Author archive
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Resources For All: SocialBrite
Looks like there are a number of people and organisations realising the value that social media can bring to the work of charities and non-profits. The latest is Social Brite, a ‘non-commercial learning and sharing hub that brings together top experts in social media, social causes and online philanthropy’. Their aim is share and learn from mutual experiences and improve the causes that each individual organisation is working for.
Their Sharing Center is literally like a treasure chest of information for non-profits – tips range from sources for free photos and videos, a directory of social media reports, a social media toolset (much like the one provided by We Are Media), and a list of cause organizations (a more general version of the list of UK-focussed youth volunteering organisations we have on our blog – and it seems to updated regularly because it includes Google’s All for Good that we blogged about recently).
Here at vLabs blog we’re really glad to see initiatives like these, and look forward to seeing the resources available to non-profits and charities grow quickly. It was just a few years ago when finding data of value would be like looking for a needle in a haystack for those in this industry. Those days are over by the looks of it!
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The Digital Generation Project
Photo credit: Chris Walsh
The Digital Generation project is a useful new site for everyone who works with young people or is interested in seeing how they use technology. Supported by the John D. and Catherine. T MacArthur Foundation and started by Edutopia, the Digital Generation Project aims to document the stories of people from Generation Now, for whom YouTube, Facebook and MySpace are as familiar as letter-writing and long-distance trunk calls once were to the older generation. It will be useful for parents to learn about and track the kind of digital tools their kids are using, for teachers to understand and utilise these tools to change the classroom and to support students in their learning, and for researchers and other institutions working with young people to get an insight into their world.
The project is US-based, but of course the insights will be valuable no matter where you are. They are also on Twitter (@EdutopiaDG). I suggest you check out some of the resources on the site to begin with, especially those here on the ‘building digital media and learning’ site, and this digital youth research from the University of California at Berkeley.
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All For Good
In a move that is likely to give a considerable boost to volunteering, a bunch of different individuals and groups from the technology, marketing and public sectors – including industry behemoths Google and Craigslist, have set up an open-source platform to list volunteering opportunities, called All for Good. The project was launched in response to President Obama’s call to action and is managed by Google. Quoting from their ‘About‘ page,
Our core team is made up of volunteering enthusiasts from places like Google, Craigslist Foundation, UCLA, YouTube, FanFeedr and Aha! Ink. As a contributor to the All for Good project, Google is hosting the All for Good website and products. Several Google engineers worked on All for Good as a 20-percent project (Google lets engineers spend a day a week on projects that interest them), collaborating with a broader team to build the product.
Users can log in with their Facebook, Google, AIM, OpenID, Yahoo! or Netlog accounts. Though it is initially supposed to be US-centric, as per the FAQ, the site automatically identified me as being from London and listed a few London-based volunteering opportunities, which, given its US-focus are very limited in number.
The site seems fairly easy to use, and maps out the locations of different opportunities apart from listing them. That’s not a particularly new feature though, because VolunteerMatch in the US launched a Google Earth plug-in earlier this year that performs pretty much the same function. All for Good’s single most distinguishing feature is is the fact that it is open-source: any group that wishes to provide a volunteering opportunity can easily do this via the Volunteer Feed Listings form. Do-It does provide a similar offering in the UK, but it requires the use of the YouthNet-supported bespoke software V-Base.
It will be interesting to see how All for Good develops – they have already put out a call to developers who may be interesting in building All For Good apps, and to improve the beta.
[Via Ars Technica]
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Volunteer Awareness Week 2009
Australia and New Zealand celebrate Volunteer Awareness Week this week, 14th to 20th June 2009. The have a blog dedicated just for this, and anyone can contribute to the blog with the username and password they’ve provided here - bloggers even stand the chance of winning a prize for their entries.
Another good blog that promotes volunteering and encourages people to contribute their stories is the one run by Seek Volunteer Australia.
It certainly looks like volunteering is alive and kicking Down Under. Over 5 million people volunteer in Australia. This is very heartening news, and it’s good to see the number of initiatives being undertaken to promote volunteering there. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand and reading this, I hope you contribute to one of the two blogs above, or even both. While we’re on the topic, wouldn’t it be good if we could it make it Volunteer Awareness Week wherever we are? Just talk a friend into volunteering with you today, and that’s a good start.
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The European Commission proposes 2011 be designated as the European Year of Volunteering
In a move that is bound to help the cause of volunteering in Europe, the European Commission has announced today that 2011 should be designated as the ‘European Year of Volunteering’. It was spurred on by the initiatives of a network of European organisations that are involved with volunteering. It is likely that the Council and the European Commission will endorse this proposal at the beginning of next year.
More than 100 million people currently volunteer in Europe, strengthening the bonds of society with their valuable work.
From a joint press release issued today, the objectives of the European Year of Volunteering 2011 are “rewarding and recognising voluntary activities; empowering volunteer organisations; and raising awareness about the value of volunteering in our societies.”
The network of organisations involved in this alliance will soon put up a website dedicated to EYV 2011. Meanwhile, you can find a lot of relevant information here.
Here’s hoping more people will learn about the benefits and value of volunteering by 2011.
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Volunteering is sexy
Via @Elinesca on Twitter, an interesting idea from Adam Ferrier, a consumer psychologist who also contributes to the SEEK Volunteer blog in Australia. Adam says that the reason people don’t want to volunteer is because of the frumpy and dowdy image associated with it. You know, that it’s uncool, it’s something for old people or people on the dole, or students who have to do it to build up their CV. Adam says that that can all be changed simply by convincing everyone that it is sexy to volunteer, backed up by actual research that people who volunteer are in fact seen as more attractive to the opposite sex. From his post:
So what needs to happen for more people to volunteer?
- Volunteer organisations need to re-brand themselves and strip away their dowdy image – you can make yourselves better.
- People need to be aware of the benefits, and believe they are real.
Go and read the original blog post here.
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Spotlight: Orange Rock Corps
While almost every large corporate organisation, (especially those in the technology industry), encourage their employees to spend a few hours each month volunteering, or donate sums of money to a range of charities, it is quite surprising that only one has actually gone about associating their brand with volunteering in a huge way – namely, mobile phone operator Orange with Orange Rock Corps.
When I first heard of Orange Rock Corps, I thought it was a great initiative. Encouraging kids to volunteer and giving them tickets to gigs in return for their time? Considering the target audience, who probably spend half their waking time listening to music on their iPods anyway, it is a smart and relevant way of motivating them to engage with the community they are a part of.
One of the best parts is that all ‘payment’ is only in kind, and it is a win-win situation for all involved: the kids, who get to see their favourite artists live; the artists, who get to interact with extremely enthusiastic young fans, also earning good karma points in the bargain (plus it won’t hurt their image to be associated with an event like this); and Orange, who through association with the event, become known as a brand that genuinely puts their money where their mouth is, especially to a segment of the population that probably forms a huge proportion of their user base.
I’m surprised other brands haven’t cottoned on to this yet. If you know of any other big brands that are involved in volunteering, do let us know.
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The Beyond Sport Summit 2009
Beyond Sport is an initiative that aims to celebrate inspirational sports projects from across the world. The list of finalists for this year’s Beyond Sport Awards has just been announced. Each finalist has earned themselves an invitation to attend the invite-only Beyond Sport Summit from July 7-9 in London, where the winners of a £10,000 cash prize and a support package will be announced. Virgin Atlantic, the summit’s key partner, will be flying in representatives of all the shortlisted projects from all over the globe – including countries like Ghana, India, Kenya, Tanzania and Venezuela.
One of the nominated projects is the Co-Operative Street Games Young Volunteers. They have been nominated in the category of Best Corporate Responsibility in Sport and are supported by v.
A full list of the nominated projects can be found here.
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Youth volunteering drops in the US: What should we learn?
For the first time since 2001, volunteering amongst youth in the US is seeing a downward trend. The Washington Post speaks to Peter Levine, director of Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement or CIRCLE, who acknowledges a ‘loss in momentum’ in youth volunteering based on research by the institute, though young people below the age of 25 are still ‘volunteering in higher numbers than their parents did’. (That shouldn’t be cause for comfort per se because the population of the country has grown significantly as well). Levine is hopeful that the Serve America Act which will inject funds into AmeriCorps will be instrumental in changing this situation. Well-known US site Volunteer Match, that lists opportunities for volunteers, also had similar findings from a separate research study though they believe that the situation isn’t as bad as it sounds with thousands of young people having volunteered recently for the Obama campaign, for example.
Another potential reason for this drop is the bad economy, with young people preferring to work at McDonald’s for money rather than to volunteer their time for charity. Surprisingly, however, a lot of young people are applying to programmes like AmeriCorps and Teach for America, but are often failing to gain admission because they are so over-subscribed. So there are two clearly demarcated kinds of groups applying to volunteer – one, those that would volunteer locally but can’t afford to anymore, and the other, those that are willing and qualified to work in specific well-known, community service-focussed government paid schemes but don’t get admitted. What is important then is to create opportunities that make volunteering attractive enough for those who are unsuccessful in getting admission into these schemes not to give up community service altogether.
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The Generational Theory
Along with this blog’s coverage of innovations in youth volunteering, it is important to articulate and fully understand the psychology behind the generation that most youth projects are aimed at. American authors Neil Howe and William Strauss have studied the various cycles of American society extensively and have formulated a generational theory that splits each cycle into four phases, or what they call ‘turnings’. According to them, each new generation develops values from its previous one but they are distinct from the following one, bringing unique perspectives to their roles in society.
The generational theory postulates that as with individuals, a whole generation’s collective personality develops during childhood, and this causes them to be risk-taking or cautious, for example – traits which then follow them into the next phase and more importantly, reflect the mood of the era.
In the first turning, children are given freedom, hope and security by their families, leading them to distrust authority. When they grow up, they start defying political authority as a result. This then begins the second turning, where parents focus on things like spirituality and self-discovery, leaving the children to grow up on their own, without a focus. This generation then produces the third turning, where, the parents being devoid of social obligations leads to the children being raised in an environment mandated by strict rules and regulations, even politically. Howe and Strauss give the example of “ zero-tolerance rules, laws named after victimized children (Megan’s Law, Amber’s Law), and endless political wrangling over the educational system” being indicators of the Third Turning child rearing mode, which is where we as a society currently stand.
The authors believe that the fourth turning, or Millenials, where young people are increasingly civic-minded and potentially powerful leaders of the next political environment, is where we could be now.
The generational theory is interesting from the point of view of youth volunteering because if it is right, then opportunities to volunteer (that enable them to be civic-minded and participate in the community) are exactly what this generation is looking for. Which makes the work of organisations in this field all the more salient.
If you’re interested in the theory, read Howe’s book Millenials Rising and the description of the theory.
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