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volunteer orientation and matching

 
Detailed information about orienting volunteers, evaluating their skills and interest and matching them to assignments can be found here on the Virtual Volunteering Project web site:

Orienting and Evaluating Volunteers for Virtual Assignments
Assigning Online Tasks

• How do you proceed when someone contacts you about a virtual volunteering opportunity as a result of your outreach to disabled communities? In the same way you would with any other person who says they want to volunteer with you: determine the person's interest and ability. Base the matching of the volunteer to a project based upon the person's ability and desire, not the person's disability.

• The clearer the task description, the less-likely a volunteer will get into an assignment he or she cannot do (for whatever reason!). Provide an accurate task description to volunteer candidates explaining the duties and demands of each volunteer assignment, and resources/experience they will need to have.

  Encourage volunteers do some self-evaluation and self-screening when looking for volunteer opportunities. Just as you should with any volunteer candidate, ask candidates if they think they can do the assignment, if there is any part of the assignment that might prove particularly difficult to them, and if there is something you can do to help make this easier.

• Your volunteer application should NOT ask about disabilities. Not only could this be a violation of the American Disabilities Act, it gives the impression that you match volunteers to assignments based on what they can't do, rather than what you can. Your volunteer application should also not ask people's age! For more information about volunteer applications, visit some of the Web sites listed on our Index of Online Resources for Volunteer Managers.

• Base your matching of volunteers to assignments on the applicants' abilities, not their disabilities. "Do not base decisions on unsubstantiated assumptions or steriotypical views about what people with disabilities can or cannot do. When in doubt, check it out -- with the person him/hermself as well as with other disabilitiy resources..."(2)

• Initial Preparation
  • Conversation
    
  • Accommodations

• Accomodations for online volunteers who have
  learning disabilities or emotional and anxiety disorders

• Recruitment

• Credits and Additional Resources
  

 
Credits

Some of this information was adapted from other sources, which offer excellent additional information about working with volunteers with disabilities, on or offline.

We would like to expand the resources on this page, by including others' suggestions and first hand narratives. If you would like to share information with the Virtual Volunteering Project about your own experiences working with volunteers virtually, please contact us.

If you have helped or are helping organizations as a volunteer via your home or work computer, please complete our online survey for volunteers and tell us about your experiences.

Also view

• First Person: Benefits of Virtual Volunteering
  for People With Disabilities
  We have received several testimonials via our online survey and online volunteer application from people with disabilities serving as online volunteers for various organizations around the United States. These are excerpts, to show first hand how virtual volunteering creates new opportunities for people with disabilities.

• 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.

• 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.