FAQs Resources for AGENCIES Resources for VOLUNTEERS About the Virtual Volunteering Project Subscribe to VIRTUAL VERVE What's new Site Index Home Page		what's new archive 1998     These items were added or updated as of November 23, 1998: Virtual Volunteering Project Site Index This is a list of all of the pages on the Virtual Volunteering Web site, divided into key categories. This page is formatted using tables. Online Resources for Volunteer Managers: Web Sites This is a list of resources by organization/company. Now, these resources can also be view by type of resource.   These items were added or updated as of November 4, 1998: About the Virtual Volunteering Project Read about the Project's new home, and Impact Online's plans for online volunteering as part of Volunteer Match. Finding Virtual Volunteering Opportunities Includes even more resources to help volunteers find opportunities they can complete via their home or work computers.   These items were added or updated as of September 28, 1998: Online Culture: Communicating Via Email Most communications with online volunteers will be done via email. Learning to communicate in text-only can be a challenge for some people, volunteer and manager alike. Sometimes, you have to interpret people's communication and assist them to be clear and effective online. We've compiled some advice to help volunteer managers think about the different ways volunteers interpret information via email. Identifying and Creating Assignments for Online Volunteers Just as with offline volunteering, a first step in creating tasks for online volunteers is to look around and see what needs to be done in general for your organization. However, when thinking of virtual volunteering tasks at your own organization, also ask: how do your volunteers already work with staff and clients? Could you add an online component to one of your existing volunteer programs? These suggestions, created by the VV Project Team and citing various other resources, can help you identify tasks for online volunteers. Assigning Online Tasks Once you have developed a system of orienting and evaluating volunteers who are going to work offsite via home or work computers and created online assignments, you are ready to place potential volunteers into this system and match them to assignments. This section also includes Sample Online Task Descriptions.   These items were added or updated as of September 1, 1998: Last Affiliates Added Smartgrrls and the Arizona Pioneers Home Volunteers Association have joined 12 other agencies sharing experiences with the VV Project Team and each other about online volunteering activities and virtual volunteering management issues. They also receive assistance from the VV Project Team. Their collaboration with the Project is essential to the development of the materials on this web site! Meet Our Own Online Volunteers In addition to helping agencies learn how to involve online volunteers, the VV Project has been aided by more than 50 online volunteers of its own to date, helping with a variety of online research, web page development and strategic planning tasks associated with our work. We have them listed here on our Web site, with details about their contributions to the Virtual Volunteering Project. We value not only their time and expertise, but their advice and thoughtfulness about this Project as well!

• Finding Technical Assistance Volunteers To Involve "Virtually"
  Often, organizations need volunteers with a particular skill or expertise to assist staff or other volunteers. We refer to these as technical assistiance volunteers. Recruiting online volunteers with a specific expertise is best done by a combination of online and offline outreach.

• Affiliate Profiles
  Read in detail how the suggestions from the Project's Web site are put into practice at each of the 12 affiliate agencies of the Virtual Volunteering Project, and their visions for future virtual volunteering activities. Also see a list of other organizations and brief descriptions of their involvement of online volunteers.

• The Virtual Volunteering Project is working with Metropolitan Austin Interactive Network (MAIN) and other groups to produce AIR-Austin, an event in September 1998 for designers in Austin, Texas to create Web pages that incorporate the best practices for web accessibility in web sites for not-for-profit organizations. The Air-Austin Web site uses information from the VV Project's suggestions for Web accessibility and suggestions for technical assistance volunteers.

• See the ever-growing list of online volunteers who have contributed to the Virtual Volunteering Project, and how their work has helped the Project meet its goals.

• Examples of Experiences Involving Online Volunteers and Youth With Disabilities
  A few real-life examples of how volunteers and youth with disabilities are interacting with others via Cyberspace, to give you an idea of the limitless possibilities and benefits of virtual volunteering.

• Project Affiliates Grow to 12 Organizations
  These agencies share experiences with the VV Project Team and each other about online volunteering activities and virtual volunteering management issues. They also receive assistance from the VV Project Team and are often highlighted in print and electronic media articles. Their collaboration with the Virtual Volunteering Project is essential to the development of the materials on this web site!

• Setting Up and Managing a Virtual Volunteering Project
  Most of these pages have been revised with new information, including more examples from other organizations on involving and managing online volunteers.

• Online resources for volunteer managers
  Information continues to be added to this list of Web sites, newsgroups and electronic mailing lists relating to volunteerism (we think its the most comprehensive index available on volunteer/service resources on the Internet!).

How I involve online volunteers
A first-hand account of how Jayne Cravens, manager of the Virtual Volunteering Project, recruits, screens, assigns, manages and acknowledges her own online volunteers. See how the suggestions from the Project's Web site are put into practice at our own organization.

Screening and Evaluating Online Volunteers
Setting up a system to orient online volunteers to your organization and its expectations for volunteers and evaluating volunteers' skills and interest are essential elements of a successful virtual volunteering program. Before you recruit online volunteers, review these updated suggestions. Additions include sample online orientations and links to online volunteer application forms by various organizations.

More than 45 organizations have provided information, first-hand accounts and feedback to the Virtual Volunteering Project. We think this ongoing collaboration is an example of the cyberspace community at its best! In addition to new organizations, information has been added to show how these organizations have involved volunteers virtually, or how they have contributed information to this Project.

• Making Your Agency Virtually Accessible to People with Disabilities
  The Virtual Volunteering Project pages on the IOL Web site are now fully-accessible to people using assistive technologies to view Web pages. Making accomodations on your Web site for the greatest number of users increases the availability and usefulness of those materials! People with disabilities use special tools to browse the Web, and these tools can be confused by some Web site designs and functions. Designing your web site to be accessible by people using assistive technologies is very simple and costs nothing if its done as you build your Web site. Learn just how easy it is.

• A Place to Post and Find Virtual Opportunities!
  Impact Online is currently testing a web-based database of virtual opportunities, to match online volunteers with the agencies that need them. During the beta-testing, a select group of people and organizations are using the database to promote, find and sign up for virtual opportunities. Their experiences will be used to refine the database for a public launch in the Fall of 1998.

• Index of online resources for volunteer managers
  The most-comprehensive index of Web sites, newsgroups and electronic mailing lists relating to volunteerism and volunteer management available on the Internet.

A benefit of virtual volunteering is that it can allow for greater participation of people who might find on-site volunteering difficult or impossible because of a disability. This in turn allows organizations to benefit from the additional talent and resources of more volunteers. The Virtual Volunteering Project has received a special grant from Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation to research and document ways to accommodate and encourage people with disabilities in virtual volunteering programs, and to help agencies develop volunteering programs and systems flexible enough to meet the needs and preferences of the broadest range of users of computers and telecommunications equipment.

In conjunction with this grant, the Project has created these resources to help agencies recruit and involve volunteers with disabilities in virtual volunteering programs:

• Working via the Internet with volunteers who have disabilities
  Tips for outreach, accommodations, conversation, volunteer orientation and matching, evaluation and staff training.

• Making an agency virtually accessible to people with disabilities
  Our own suggestions for Web site design, as well as links to other organizations

• Online information on disability-related issues in general
  For agencies seeking more information about the concerns of disabled population. Good resources to use in staff training.

• The Virtual Volunteering Project announces two new affiliate agencies, The Evergreen Society and Sidelines National Support Network. Affiliates agree to implement or expand their own involvement of volunteers virtually, with assistance from the VV Project Team, and to provide feedback to help other agencies via our Web site. These agencies join more than 40 other collaborating organizations that have provided information, first-hand accounts and feedback to the Virtual Volunteering Project.

• "Cyberspace will radically improve the way we can maintain connections with off-site volunteers."
  On the anniversary of the Virtual Volunteering Project, Susan Ellis, Program Advisor and Documenting Consultant, reflects on what's been learned so far about volunteers, volunteer management and cyberspace, particularly the interrelationship of the principles of virtual volunteering and of physical world volunteering. This essay offers an excellent perspective on how the Internet can be an asset to all volunteer and community-building activities, on and off-line.

• The VV Project has launched a new monthly electronic newsletter, VIRTUAL VERVE, to highlight and encourage the development of opportunities that can be completed by volunteers working and reporting via home or work computers. This email update also highlights additions and changes to the Virtual Volunteering portion of Impact Online's site.

For agencies:

• Marketing your organization's volunteer opportunities online
  Marketing volunteer opportunities online can be a great way to find volunteers to provide services both onsite and via the Internet for your agency. It won't replace your offline recruitment methods, but it will augment them, by reaching new audiences and reminding people how they can support your organization.

• Volunteer activists via the Internet
  This material continues to grow with links to additional organizations offering advice on initiating volunteer activist activities via the Internet.

A benefit of virtual volunteering is that it can allow for greater participation of people who might find on-site volunteering difficult or impossible because of a disability. This in turn allows organizations to benefit from the additional talent and resources of more volunteers. The VV Project has received a special grant from Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation to research and document ways to accommodate and encourage people with disabilities in virtual volunteering programs, and to help agencies develop volunteering programs and systems flexible enough to meet the needs and preferences of the broadest range of users of computers and telecommunications equipment.

If you find this or any other Virtual Volunteering Project information helpful, or would like to add information based on your own experience, please contact us.

If you do use Virtual Volunteering Project materials in your own workshop or trainings, or republish materials in your own publications, please let us know, so that we can track how this information is disseminated.