The Chronicle of Philanthropy has an eye opening article titled Volunteering Goes Virtual,
describing how volunteers are finding new and highly productive ways to
volunteer from their homes. Volunteers are knitting blankets for
mothers in need and even writing grants from the comfort of their own
homes. Volunteermatch.com
has seen a sizable increase in the number of volunteers who are
interested in using e-mail and the Internet to benefit charities. Even
more beneficial is that the volunteers can be situated anywhere, and
their collective powers can be brought to bear on a single topic or
case. The utilization of the Internet is multiplying the impact that a
single volunteer can have by giving them the opportunity to work in a
number communities from their home. As posted on Community Mobilization.
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Randy, thank you for the link.
My wife is volunteer coordinator for a hospice . She gets volunteers from Volunteermatch all the time (although she’s got no need for “virtual” volunteers).
Another thought. The idea of involving volunteers by internet is not new. It’s been a meme for some time, but the fact that enough volunteers are internet savvy and enough organizations are comfortable with the idea is what’s remarable to me. It’s often quite a while before an idea becomes a mainstream practice.
At our board meeting last week I had a flashb ack and thought about how only 5 or 6 years ago only a handful of board members had email addresses. Now we do almost everything by email and our information is migrating to The Link. I think only a minority of volunteers–and staff–are still intimidated by the technology.
That’s all happened in a few years. What will happen using the Net in the next 5 years will be even more dramatic. Are ya up for it?