Jayne Cravens is the woman behind Coyote Communications, a consultancy for nonprofit organizations in capacity building, online activities, volunteer management and much more. She is also the author of the popular monthly e-newsletter Tech4Impact.

From 2001 through 2004 Jayne was the Online Volunteering Specialist at the United Nations Volunteers Programme, a project of the United Nations Development Programme.  She currently lives in Sinzig, Germany.

Marshall: What does the international volunteering landscape look like today and how does that compare to how it looked 10 years ago?

Jayne:

I believe that there have been three drastic changes in the international volunteering landscape in the last 10 years:

Firstly, the emphasis now in developing countries to empower local people, and to *hire* local people, whenever possible, to address their own issues and needs, and to build their capacities for the present and future. It's much more beneficial to local economies, in the short-term and the long-term, to hire local people to serve food, build houses, rescue people, educate young people, etc., than to bring in an outside volunteer, even in rescue and relief efforts.

That said -- the days of international volunteers are NOT numbered: there will always be a need for international volunteers, either to fill gaps in knowledge and service in a local situation, or because a more neutral observer/contributor is required.

And that all leads to the second change in the international volunteering landscape in the last 10 years: the much higher level of education and experience that's expected of international volunteers. The priority now is to fill gaps in skills and experience, not to give a person from the USA or another Westerner an outlet for his or her desire to help. So an international volunteer needs to be able to work in at least two languages (and that's much more than a few years of French in high school), and have experience that will relate directly to what he or she will do in the field.

The third big change is online volunteering. Although people have been volunteering online for more than 30 years (on the systems that pre-dated the Internet), and online volunteering started to take off on the USA and Canada in the late 1990s, it's only been in the last three or four years that online volunteering has started to become somewhat widespread in the developing world. I can now safely say that there are hundreds of organizations in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and the poorer countries of Asia involving online volunteers, and their numbers continue to grow exponentially. There are no exact numbers, however (just as there are no numbers on how many organizations involve in-person volunteers).

Marshall: If you could recommend 3 top tips for organizations looking to mobilize virtual volunteers - what would they be?

Jayne:

Actually, just two:

1. Already involve offline, face-to-face volunteers effectively. This is absolutely the most important factor in being able to involve online volunteers. If your organization isn't already involving in-person volunteers -- managing them well, keeping them busy, supporting them, measuring their impact, staying in touch with them -- then your organization will not be able to involve online volunteers effectively. Yes, there are some all-virtual organizations who involve only online volunteers, but those that have been successful have been so because they applied the principles of traditional, face-to-face volunteer management to their online activities.
2. Have many online assignments defined and ready to communication, and a system in place to quickly respond to inquiries and to support online volunteers, long before you ever begin recruiting. In fact, recruiting online volunteers is the very last step to undertake in involving online volunteers effectively.

Marshall: What other observations have you had lately about the role of technology in development in regards to volunteerism and social justice?

Jayne:

Technology is playing a huge role in the West regarding volunteerism: it's being used to manage and support volunteers, regardless of the types of assignments they are undertaking (including non-tech assignments), as well as to recruit volunteers. It's also being used to promote volunteerism, allowing volunteers to share their experiences, and organizations to highlight the difference volunteers are making.

In the developing world, technology isn't yet so tied to volunteerism, outside of online volunteering, but that will change, as access and literacy improves.

In terms of social justice: Between web sites, emails and text messages on cell phones, network technology has been used to educate people about their rights, create awareness about government programs that can help them and how to access such, and to organize and network grass roots movements.

After the devastating cyclone in India, for instance, technology centers and education were used, facilitated by volunteers, to help local people access government forms, claim benefits, etc. (perhaps we should have sent those volunteers to the Gulf Coast after Katrina). I wrote a paper on the UNITeS web site regarding how hand held technology was being used by volunteers, and one of the chapters is specifically on activism. And, of course, there is a plethora of sites advocating for various civil rights issues in the developing world, many of them developed by local people themselves.

However, technology access without media literacy/awareness very much worries me. A tremendous amount of misinformation circulates under the guise of social justice and advocacy, and now has a broader audience because of technology. I've talked to too many people in the developing world who believe in outrageous legends because "I read it on the Internet," and nothing I can say in the course of our brief meeting can change their minds.

I think there is a critical need for tech access initiatives to do a much better job teaching media literacy -- how to verify a source, how to think critically about what's being said, how to test a story regarding its facts, how to research a story's origins, etc. We need sites in Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, French, Bengali, and oh-so-many local languages that specifically debunk myths.

Marshall: Do you have any suggestions you'd like to share for evaluating information found online?

Jayne:

• Think about how you are getting this information. If it's via email, it's possible for it to be entirely made up, even if it says "this is from the Associated Press" or "tI saw this on TV."" Verify the information yourself, by going to the web sites of legitimate media organizations
• Anytime information makes you feel outrage or moves you to take action, take a moment to verify it, no matter what the resource. Again, visit the web sites of legitimate media organizations to double check.

Those are two very basic things. But, of course, there are entire media literacy curricula that deal with this issue.

Marshall: Is there anything that you could use in terms of resources to help you do your work more effectively?

Jayne:

I don't need resources. I need a change of mindset:

1. For funding organizations, particularly corporations, to be focused on funding capacity-building at organizations -- and that means funding salaries, something they are currently reluctant to do;
2. to be more focused on helping organizations get the skills and resources they need to involve volunteers effectively, rather than funding more volunteering recruitment campaigns;
3. and to understand that the nonprofit sector has excellent ways of doing things, and that corporate models aren't always appropriate for nonprofit work -- in fact, perhaps the corporate world has some things to learn from our systems and methodologies. We could all be 10 steps ahead in our work with nonprofits if funding organizations would make this change.

Jayne is a contributor to and highly recommends the web site of the United Nations Information Technology Society.  For more information about Jayne, her consultancy and her excellent monthly e-newsletter Tech4Impact, visit CoyoteCommunications.com.