What's New
With Jayne
& Coyote Communications /
Coyote Broad
The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook
available as a paperback & an ebook
Whether you are brand new to virtual volunteering or you
already have some experience, you will find this book packed
with helpful, detailed information regarding task design,
supervision and support, recognition, safety, evaluation and
more. Also helpful to those creating or expanding online
mentoring programs. Read the
reviews
Note: I have a
series of videos about virtual volunteering that
altogether, in less than an hour, provide a
robust video introduction to virtual volunteering,
to rapidly introducing or expanding roles and activities for
online volunteers. These videos are freely available, on-demand.
Happy New Year!
For the first time in many months, I've created a new resource on my web site for nonprofits: How Your Nonprofit Can Have a Wikipedia Page (& if it can't, why not). Not every nonprofit, NGO, charity, cause-based initaitive, etc., needs a Wikipedia page. And not every nonprofit will qualify to have a Wikipedia page. But if you feel your nonprofit deserves a Wikipedia page, or you want certain Wikipedia pages to mention your nonprofit or some prominent person associated with your nonprofit, this resource is for you. As someone that's created more than a dozen Wikipedia pages that have not been deleted, I know what I'm talking about.
You may have already noticed some changes to my web site - that I'm not updating certain sections anymore, like the section on addressing misinformation in community and humanitarian initiatives, Or the pages on database management for nonprofits. A lot of information on those pages is timeless - that's the primary reason I'm keeping them up even though I'm no longer updating them, because I think they are still helpful. Another is that I think they might be helpful to academics. But I'm scaling back which sections of my web site I'm updating because it's just to much effort, entirely unfunded, to keep them up-to-date. I'm focusing more these days on my paid work and on my travels and personal interests.
I have every intention of continuing to update most of my content regarding communications for nonprofits and volunteer engagement, as well as my advice for volunteers or people who want to volunteer. And you can continue to find me almost daily on various social media channels.
You can find me online on these social media channels (and I update them far more than I do my web site):
I have substantially updated some of the social media management advice pages on my web site, as the social media landscape has changed so drastically in the last year in particular:
Nonprofit Organizations, NGOs, Charities & Online Social Networking: Advice for Getting Started or to Keep Going.
There are a lot of nonprofits using social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, the site formerly known as Twitter, BlueSky, Mastodon) and online communities just like they use their web sites: to post to press releases or event announcements, just as a one-way form of communication. And if that's how your nonprofit, NGO or government agency is using social media, then your organization is missing out on most of the benefits you could gain from such, like new donors and volunteers, returning donors and volunteers, greater awareness in your community regarding your work, etc. Social media platforms are all about engagement. This guide is meant to help you know what you should be doing, at minimum, to manage your organization's social media activities - even if you are an all-volunteer organization with a tiny budget.
Daily, Mandatory, Minimal Tasks for Nonprofits on Social Media.
There are certain tasks that a nonprofit, NGO, government agency or other mission-based organization should be doing every day, or most every day, on social media to make using such worthwhile: to build trust in your work, to attract more volunteers and financial donors, to keep your current volunteers and financial donors, to attract media attention, and to ensure your organization is seen as relevant and credible by elected officials and the general public. That's what this page is for. I broke these must-do tasks down into the most simple, basic list as possible - these tasks take minutes, not hours, a day.
I did a webinar for the Beyond Africa Podcast in August (on YouTube) about careers in international development, including the United Nations. Here is a link to the resources I referred to in this webinar, as well as the slides - I compiled all of my resources regarding how to work abroad or how to volunteer abroad and put them all on this page for the webinar.
July, August & September 2024 blogs
PRICE DROP on The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook paperback!! I have less than 10 paperback copies left and once these are gone, they are GONE, and the paperback book will be available only at Amazon for a higher price!
Affirmation that this is web site is created & managed by a human (and why you should post a similar affirmation on your web site and create a public statement on how you use artificial intelligence).
In June, I will be the keynote speaker at the Volunteer Engagement Leadership Conference, hosted by Minnesota Alliance for Volunteer Advancement (MAVA). This is my first in-person speaking engagement since before the COVID pandemic! More about my workshops and speeches and how you can book me.
My two part time jobs and several personal projects have resulted in my not updating my online channels as much as I have in the past. Some things I've been up to:
Almost two years ago, a colleague of mine was able to flee Afghanistan, along with a few female members of her family. She's now living in a country that has granted her long-term temporary asylum. It should be a happy ending - but the reality is that, for so many refugees, it's not. My colleague has shared her story about the profound challenges she is facing, and so many are common to other refugees,
On a personal note, in September, I toured Vancouver Island and parts of mainland British Columbia by motorcycle (Oh, Canada!)
I'm now blogging just twice a month.
Our Lady of the Manifest: the icon for a very particular community of online volunteers
Finding people, organizations & topics to follow on the Fediverse
What is meant by “safety policies” for volunteering programs?
What I’ve learned working at Habitat for Humanity
For Executive Directors: It’s Time for Mandates Regarding Volunteering Engagement.
Volunteering, or that meeting you are going to host, must sound enticing & compelling or people won’t care (our post-pandemic reality).
The problem with volunteer matching platforms isn’t a software issue
Abilities you need to work in humanitarian development successfully
March & April blogs
UN Volunteer requirements – but with no guidance?
Should you leave Twitter & Facebook for the fediverse?
The delicate, peculiar task of promoting a charity’s gala
How nonprofits can leverage LinkedIn
Social media is losing its influence for nonprofits – what to do?
Is trauma while volunteering abroad inevitable?
In-person / on-site work & meetings automatically better than online? NOPE!
AI: great for simplistic poems about virtual volunteering, not so great for biographies.
Payment required.
Earliest articles and print references to virtual
volunteering - new ones found!
I no longer update the Virtual Volunteering Wiki, mostly due to lack of funding. But I was granted a free subscription to newspapers.com and I decided to do a new search on the earliest mentions of the term virtual volunteering, and references to the practice that don't use the term. You can see the earliest articles, from the early 1990s, here. Just more proof that virtual volunteering is NOT new - and hasn't been for decades.
January & February blogs
Corporate employees are often not successful at virtual volunteering. Why?
When volunteering is bad for your mental health.
Love for NGOs in Belize.
You can volunteer to address the critical needs of refugees IN YOUR OWN COMMUNITY.
For Your Volunteers, Is Help Just a Phone Call or Text Away?.
Online spaces reflect your onsite vibes? What about vice versa?.
Your biases in screening volunteers.
Volunteer engagement could help address negativity that rose in recent years..
Most popular blogs of 2022.
January 2025
Happy New Year!
For the first time in many months, I've created a new resource on my web site for nonprofits: How Your Nonprofit Can Have a Wikipedia Page (& if it can't, why not). Not every nonprofit, NGO, charity, cause-based initaitive, etc., needs a Wikipedia page. And not every nonprofit will qualify to have a Wikipedia page. But if you feel your nonprofit deserves a Wikipedia page, or you want certain Wikipedia pages to mention your nonprofit or some prominent person associated with your nonprofit, this resource is for you. As someone that's created more than a dozen Wikipedia pages that have not been deleted, I know what I'm talking about.
You may have already noticed some changes to my web site - that I'm not updating certain sections anymore, like the section on addressing misinformation in community and humanitarian initiatives, Or the pages on database management for nonprofits. A lot of information on those pages is timeless - that's the primary reason I'm keeping them up even though I'm no longer updating them, because I think they are still helpful. Another is that I think they might be helpful to academics. But I'm scaling back which sections of my web site I'm updating because it's just to much effort, entirely unfunded, to keep them up-to-date. I'm focusing more these days on my paid work and on my travels and personal interests.
I have every intention of continuing to update most of my content regarding communications for nonprofits and volunteer engagement, as well as my advice for volunteers or people who want to volunteer. And you can continue to find me almost daily on various social media channels.
You can find me online on these social media channels (and I update them far more than I do my web site):
December 2024
I have substantially updated some of the social media management advice pages on my web site, as the social media landscape has changed so drastically in the last year in particular:
Nonprofit Organizations, NGOs, Charities & Online Social Networking: Advice for Getting Started or to Keep Going.
There are a lot of nonprofits using social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, the site formerly known as Twitter, BlueSky, Mastodon) and online communities just like they use their web sites: to post to press releases or event announcements, just as a one-way form of communication. And if that's how your nonprofit, NGO or government agency is using social media, then your organization is missing out on most of the benefits you could gain from such, like new donors and volunteers, returning donors and volunteers, greater awareness in your community regarding your work, etc. Social media platforms are all about engagement. This guide is meant to help you know what you should be doing, at minimum, to manage your organization's social media activities - even if you are an all-volunteer organization with a tiny budget.
Daily, Mandatory, Minimal Tasks for Nonprofits on Social Media.
There are certain tasks that a nonprofit, NGO, government agency or other mission-based organization should be doing every day, or most every day, on social media to make using such worthwhile: to build trust in your work, to attract more volunteers and financial donors, to keep your current volunteers and financial donors, to attract media attention, and to ensure your organization is seen as relevant and credible by elected officials and the general public. That's what this page is for. I broke these must-do tasks down into the most simple, basic list as possible - these tasks take minutes, not hours, a day.
October, November & December 2024 blogs
- Be
Kind After You Read the First Draft
- Folks
need post-election reassurances from your nonprofit –
here’s what to say
- No
excuses: give employees & volunteers all the time
they need to vote tomorrow
- Webinar:
Careers in International Development
- Yes,
you CAN get experience for entry level UN positions in
your own community
August 2024
I did a webinar for the Beyond Africa Podcast in August (on YouTube) about careers in international development, including the United Nations. Here is a link to the resources I referred to in this webinar, as well as the slides - I compiled all of my resources regarding how to work abroad or how to volunteer abroad and put them all on this page for the webinar.
July, August & September 2024 blogs
- The
truth about working from home
- Be
careful using Canva – nonprofit graphics are starting to
all look the same!
- Quick tip for your nonprofit if it uses Google Workspaces (formerly Google Drive)
- Nonprofits: be honest with yourself, your staff & the public about how the November 2024 elections may affect you
- The endangered women left behind in Afghanistan
- Web Sites Still Matter
July 2024
PRICE DROP on The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook paperback!! I have less than 10 paperback copies left and once these are gone, they are GONE, and the paperback book will be available only at Amazon for a higher price!
May 2024
Affirmation that this is web site is created & managed by a human (and why you should post a similar affirmation on your web site and create a public statement on how you use artificial intelligence).
In June, I will be the keynote speaker at the Volunteer Engagement Leadership Conference, hosted by Minnesota Alliance for Volunteer Advancement (MAVA). This is my first in-person speaking engagement since before the COVID pandemic! More about my workshops and speeches and how you can book me.
April, May & June 2024 blogs
- A new online community: Tech4Causes
- UNV 2023 Annual report
- Arts Organizations Have Always Been Masters of Customer Relations & Data Management
- what theatre taught me about management & internal communications
- Mandatory community service can be amazing for the “voluntolds”
- No foolin’: Things to do now so you don’t leave your best work behind when you leave an employer
March 2024
My two part time jobs and several personal projects have resulted in my not updating my online channels as much as I have in the past. Some things I've been up to:
- In February, I joined colleagues from Habitat for Humanity to advocate to members of Congress for more support for affordable housing,
- In January, I went to Guatemala for two weeks to tour parts of the country by motorcycle.
- In November, I went to Kentucky for personal reasons, but it resulted in me getting a dulcimer for Christmas, and learning to play a dulcimer, and continuing to learn to play piano and guitar, have proven more interesting than updaing this web site regularly.
January, February & March 2024 blogs
- How
to
avoid scams in volunteering
- Are you using your own smartphone or other devices in your work or volunteering activities? Is your employer aware?
- My
first experience lobbying in Washington, DC!
- Getting great photos for your nonprofit’s marketing needs takes planning.
- Why you need to focus on your own media literacy – & a New Year’s Resolution idea
September, October, & November 2023 blogs
- How high is your bar for volunteer commitment?
- free/discounted apps/tech tools that every nonprofit should know about
- We’ve got to get better at addressing misconceptions about volunteerism.
- A dare for nonprofit executive director
- Keys to Success in That Project / Process / Disruption You Want to Introduce
- Artificial Intelligence – friend or foe for nonprofits?
September 2023
Almost two years ago, a colleague of mine was able to flee Afghanistan, along with a few female members of her family. She's now living in a country that has granted her long-term temporary asylum. It should be a happy ending - but the reality is that, for so many refugees, it's not. My colleague has shared her story about the profound challenges she is facing, and so many are common to other refugees,
On a personal note, in September, I toured Vancouver Island and parts of mainland British Columbia by motorcycle (Oh, Canada!)
May, June, July & August 2023 blogs
I'm now blogging just twice a month.
Our Lady of the Manifest: the icon for a very particular community of online volunteers
Finding people, organizations & topics to follow on the Fediverse
What is meant by “safety policies” for volunteering programs?
What I’ve learned working at Habitat for Humanity
For Executive Directors: It’s Time for Mandates Regarding Volunteering Engagement.
Volunteering, or that meeting you are going to host, must sound enticing & compelling or people won’t care (our post-pandemic reality).
The problem with volunteer matching platforms isn’t a software issue
Abilities you need to work in humanitarian development successfully
April 2023
March & April blogs
UN Volunteer requirements – but with no guidance?
Should you leave Twitter & Facebook for the fediverse?
The delicate, peculiar task of promoting a charity’s gala
How nonprofits can leverage LinkedIn
Social media is losing its influence for nonprofits – what to do?
Is trauma while volunteering abroad inevitable?
In-person / on-site work & meetings automatically better than online? NOPE!
AI: great for simplistic poems about virtual volunteering, not so great for biographies.
Payment required.
Please note that I cannot do pro bono consulting:
custom workshops, evaluating your proposal or software,
brainstorm ideas for you new program, write a chapter for your
book, evaluate your CV, etc. Consulting is my job, my
livelihood, and neither my mortgage company nor the grocery
store I frequent accept volunteering hours as payment - I need
to be compensated for my consulting time. I have free
workshops on my YouTube
channel, including an introduction to virtual
volunteering. All of the materials on my web site are
free, including my My
Volunteer Management Resources are organized like
the chapters of a book on volunteer management, so for
whatever issue you are facing - lack of volunteers, high
volunteer turnover, lack of diversity, etc. - the answer is
likely there. I hate to have to be this blunt, but please
don't ask me to donate my consulting services. If you can't
find something on my web site, by all means, email me and ask.
If you have a question, by all meas, ask. But just as you
wouldn't ask for a plumber or electrician or lawyer to work
for free, please don't ask me to. In fact, I really hope you
will consider
financially supporting this web site and my work.
Note:
I'm available for a limited number of training, presenting and short-term consulting gigs in 2023 starting in early June (I am unavailable for anything other than a short online presentation until then). I have an ongoing part-time position that I hope to continue to do through 2023 (and maybe beyond) that is my professional priority, so my time is limited. Please inquire to book me as many weeks or months in advance as possible.
Note:
I'm available for a limited number of training, presenting and short-term consulting gigs in 2023 starting in early June (I am unavailable for anything other than a short online presentation until then). I have an ongoing part-time position that I hope to continue to do through 2023 (and maybe beyond) that is my professional priority, so my time is limited. Please inquire to book me as many weeks or months in advance as possible.
I've been diversifying where I am online,
per the disturbing behavior of the new owner of Twitter. I'm
still there - but also posting much more elsewhere:
February 2023
I no longer update the Virtual Volunteering Wiki, mostly due to lack of funding. But I was granted a free subscription to newspapers.com and I decided to do a new search on the earliest mentions of the term virtual volunteering, and references to the practice that don't use the term. You can see the earliest articles, from the early 1990s, here. Just more proof that virtual volunteering is NOT new - and hasn't been for decades.
January & February blogs
Corporate employees are often not successful at virtual volunteering. Why?
When volunteering is bad for your mental health.
Love for NGOs in Belize.
You can volunteer to address the critical needs of refugees IN YOUR OWN COMMUNITY.
For Your Volunteers, Is Help Just a Phone Call or Text Away?.
Online spaces reflect your onsite vibes? What about vice versa?.
Your biases in screening volunteers.
Volunteer engagement could help address negativity that rose in recent years..
Most popular blogs of 2022.
January 2023
Happy New Year!
New:
Volunteering to help refugees in your own country. There is NO need to go to another country if you want to volunteer to help refugees - it's very likely they are right there in your country, now, even right there in your own community. And your help, as a volunteer, is urgently needed. This resource will tell you how to help. With the launch of the Welcome Corps in the USA, it's important to know what supporting newly-arrived refugees really entails.
I also am volunteering with the American Red Cross and with a local group that helps refugees, which is sharpening my skills and helping me feel more connected offline. Also learning to play piano. And traveling. In other words, busy as usual.
Since it's December, here's a reminder of why
I think December 5 should return to its roots ass
International Volunteer Day for Economic & Social
Development, as declared by the United Nations General
Assembly in a 1985 resolution.
New:
Volunteering to help refugees in your own country. There is NO need to go to another country if you want to volunteer to help refugees - it's very likely they are right there in your country, now, even right there in your own community. And your help, as a volunteer, is urgently needed. This resource will tell you how to help. With the launch of the Welcome Corps in the USA, it's important to know what supporting newly-arrived refugees really entails.
I also am volunteering with the American Red Cross and with a local group that helps refugees, which is sharpening my skills and helping me feel more connected offline. Also learning to play piano. And traveling. In other words, busy as usual.
December 2022
November & December blogs
- Most popular blogs of 2022
- The ethics of nonprofits staying on Twitter
- Young nonprofit consultants? Starting today, Halloween, don’t be afraid to CHARGE MORE.
- Executive Directors & Board Members: Get Out in Your Communities.
- An App for Good Being Derailed by An Ugly Rumor.
- Expectations for volunteering by the volunteer – too much?
October 2022
Through the rest of 2022, I'm happily VERY busy with lots of
contract work (always
fun to put my own recommendations into practice).
Also:: At the end of 2022, I will no longer be
updating the news section and the research section of the Virtual
Volunteering Wiki. It's been an unfunded project
since it was launched a decade ago, in association with the
publication of The Last
Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, one I've
struggled to keep up-to-date because my paid work has to be my
priority. The start of the COVID pandemic in the USA in 2020
meant a huge surge in news and, months later, a surge in
research. But that's
died down significantly, and after a lot of consideration,
I've decided that the end of 2022 is a good time to stop
updating those two sections. The reality is that:
- Virtual volunteering is no
longer new, innovative nor experimental. Virtual
volunteering is mainstream. When this wiki was launched,
there were already thousands of nonprofits, NGOs, charities,
community groups and government agencies involving online
volunteers, but there was a need to prove it. There was also
an ongoing need to show the varied ways organizations
involve online volunteers. But because of the global
coronavirus pandemic, virtual volunteering is now a
commonplace term and new initiatives are launched at least
weekly.
- I don't have the time nor the funding to continue. Without funding, I can't afford to subscribe to news outlets so I can read all of the stories. Also, my funded time has to take precedence over this wiki.
September & October blogs
- Young nonprofit consultants? Starting today, Halloween, don’t be afraid to CHARGE MORE.
- When some nonprofit employees & volunteers don’t really understand what the nonprofit is trying to address & why
- Finally – a FUN, worthwhile volunteering experience!
- Do your volunteers feel psychologically safe?
- Something missing on your web site?
- Nonprofits: legislation & politics are
affecting your staff & clients.
- What marketable IT skills should be taught mobile-only users?
