Dos & don'ts for technical assistance volunteers /
volunteers donating expertise


There are many people that want to donate - to volunteer - their professional skills or expertise to a nonprofit, NGO, charity, school or a community or environmental project. They are sometimes called "skilled volunteers." I've always called them technical assistance volunteers, but I seem to be the only person that calls them that. These volunteers might build a web site, or build an app, or build a garden, or design a building, or provide legal assistance, and on and on, for a nonprofit, or even a government program that engages volunteers and supports a particular community, like a women's shelter or a home for people with addicted issues. These are volunteers that are going to work primarily with a program's staff, including other volunteers, rather than directly with clients, but the result of their service may directly affect clients.


Some people, when they volunteer, don't want to do anything associated with their area of professional expertise: a lawyer may want to do something that is literally hands-on, like cleaning up a beach or trail. Or they may want to tutor a student in math. But others want to donate their expertise specifically - a web designer may want to design a web site for a nonprofit that is accessible for people with disabilities. A marketing director may want to design a volunteer recruitment campaign for a school. A construction worker may want to lead a construction project, like building a gazebo in a community garden. A motorcycle mechanic may want to teach young people the basics of motorcycle repair. 


The most popular technical assistance assignments for volunteers, in my experience, are IT/ICT-related projects - just look at all of the many apps4good hackathons, where computer programmers work over a day or two to build an app to benefits some cause - helping people find food banks near them, helping people find shelters with available beds, etc. This page that you are reading now has a slant towards ICT volunteers building products or projects for nonprofits, but the advice is applicable to any volunteers donating their professional expertise.


Technical assistance-type volunteering are very popular with volunteers, and much sought-after, but problems can arise in such situations:

A must read for volunteers providing technical assistance is Six Tips for Leading Effective Digital Innovation Projects by ParsonsTKO, a company that says it builds "Engagement Architectures for mission-driven organizations empowering continuous and effective audience engagement." Here's an excerpt that gives you an idea of why I like this article so much:

I'll add that it's important for technical assistance volunteers, particularly ICT folks, to rememeber that those that you are helping are experts in many areas as well. Respect their knowledge, as you would expect them to respect your own. Don't forget that you are talking to professionals; it is ignorance about a particular area, not stupidity, that has put the staff in need of your services.


To keep a technical assistance volunteer experience beneficial rather than frustrating for the person or program you are trying to help, keep the following in mind:.
 

  • If the organization that will host you as a volunteer does not train you about volunteering or give you some kind of orientation, ask for it! Learn the program's mission, get an overview of all of the organization's programs and current events, and have a list of the staff and the board, in case you encounter these people in the course of your service.
     
  • Listen to what the program needs. And be ready to change the ideas you walked in with.
     
  • What is the concrete goal or outcome that is wished for as a result of your volunteer activities? What does success look like for the program, from their point of view? Making sure you understand the expectations of the program will help prevent misunderstandings and disappointment about the service you are providing.
     
  • Mutual agreement on a plan of action between you and those you are helping is the most crucial step of successful technical assistance. Outline the expected outcomes, approaches and resources and estimate the time you think it will take to complete the project.
     
  • A not-for-profit or public sector agency can ask a lot of a volunteer, so make it your job to be clear about what you can and cannot do. Define the project using milestones that match your available time and skills and meet their needs. Do not over-commit yourself.
     
  • Remember that you were a beginner too, once upon a time. Welcome questions and remind those you are working with that there are no stupid questions.
     
  • Think about the language you are using to explain something; using terms that only a fellow expert would understand will frustrate the person you are trying to help. Use common language whenever possible, and fully explain technical terms you need to use a lot. Learn what you can about THEIR work and put things in a context they can understand.
     
  • Those that you are helping are experts in many areas as well. Respect their knowledge, as you would expect them to respect your own. Don't forget that you are talking to professionals; it is ignorance about a particular area, not stupidity, that has put the staff in need of your services.
     
  • Respect the time of the staff and other volunteers. They have many responsibilities outside of what you see as a volunteer. They may not be able to devote as much time to an issue as you think they should; help them to do the most they can with the time they have available.
     
  • Not-for-profit and public sector agencies operate in a world of very limited resources and ever-shrinking budgets. Don't be surprised if they don't have a staff member devoted solely to human resources, legal issues, computer systems, etc. Also don't be surprised if they don't have a budget to buy and maintain a large computer system. Respect those limitations by helping them to do as much as they can with their available resources.
     
  • If you encounter resistance to a suggestion, particular in an area where you consider yourself an expert, try to diagnose the cause: differing priorities? lack of information about you? lack of information about them? bad timing? preconceived assumptions? Once you have identified the reason for the resistance, it will be much easier for you to deal with it constructively.
     
  • Exude quality in your service to the agency. For instant, if you are inputting information into a database and misspell a name or input the wrong phone number, the work you've done is not just useless, it can be damaging!
     
  • Build sustainability. Don't just do it for this program and staff - involve the staff in the process. Explain each step, give background, recruit someone to write down procedures or troubleshooting steps if applicable. The most important part of your "mentoring" is that what you leave behind works and can be sustained by the organization.
     
  • Provide technical documentation (e.g., how parts of a database relate to each other) and user documentation (e.g., how to do the data entry and how to solve the most common problems faced by the user) for the first piece before moving on to the next piece. This way, if you must discontinue work on the project, the staff has the documentation needed to easily integrate a new volunteer into the project.
     
  • Make sure whatever system you recommend for the agency to use, whether this is a type of software or an organizational model, meets the unique needs of the agency you are helping. Is this a widely-used system? Is there sufficient documentation available on how the system works? Can the staff effectively use or even alter this system without always relying on your expertise? What kind of support is available for this system?
     
  • If you are designing a Web site, a database program, or other computer-related product, what you may view as a "feature" may be viewed as unnecessary or distracting by the staff member or other volunteer who has to use it. If a flashy interface doesn't provide the user with an easy-to-use tool, it's of no real use to the user.
Phil Agre of University of California, San Diego, offered additional excellent advice for people helping others with computer and software use:

  • A computer is a means to an end. The person you're helping probably cares mostly about the end. This is reasonable.
     
  • Their knowledge of the computer is grounded in what they can do and see -- "when I do this, it does that". They need to develop a deeper understanding, of course, but this can only happen slowly, and not through abstract theory but through the real, concrete situations they encounter in their work.
     
  • By the time they ask you for help, they've probably tried several different things. As a result, their computer might be in a strange state. That's not their fault.
     
  • The best way to learn is through apprenticeship -- that is, by doing some real task together with someone who has skills that you don't have.
     
  • Your primary goal is not to solve their problem. Your primary goal is to help them become one notch more capable of solving their problem on their own. So it's okay if they take notes.
     
  • Knowledge lives in communities, not individuals. A computer user who's not part of a community of computer users is going to have a harder time of it than one who is.
     
  • If something is true, show them how they can see it's true.


Examples:

When it works well, the volunteers that make up web design teams for the Accessibility Internet Rally are a great example of how to work with nonprofit clients. And, when it doesn't work well, the volunteers are an example of what NOT to do. Here are three examples of teams that got it right: Better Late Than Never Team talks about the web site they build for for Art Frog Academy, the AIR Time Team talks about their build for an NGO in Congo, and a group of volunteers from a coding school talk about the web site they built for a nonprofit. (note that there are longer versions of these on the Knowbility YouTube channel).



Advice for online technical assistance from volunteers


 Here is a long list of what virtual volunteering looks like. And The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, written by myself (Jayne Cravens) and volunteerism expert Susan Ellis and the result of MANY years of research and experience, can help you, as a volunteer, help a nonprofit, NGO, charity, school or community-focused government program to develop a more widespread virtual volunteering engagement scheme, one that isn't limited to technical assistance volunteers (such as an online mentoring programs where online volunteers help a nonprofit's clients). The book details what virtual volunteering is, all of the many, many different forms in which it is practiced, various ways to support and grow virtual volunteering, and how to address various challenges that might arise in creating roles and activities for online volunteers and supporting volunteers in those roles.

The book can help you, or even your entire company, work with nonprofits, NGOs, schools, etc. to help them develop virtual volunteering opportunities for your employees, for the local community, for a nearby university, or anyone, anywhere, who might want to help. Many traditional nonprofits are still struggling with the concept of virtual volunteering, despite it being a well-established, credible practice; corporate support in the form of training and funding could help greatly in getting volunteer centers to embrace virtual volunteering. The book can also help individuals who just want to provide the highest quality service possible as a volunteer, in technical assistance roles or otherwise.

Also see


  • TechSoup has a guide you can download: Working with Technical Volunteers: A Manual for NPOs. It's free. It hasn't been updated since 2008, but still has some good advice.
     
  • Employee Volunteering Initiatives: Different Approaches & Keys to Success
    Detailed advice for employee volunteering, including specific advice regarding executives on loan, expert staff going on volunteering sabbaticals, and employees serving on boards, group volunteering (everything from Habitat for Humanity builds to hackathons), employees volunteering abroad, virtual volunteering and microvolunteering.
     
  • Incorporating virtual volunteering into a corporate employee volunteer program (a resource for businesses / for-profit companies)
    Virtual volunteering - volunteers providing service via a computer, smart phone, tablet or other networked advice - presents a great opportunity for companies to expand their employee philanthropic offerings. Through virtual volunteering, some employees will choose to help organizations online that they are already helping onsite. Other employees who are unable to volunteer onsite at a nonprofit or school will choose to volunteer online because of the convenience.
     
  • Ideas for High Impact Virtual Volunteering Activities
    This resource is for people seeking ideas for an online project that will mobilize online volunteers in activities that lead to a sustainable, lasting benefit to a community or cause, particularly for a community or audience that is at-risk or under-served. It was created especially for programs looking for ways to engage online volunteers in high-responsibility, high-impact tasks focused on communities in the developing world, because onsite volunteering abroad is not an option - which is the reality in 2020, and probably 2021, because of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). These ideas absolutely can be adapted for remote volunteering within the same country where the online volunteers live as well - "remote" could mean across town rather than around the world.
     
  • Short-term Assignments for Tech Volunteers
    There are a variety of ways for mission-based organizations to involve volunteers to help with short-term projects relating to computers and the Internet, and short-term assignments are what are sought after most by potential "tech" volunteers. But there is a disconnect: most organizations have trouble identifying such short-term projects. This is a list of short-term projects for "tech" volunteers -- assignments that might takes days, weeks or just a couple of months to complete.
     
  • One(-ish) Day "Tech" Activities for Volunteers
    Volunteers are getting together for intense, one-day events, or events of just a few days, to build web pages, to write code, to edit Wikipedia pages, and more. These are gatherings of onsite volunteers, where everyone is in one location, together, to do an online-related project in one day, or a few days. It's a form of episodic volunteering, because volunteers don't have to make an ongoing commitment - they can come to the event, contribute their services, and then leave and never volunteer again. Because computers are involved, these events are sometimes called hackathons, even if coding isn't involved. This page provides advice on how to put together a one-day event, or just-a-few-days-of activity, for a group of tech volunteers onsite, working together, for a nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO), community-focused government program, school or other mission-based organization - or association of such.
     
  • Lessons from onlinevolunteering.org
    Some key learnings from my experience directing the UN's Online Volunteering service from February 2001 to February 2005, including support materials for those using the service to host online volunteers.
     
  • See the earlier version of this page from the Virtual Volunteering Project, which includes credit for the initial information that original page offered (most of the web sites are not current and most are no longer associated with the programs credited - you can see the original materials by looking for the URLs before 2000 on the Internet Wayback Machine).
     
  • Return to my index of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) resources & advice for ethics, strategies & operations.
     
  Discuss this web page, or comment on it, here.


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