A free resource for nonprofit organizations, NGOs, civil society organizations,
charities, schools, public sector agencies & other mission-based agencies
by Jayne Cravens
  via coyotecommunications.com & coyoteboard.com (same web site)

Make All Volunteering as Accessible as Possible:
advantages for your program & how to do it

 
If you want access to the greatest amount of talent and resources that volunteers can possibly bring to your program, you have to make all volunteering as accessible as possible. That means looking for ways to accommodate a myriad of people who have different abilities, needs, personality types, work styles and available times for service.

Accessibility and diversity are about accommodating everyone, not just people with disabilities or people who are from minority groups. You want to make volunteering as welcoming to the widest number of people possible. - Volunteer expert Susan Ellis.

Designing for inclusivity not only opens up our products and services to more people, it also reflects how people really are. All humans grow and adapt to the world around them and we want our designs to reflect that. - Microsoft's Inclusive Design web site (accessed November 26, 2019)

There may be a fantastic web designer out there who would love to volunteer at your organization, but who also isn't very talkative and doesn't make much eye-contact and, therefore, might be seen by some as unfriendly. Is your screening process such that you would still welcome this candidate into your organization?

There may be a fantastic person with the talents, skills and time to run your new volunteer orientations, but she doesn't have a car. Do you have clear guidelines on your web site on how to get to your agency by mass transit?

There may be a fantastic writer out there who could tell stories about your organization in such a way as to move new donors to open their pocketbooks and new volunteers to sign up to help, but who also legally blind. Is your web site accessible so that that fantastic writer can read your web site and blog and online newsletter with an accessibility screen reader?

There may be a fantastic graphic designer out there who could do amazing work for your organization online and in your print material, but who also uses a wheel chair for mobility, or has no transportation to get to your work site. Could that volunteer with the mobility issues get through your front door for an interview? Would you be willing to have your mandatory interview online via Skype? Would you be willing to accommodate the volunteer through virtual volunteering?

There may be a person with a myriad of amazing skills, but she can't commit to any of your 20-hour-a-week, only-during-business-hour roles. Do you have any short-term projects she could do just one day a week, in the late afternoons?

Of course not every volunteer role can accommodate every person: a role may absolutely require a person with a clear, understandable speaking voice. Or may require someone that can carry a certain amount of weight and walk a certain distance. Or to interact regularly with other people. Or may require structural changes to a building that are too expensive for your program to afford. Or may require a volunteer to be onsite on Friday mornings. Or may require a volunteer to be calm and thoughtful in highly stressful situations and to be able to manage anxiety that can arise from such work. Or may require volunteers to be welcoming and inclusive to people of a diversity of beliefs and religions, something some people cannot do because of their own deeply held religious beliefs. If you are upfront about absolute requirements, most people will understand and self screen themselves out of applying to volunteer for those roles. The easiest way to making your organization as accessible for the greatest diversity of volunteers as possible is simple: put all of the requirements for a volunteering assignment in writing, and let potential volunteers view this complete information on your accessible web site. Potential applicants know what they can and cannot do, and most volunteers will search for opportunities based on their abilities, their schedule and their interests. If the volunteering assignment is very clear about requirements of the task, everyone and anyone can self-screen for it.

Accommodations a program can offer for potential and current volunteers include, but are not limited to: modifying policy and procedures, redesigning spaces and removing structural barriers (onsite as well as online), providing assistive devices, restructuring roles, modifying service schedules and substituting alternative activities.

Outreach & recognition materials

Your outreach materials will convey your welcoming atmosphere by incorporating quotes, pictures or descriptions of a diversity of people. Diversity means people of different ages, ethnicities, cultures and body types. You don't have to try to represent every possible human type, but your photos should indicate that you welcome different kinds of people.

If all of your photos and messaging imply that volunteers must be super heroes, selfless, in perfect health, donating huge amounts of time to be of value to your organization, you are going to turn a lot of people off to volunteering with your organization. You need a diversity of messages to appeal to a diversity of people. You don't want anyone to think they aren't perfect enough to volunteer with you because all of your messaging implies that that's what you want.

This resource, Welcoming immigrants as volunteers at your organization, can help you think about your language and messaging as well regarding residents in your community who may not be citizens but would very much like to volunteer with you.

Making certain volunteers feel unwelcomed because of your language and Do you welcome people with your language? are blogs I wrote after I observed a volunteer recognition event description that implied all participants would welcome a Christian blessing and a social media post that implied firefighters are religious. It's something for all organizations to keep in mind. 

In addition, your web site needs to be accessible for people with disabilities. It needs to be designed so that it can be navigated by someone with a sight impairment, or someone with a mobility issue. Videos need to be subtitled and podcasts need to be transcribed for people with hearing impairments. Doing that will make your web site more accessible for EVERYONE (I often prefer to read a transcription of a podcast than to listen to it, for instance). You can use W3C WAI resources to make your web site and other digital creations more accessible and usable to everyone. 

Tasks

Do you have a diversity of tasks - some that can be done by someone sitting at a desk, others that require a lot of movement, maybe even carrying things and walking a lot? Some that don't require a volunteer to interact much with others and some that require a volunteer to regularly interact and help others? Some that put volunteers together as a group? Some that allow volunteers to provide service for a few hours on a Saturday, without any ongoing commitment? Leadership roles? Some that require expertise, some that don't require any? Some that can be done during regular work hours and some that can be done on evenings or weekends?

Consider unpaid internships: these are volunteer roles that are meant to help a person in their career pursuits, to help them gain skills and expertise. I have no ethical issue with unpaid internships, in general, however, because of the time commitment and schedule of these internships at MANY organizations - say, 20 hours a week, spread over three days a week, only during business hours - these roles exclude anyone who can't afford to work unpaid that many hours during traditional working hours, or someone who needs childcare. I feel very strongly that it's inappropriate to create onsite roles for volunteers - unpaid people - to work for more than 10 hours a week in a set role - I find it exploitative and exclusionary for those that cannot afford to work that many hours unpaid onsite at an organization. Internships shouldn't be only for people who can afford it financially.

When writing out roles for volunteers, including unpaid internships, always ask these types of questions:
Again, not every role can be crafted so that it can accommodate any person's schedule - some tasks, indeed, MUST be done onsite, during regularly business hours. Some roles DO require someone to make a long-term commitment - board membership usually requires a year-long commitment, at least - otherwise, activities become very inefficient, institutional knowledge isn't built up, and on and on. Some roles do require a volunteer to work a four-hour shift, because of the need for continuity.

But the greater diversity of tasks you have for volunteers, the greater diversity of volunteers you will have - and the greater pool of talent, skills and energy you will be able to draw from. And, again, don't forget to create virtual volunteering activities!

Work culture

Do you ask about dietary restrictions before ordering food for employees? Have you offered to provide convenient breaks for all nursing mothers to pump? Do you remind volunteers that you encourage them to let you know if they need to take a day off to acknowledge a religion your organization doesn't get a day off for? Remind employees and staff that not everyone fits one profile - it's fine to say you are looking forward to Christmas, but don't push it if a staff member doesn't seem all that enthusiastic about it. Baby showers are fine, but staff should remember that someone that chooses not to participate may have a very personal, painful reason for opting out.

People with disabilities

Consider people with disabilities as candidates for volunteering, not just as recipients of service by volunteers. People with disabilities volunteer for the same reasons as anyone else: they want to contribute their time and energy and expertise to improving the quality of life for others, or to promote a cause they believe in, or to have fun. They want challenging, rewarding, educational service projects that provide them with outlets for their enthusiasm and talents, just like anyone else.

For too long, individuals with disabilities have been viewed as recipients, not providers of service. However, many are fully capable and willing to provide service to others in their community. Their desire to become active volunteers should not be overlooked. Their involvement should not be merely as token volunteers, but as fully-participating, active, and responsible partners of the community service team.
-- from the Training Manual for Working With Youth Volunteers Who Have Disabilities, produced by Youth Volunteer Corps.

Not all individuals with disabilities will require an accommodation. But just as building designs can help persons in wheelchairs to navigate doorways, there are ways to accommodate persons with disabilities to serve in volunteering programs. And an added bonus: making assignments accessible for people with disabilities ends up making them more accessible for everyone.

Everyone has abilities, and limits to those abilities. Designing for people with permanent disabilities actually results in designs that benefit people universally. - Microsoft's Inclusive Design web site (accessed November 26, 2019)

As noted earlier, a key to making volunteering accessible is to put all of the requirements for a volunteering assignment in writing, and let potential volunteers view this complete information. If the volunteering assignment is very clear about requirements of the task, everyone -- with and without disabilities -- can self-screen for it. A diversity of volunteer tasks help volunteers with a variety of abilities to participate in your programs.

Check your application and screening procedures for consistency with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Your application process can ask "are there any challenges you face that might prevent you from fulfilling a volunteer task" or "are there any accommodations you might need to fulfill a volunteer role", but it should NOT ask if an applicant has a disability.

If you have meetings offsite from your organization, adopt a formal written policy that states that no event will be held in an inaccessible location, regardless of who is invited, and develop a list of accessible venues for meetings and any events your organization hosts. An accessible site has a wheel-chair accessible elevator, has wheelchair accessible bathrooms on the floor where the event will be held, has wheelchair accessible parking, has accommodations for those with sight impairments who would be navigating into the building and to the meeting room on their own, welcomes service dogs, etc. Researching and making this list is a GREAT assignment for a volunteer to undertake! Ensure all staff are aware both of the policy and the list.

A reasonable accommodation is an adjustment to a volunteer role, the service environment, or the way things are usually done that allows a qualified individual with a disability to complete the application process, perform essential service functions, or enjoy equal access to benefits and privileges of volunteering service. Providing reasonable accommodations is not a complicated process, but it does involve taking an honest look at your current accessibility and systematically eliminating any barriers to participation.

Ask ALL volunteers regularly to suggest accommodations they might need to undertake a volunteering task - never limit the question to only people that you perceive as having disabilities. Ask any volunteer who suggests something, if it's not clear, how the  recommended accommodations might help the volunteer to complete essential duties and participate in the program. A request for reasonable accommodations should be welcomed at any time during the application process or during service.

Many accommodations cost nothing at all. Providing accommodations involves eliminating identified barriers, onsite as well as online, and often only requires creativity and flexibility and a change in priorities, not buying something. This could be the modification of an organizational policy (such as the creation of a flexible schedule option), or simply rearranging furniture, or getting rid of all non-descriptive links on your web site, like "read more" and "more information."

Back in 2009, on UKVPMs, an online discussion group for volunteer managers in the United Kingdom that I read regularly, someone posted a message about making the volunteering opportunities at his organization more accessible for people with disabilities, childcare needs etc. GREAT IDEA! Not so great was the idea to put a symbol next to certain volunteering opportunities so that those who need certain accommodations "can easily see which opportunities they can participate in." YIKES!

Instead, a volunteer manager might want to include the accessibility symbol next to a statement before every volunteer assignment listing that says,

We strive to make our volunteering opportunities accessible to the largest number of people possible. If you have accessibility requirements that you aren't sure could be accommodated in an assignment in which you are interested, please contact us, so we can work together to accommodate you in this or another assignment.

If you want to put symbols next to, say, those assignments that require working during business hours, or that require a volunteer to use his or her own car, or assignments requiring bi-lingual speakers, that's fine. But don't brand assignments based on accessibility. Instead, keep working to make all assignments as accessible as possible.

The volunteer manager or other program staff and the volunteer should meet at least once after new accommodations are in place to review their effectiveness and make any changes necessary to ensure that volunteers can participate fully in program activities.

Remember that all information about a specific volunteer’s accommodation(s) is confidential, but you can be open to all volunteers about accommodations in general. You absolutely can say to all volunteers, "We have some roles for volunteers who may not feel comfortable interacting with others, and these include..." or "Our web site is now fully accessible for people with disabilities."

Back in 2006, the Corporation for National Service published this on its web site: "Providing reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities," written by Elesheva Soloff, then the Training Specialist with The National Service Inclusion Project at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. I've reproduced its nine points below, for those that aren't sure what to do when a volunteer asks for accommodation or when an organization wants to address an accommodation issue. According to the Institute for Community Inclusion, effective practices include:

1. Respond to the request as quickly as possible

The best place to start is with the individual who requested the accommodation -- often he or she will know exactly what accommodation is needed.

2. Define the situation

3. Perform needs assessment

Is it necessary to modify the service position, an organizational policy, the physical environment, or to obtain a product (assistive technology)?

4. Choose the accommodation

5. Redefine the Situation

6. Ensure confidentiality for the volunteer or service member

7. Explain the accommodation to other volunteers or members

8. Monitor and Evaluate Accommodations

9. Recognize that the need for accommodations may change over time

Resources that can help you make your volunteering activities accessible specifically for people with disabilities:

Also note: creating accommodations for volunteers with disabilities ends up making your volunteer engagement better for EVERYONE. Don't be surprised when an accommodation designed for someone that asks for it ends up being something many other volunteers value.

Engaging volunteers with Arrest and Conviction Records

Just because someone has an arrest or conviction does NOT mean someone would be inappropriate for volunteering. And by excluding everyone with an arrest or a conviction, regardless of the nature of the offense, nonprofits and schools exclude people with the education, physical abilities, skills and temperment from their programs. Schools that have such a blanket prohibition cut off parents from the classroom, and there is study after study showing that parental involvement in school has a substantial positive effect on student grades, class participation and disciplinary issues. We are all affected when millions of people in the USA — both men and women, particularly people of color — are locked out of volunteering opportunities because of an arrest or conviction record.

Consider:
Automatically excluding people as volunteers who have arrest records does NOT keep your clients, staff and other volunteers safer than by creating sensible, appropriate, inclusive policies that allow for the engagement of such volunteers. 

As a volunteer-hosting organization, you reduce risks and improve safety for everyone at your organization by evaluating ALL applicants - those with and those without arrest records - in terms of their work history, volunteering history and references. You absolutely take into account the age of an offense and the nature of an offense, but for volunteers with records - and for ALL applicants - you also take into consideration the nature of the volunteer roles, the degree of supervision by other volunteers and employees in different roles, your policies and procedures regarding, for instance, two volunteers being alone together, or a volunteer being alone with a client and so forth. If you don't want to involve a volunteer with a record in any role where that person would work one-on-one with another volunteer or a client, or have access to a database with credit card info, or to handle money, fine - but why would you exclude someone who is a great web designer from redoing your web site because, when he was 18, he was arrested for a non-violent crime?

Please see Keeping volunteers safe – & keeping everyone safe with volunteers for a list of my favorite resources regarding safety in programs that involve volunteers and/or children; I consider many of these resources mandatory reading for managers of volunteers. If you are truly committed to safety at your organization, these are the resources, by respected experts, that provide meaningful guidance - and none recommend excluding everyone with an arrest record from volunteering.
 
Sources for bulleted statistics:

A Healthcare Employer Guide to Hiring People with Arrest and Conviction Records, Published by National Employment Law Project (NELP) and the Safer Foundation.

NELP, Research Supports Fair-Chance Policies (June 2016).

FBI, Crime in the United States 2014: Table 29—Estimated Number of Arrests. Percentage calculated using data from Table 29. Cut and paste this URL into archive.org:
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-inthe-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-29
 
Rebecca Vallas, et al., Center for American Progress, Removing Barriers to Opportunity for Parents with Criminal Records and Their Children (2015)


Is there accountability for improper behavior with volunteers?

If your executive director says something that could be seen as a violation of your policies and procedures, does he or she apologize to staff and talk about what was learned? Or do you just pretend it didn't happen? Does your HR department just log complaints without investigating, or without being perceived as doing anything? Create a fair, well-communicated process for investigating these complaints - you do not have to violate anyone's confidentiality, but staff should see that you're trying to solve the issues they've brought up.


There is actually an urgent need for inclusion & accessibility

Nonprofits, NGOs, charities and others MUST take a leadership role in creating community cohesion, especially in the face of the rise of violent extremism all over the world, including the USA, and the increasing belief in demonizing the "other" - people of a particular religion (or no religion at all), people of a particular ethnicity, immigrants, people with mental illness, people with different economic power, and more. It is a bold, vital statement in the face of these movements to make your program's volunteer engagement as inclusive as possible, as representative of everyone in your community as possible. It's a practice that affirms to everyone - board members, consultants, EVERYONE - that your organization makes inclusion and accessibility a priority.

If you don't already have such, create an official policy regarding your belief in inclusion and accessibility that makes it clear what your organization values. For instance:

We work to create a welcoming, accessible environment where all clients, volunteers, staff and anyone involved with our organization can feel safe, valued and given an opportunity to engage in meaningful activities working toward our mission. We cherish the diversity of humanity, a diversity which includes differences in religions/value systems, sex, age, race, ethnicity, and national origin, range of abilities, sexual orientation, gender identity, financial means, education, and political perspective.

Here's one from the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Poughkeepsie, New York, a community of faith, that I really love:

Systems of power, privilege, and oppression have traditionally created barriers for persons and groups with particular identities, ages, abilities, and histories. We pledge to do all we can to replace such barriers with ever-widening circles of solidarity and mutual respect. We strive to be a congregation that truly welcomes all persons and commits to structuring congregational life in ways that empower and enhance everyone’s participation.

Any online search for statements regarding commitments to inclusiveness or accessibility will lead you to more terrific statements you can adapt for your own organization. And if you lose potential volunteers, even board members, because the idea of inclusiveness makes them uncomfortable, then consider it a win: you've just allowed those who could not make the commitment to accommodate a diversity of people to screen themselves out of participation.

There is also this article, 4 tips on inclusive digital service design for charities, where Charity Digital News talks about what it means to embrace user-centric service design principles to create more welcoming online digital spaces. It's a good compliment to the page you are reading now.

Also see: Return to my volunteer-related resources

 
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