the PowerUP site managers. Much of the online training materials for mentors and managers in this program was written by the Virtual Volunteering Project, with additional materials supplied by the National Mentoring Partnership. The VV Project and NMP will use data from this program to help encourage online mentoring in other programs and organizations throughout the U.S., and the VV Project will share learnings and tips from the launch and management of this program via the online mentoring resources section of its web site.

 
DO-IT/Camp Courage
http://www.washington.edu/doit/Camps/courage.html
Campers with disabilities, from 13 to 17 years old, corresponded with volunteers via e-mail. The goal was for campers to practice using e-mail and to get comfortable using it to communicate with others, and to have fun socializing online. DO-IT is based out of the University of Washington and works to help people with disabilities successfully pursue academics and careers. It's programs to promote the use of technology to maximize the independence, productivity and participation of people with disabilities.

 
Electronic Emissary Project
http://emissary.ots.utexas.edu/emissary/
A very successful, well-documented, nationally recognized online mentoring program, based at the University of Texas at Austin. The Project helps teachers locate volunteers for purposes of arranging curriculum-based, electronic exchanges between their students and online mentors; offers a secured, supervised e-mail-based systems for student and mentor interactions; documents school-based online mentoring programs around the U.S.; and offers a great deal of advice for educators interested in setting up school-based programs. We refer to their best practices frequently on the Virtual Volunteering Project site.

 
Girlstart (formerly SmartGrrls)
http://www.girlstart.org
This nonprofit organization based in Austin, Texas was one of the VV Projects Affiliates, and our web site features a very detailed profile of this organization and how it has involved online volunteers, including information on its virtual "Take Our Daughters to Work" Day.

 
Haskell University / Santa Clara Day School E-Mail Mentoring Project
Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, this project focused on bringing together Native American elementary-school kids in Espanola, New Mexico with college students attending Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas, via the Internet. The class chatted once a week with Haskell education majors studying mulit-media technology in the classroom. Initial exchanges involved informal talks about musical tastes, favorite hobbies, etc. Later, the class worked with Haskell mentors on collaborative projects. The project was part of on integrating Native American culture and technology ">4Directions, which focuses on integrating Native American culture and technology .

 
HP E-Mail Mentor program
http://mentor.external.hp.com/
A program by Hewlett Packard, whose corporate headquarters are in California. Web site includes links to K-12 resources (science, math, online libraries, etc.) to assist both mentors and mentees in their work, and links to other online mentoring programs.

 
iMentor
http://www.imentor.org
Serving the New York City metropolitan area, this non-profit Internet-based mentoring program provides young people from underserved communities with adult mentors, the opportunity to explore career options, and basic technological literacy training. Although communication takes place primarily on-line, iMentor also schedules occasional events where mentors and students can interact face-to-face. "We conduct three telephone reference checks, a telephone interview with the mentor, and a police background check of every mentor," says Richard Buery, Executive Director of the agency. "We communicate extensively with prospective mentors through telephone and email." His advice for agencies interested in virtual volunteering: "You must treat on-line volunteers as you would traditional volunteers. Volunteers need to be managed, trained, recognized, and appreciated."

 
Glaucoma Research Foundation
National organization based in San Francisco, California
Detailed profile of this organization

 
Information Access
(formerly the Science, Engineering, and Math (SEM) Program)
ee.udel.edu/InfoAccess/
This University of Delaware-based effort sponsors numerous ongoing telementoring projects, including Scientopia http://www.ee.udel.edu/InfoAccess/Scientopia/, an online community consisting of students, mentors, and advocates who are interested in actively discussing issues in education, research, careers, and news developments with a special emphasis on the sciences and disability; the Math Mania Contest; Science Serendipity Contest; and Student Cyberfairs.

 
International Telementor Center
http://www.telementor.org/
Based out of Fort Collins, Colorado, this is a new program to help corporations create telementoring programs similar to the HP E-Mail Mentor program (see above).

 
Macdonald Youth Services (MYS)
http://www.mys.mb.ca/volunter/howcont.html
This organization in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada has provided children and their families with a range of treatment and support services since 1929. MYS uses the Internet to recruit onsite volunteers, involves online volunteers (including some from the United States) in assignments that assist staff (web site building, database creation, online research, desktop publishing, etc.), and is expanding its own virtual tutoring program. An outline of MYS's screening process and online application and other forms are available on its web site.

 
Math Forum's Ask Dr. Math
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/dr.math
A question and answer service for K-12 math students and their teachers. Students submit questions to Dr. Math by filling out the Web form or by sending in e-mail. Answers (by Swarthmore College math students acting as "Dr. Math") are sent back by e-mail, and these questions and answers are gathered into an online searchable archive organized by grade level (elementary, middle school, high school) and topic (exponents, infinity, polynomials, etc.). There are also materials for math teachers to use.

 
McGraw-Hill Signature Program with NCEE
http://www.mcgraw-hill.com/philanthropy/index.html
In November 1997, the McGraw-Hill Companies, based in New York City, launched the Signature Program with the National Council on Economic Education, an organization addressing economic literacy, as one fulfillment of the McGraw-Hill commitment to America's Promise. The partnership focused on young people to strengthen their levels of economic literacy, and involved a virtual componant to match teachers and classrooms with online volunteers from McGraw-Hill Companies.

 
Micron Technology's E-Mail Mentoring Program
http://www.micron.com/education/mentoring/mentoring.html
Women in technical careers at Micron Technology, Inc. in Boise, Idaho organized this program with junior high school science and math teachers to connect with female students and encourage them to consider technical careers (girls in the 6th grade and even into the 7th grade often have strong skills and high interest in math and science, but that interest begins to dwindle in 8th grade, and by high school young women often switched to non-science courses and non-technical career interests). This web site documents their efforts, from conception to the completion of the pilot program. The site includes the program's mentor application packet, the approval process, sample teacher, student and parent surveys and evaluations, mentor guidelines, and a summary of the program to date.

 
National Lekotek Center
http://www.lekotek.org
and http://www.meaf.org/lekotek.html
The Center sponsors Compuplay Summer Camp and CompuClub in Illinois each year, providing computer instruction to children with and without disabilities in a recreational setting. The camp included a "virtual volunteers" program, where volunteers served as online "wizards", answering children's messages about computers and technology.

 
Native Academy
Middle and high school Native American students are receiving help in math and science from online mentors, according to the article "Web-based volunteering new way to help out" by the Philanthropy Journal. In this article, school director Graham Hartley said most of their online volunteers have been solicited by word of mouth through the local community. The academy is part of Migizi Communications of Minnesota, a nonprofit providing services to the American Indian community.

 
Progressive Learning
http://www.progressivelearning.com
An online program in California assisting students who require help and attention beyond the resources of their schools and families. In addition to receiving intensive one-on-one face-to-face instruction, students also engage in ongoing mentoring from a personal Academic Coach and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) via the Internet. Coaches and SMEs work with individual classroom teachers to meet specific goals and objectives. SMEs, working as online mentors, describe to students the typical working conditions advantages, drawbacks, academic prerequisites, etc., associated with their work. The mentors also make recommendations to help students pursue career goals. A once weekly exchange of e-mail is the typical scenario.

 
reach4it.com
http://www.reach4it.com/
For young women aged 12-18 to exchange ideas, hear the voices of their peers and connect online with women mentors. It also has a program to match adult women in mentor/mentee relationships online around a variety of issues -- career, self-esteem, body image, etc. The organization is based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (but is open to participants globally), and was formerly Women Helping Women International and its "Take Aim" program.

 
San Jose Children's Musical Theater
http://www.sjcmt.com
This nonprofit organization based in California was one of the VV Projects Affiliates, and our web site features a very detailed profile of this organization and how it has involved online volunteers.

 
Sanchez Elementary School Online Mentoring Program
In cooperation with the Virtual Volunteering Project, this pilot program brings together online mentors from all over the U.S. with fourth graders at this elementary school in Austin, Texas. Online activities focus primarily on reading and writing, and on establishing a positive, trusting relationship between online adult volunteers and the students. The program also hopes to increase positive feelings about technology from the point of view of all participants -- students, teachers, mentors and parents. "Mentoring is connection -- it brings people together. Mentors give, but also receiving something in return. This can also be said about the Internet: Cyberspace is connection -- it brings people together. Internet users both give and take online. We hope that this program will provide all participants, mentors and youth alike, with meaningful human connections." Mentors have been screened via reference checks and online applications; all e-mails from adults are read by a program director before being forwarded to the students, and no "real" e-mail addresses are used (to insure there's no way to communicate outside the program's password-protected interactive web site). Teachers communicate with mentors regularly to suggest topics of discussion with the students, and incorporate the writing of e-mails to mentors into the student's class work and computer lab time. The project was designed adhering to the VV Projects suggestions for initial first steps for those considering setting up a direct contact service component involving online volunteers, and our suggested online safety standards. With additional funding, the online materials used by this program to screen and train mentors, which were based on a variety of resources and other online mentoring programs, will be shared via the Virtual Volunteering Project web site in early 2001.

 
STARBRIGHT World
http://www.starbright.org/projects/sbw/index.html
A private, interactive computer network where hospitalized kids from across the nation can interact with a community of their peers, helping each other cope with the day-to-day realities of living with illness. Kids learn about illnesses, procedures and coping and learn the definitions of difficult terms. STARBRIGHT World is available in hospitals nationwide, and there is a list of these hospitals on the STARBRIGHT World Web site.

 
Telementoring Young Women in Science, Engineering, and Computing
http://www.edc.org/CCT/telementoring/docs/mentors.html
This was a three-year project of EDC/Center for Children & Technology and was funded by the National Science Foundation, Directorate of Education and Human Resources. This project has been discontinued, but the Web site is still up and includes extensive online resources for both mentors and teachers.

 
YouthOrg UK
http://www.youth.org.uk
In Aldershot, Hants, United Kingdom, YouthOrg UK's virtual community and web site are entirely managed, developed and published by volunteers. Online volunteers also maintain a Web-based bulletin board, answer technical inquiries and design graphics. "Peer to peer education is probably the best way to describe this relationship between the volunteers," says Mark Harding, founder of the organization. Mark says the factors that contribute to the success of his online programs are "praising volunteers," "ensuring their volunteering work is seen by other potential volunteers," and "ensuring the content of the web site is written in a level the youth workers and young people can relate to." He says two of the biggest obstacles are that potential volunteers "fear they need to be an Internet genius to contribute" and potential volunteers giving inacurate e-mail addresses when they sign up to help.

 
Youth Trust e-Mentoring
http://www.youthtrust.org
This nonprofit brings together schools, employers and community resources in Minneapolis, Minnesota to help youth develop marketable skills. Youth Trust's activities include setting up e-mentoring programs between businesses and Minneapolis public schools, such as the Cargill, Inc. and Olson Middle School E-mail Mentoring Program. Youth Trust first piloted its e-Mentoring model in 1995 with Norstan Communications and Franklin Middle School in North Minneapolis. More than 1700 students participated in Youth Trust e-Mentoring programs in 2000. Youth Trust helps recruit business and school partners for e-mentoring programs, then the key contact at each business and school takes over in screening (including background checks) and matching online mentors to students, setting and communicating activities for the program, and so forth. Mentors and students send weekly e-mail messages, which are guided by curriculum and the teacher. Each school year there are several face-to-face meetings between e-mentors and students. Volunteers go through a one-hour onsite orientation and training that outlines the policies of the e-mentoring. Kate Hopper at Youth Trusts advises online mentors: "Be patient and know that you are making a difference. It's sometimes hard for people who aren't able to see the student. They don't understand the impact they are actually having."