Wow, I didn’t know there would be so much interest in the definition of microvolunteering. I got another question about the distinction between micro and virtual volunteering after writing a post yesterday about
FreeRice vs. microvolunteering and after writing a formal definition (
here) a few weeks ago.
And by the way, since we’ve dived headlong into definitions, we’ve also decided to *spell* microvolunteering without a dash… since that’s how the New York Times spells “microfinance” and since #microvolunteering is the only possible hashtag on Twitter (dashes break hashtags). We’ll be updating all of our instances across Sparked and the blog.
Ok, so micro VS virtual. The battle is on. Just kidding. They’re very closely related and all in the same family of awesome. But here’s where it gets interesting.
Virtual volunteering, as it has been done to date,* is exactly like in-person volunteering, but the work takes place remotely. It’s like telecommuting to work.
So, all of the same management rules are in place. You will usually be trained, vetted, and accepted for a volunteer position. You will have a direct manager. You will do work and will send it to your manager for review. The manager will approve the work or ask for revisions. The manager will tell you that you’ve done an amazing job – or that you could stand a little more training. Communication will happen via email, typically. But it could also happen via a phone call – or via a project management web site like Basecamp. This is volunteering, remotely, from a more convenient location.
If you review my definition of microvolunteering, you can see that virtual volunteering checks off only one of the four key defining characteristics: convenience. Just to review those points briefly, microvolunteering is: convenient, bite-sized, crowdsourced, and network-managed.
Virtual volunteering is convenient, small or large sized, and managed via a traditional one-to-one or one-to-many hierarchical management method.
Why are these distinctions so important? Because they lead to a process of work that is wildly different. And yet, the result of the work may be precisely the same! How’s that for interesting?
Let’s talk nuts and bolts with an example. Let’s say that that Room to Read (a great kids’ literacy nonprofit) wants a new holiday badge for their home page. The dimensions are 300x400px and it should say “the 2010 Holiday Gift Catalog” on it with a link that says “Unwrap World Change.”
Using a virtual volunteering model, Room to Read would first search for a virtual volunteer. They’d probably post a listing on Volunteer Match, which is the-place-to-be for virtual and in-person volunteer listings. They might also post a “volunteer graphic designer wanted” ad on Craigslist or even on their own home page. Multiple volunteers would apply for the position. They’d review portfolios and then choose one. Let’s call her Anne. So, then, Room to Read would send Anne the design brief and she’d get to work. She’d deliver three versions. Room to Read would select one for refinement and Anne would deliver a final version of that design. Done. Let’s see the badge!
This badge wasn’t actually done by a volunteer, I just screen-snapped it from Room to Read’s home page for the sake of this example.
So done! But not quite, actually, because Room to Read has just invested so much time in finding and working with Anne, that they don’t want to waste the investment. So, assuming Anne was a great designer and easy to work with, they’d ask her to provide graphic design skills on an ongoing basis.
Let’s pause here. Because we’re at an important inflection point. This scenario is implausible. Room to Read would never have gone through all of this work just to get one holiday badge designed. Anne delivered an amazing badge and was really easy to work with. They’re not going to want to see her go.
Because the process of work is so involved, this kind of relationship needs to extend beyond a single project. It’s a waste of time for both parties to engage in a single smaller project. The process requires a longer-term relationship in order to be viable.
Ok, so now let’s take a look at this same project through the lens of microvolunteering. Again, Room to Read wants a holiday badge for their home page. So, they post their design brief online to a place where microvolunteers can find it (right now, the only place to post microvolunteering projects is Sparked.com, but there will be others in the very near future, like this promising-looking project called ChangeMachine coming out of the University of Chicago).
Big distinction: instead of posting a “help wanted” ad, the nonprofit has posted the “project brief” complete with pixel dimensions, copywriting, and a deadline. In a microvolunteering scenario, the nonprofit is not looking for a person. They are looking for a specific result.
Immediately after the project is posted, one or many microvolunteers start to do the work. And they all post their badge designs to the microvolunteering site. Some of these designs are really really bad. Some of them are phenomenally good. Many of the microvolunteers start to critique each others’ work. Non-designers get into the action with critiques and ratings. The best designs filter to the top.
The nonprofit manager returns to the site to check out the progress. They see the peer-reviewed picks at the top – and the rest below. The nonprofit says that they really like the top pick… and an element from one of the others further down. And there's one that they absolutely hate, because of the way it portrays kids as victims of poverty rather than as inspired want-to-be readers. Room to Read provides all of this commentary online.
So now, the designers go at it again. They revise and rework and deliver a new batch of fresh designs. And now, there’s one that Room to Read really loves. Here it is!
Same result. Very very different process.
Is one method inherently better than another? No way. They’re both good for different purposes. Virtual volunteering is great for when you want to develop a long-term relationship with a committed volunteer. Microvolunteering is great when you want to get a specific project done with a minimum of fuss.
Does microvolunteering mean that long-term relationships don’t happen? No. We’re seeing the same microvolunteers come back and back again to work on their favorite nonprofit's projects. We’re also seeing microvolunteers turning into virtual volunteers – when they get really interested in a nonprofit and want to form a deeper and longer-term relationship.
So, that’s the distinction. Hope it’s clear how virtual volunteering and microvolunteering are different. But in case it's not, and if you’ve got any juice left to read, here’s a final note about the possibilities that microvolunteering opens up.
If you read the microvolunteering example above, you can see that there was a flurry of work all done online for the nonprofit. Pause here. To reiterate – all of the work was done and delivered online, and in a place where anyone can see it. It's public. In fact, the more public it is, the better, since it can attract more microvolunteers and more peer-reviewers. It would be possible to have a private or semi-private microvolunteering system, but each gate you throw up reduces the quality of end result. Understandably, there are some cases in which you'd want a more private system, but that's the trade-off.
At
NCVS this year, I heard a speaker say that "You don't hire every volunteer" as a strategy for managing volunteer programs. His point was that you don't want to waste your time managing volunteers who do bad work. It's not worth the nonprofit's time.
With microvolunteering, "You hire EVERY volunteer." The end result gets better as more people work on and peer-review your project. You turn no-one away. If someone's work is not good, that's just fine. It's helpful to the process. And don't worry about offending the microvolunteer. They come into the relationship knowing that their work may not be selected as the "final result." And their work was, in fact, helpful because it served to drive the process forward. Using the example above, their badge may have been the one that the nonprofit hated. Which is exactly what you're looking for in a design process: strong reactions.
And now, since all of the work was done online and in public, it can be tracked and rewarded online also! For each microvolunteer, we can start to do things like:
- Track time spent microvolunteering
- Track peer ratings over time
- Track interest on a per-nonprofit, per-skill, or per-cause basis
- Give awards for great work
- Give awards for most improved
- Give awards for participation
- Connect microvolunteers with one another on the basis of interests
- Give tools for showing off work done on Facebook and Twitter
- Recommend similar microvolunteering projects
So now, we've created a vibrant
ecosystem of data around the microvolunteers… and this kind of data is really different and special. Never before have we been able to (easily) gather and showcase information about volunteering. Suddenly, we’ve got the skills, interests, and work-quality history for each microvolunteer. And the history has been vetted and reviewed both by a body of peers and by the requesting nonprofit. We can then apply this data to creating even more satisfying and effective microvolunteering experiences for both parties. That's really exciting.
If you’ve stuck with me this far, thanks for reading!
Love to hear your comments.
-ben
* This post refers to virtual volunteering as it's been done and defined to date. You could reasonably make a case that microvolunteering is also done virtually (remotely) and therefore, should be also called 'virtual volunteering.' The problem with this approach is that, (#1) for the reasons outlined above, virtual volunteering as it is currently known is quite different from microvolunteering. Therefore, using the same term to define both would be confusing. In addition, (#2) there's really no reason that microvolunteering can't be done in-person! You could use all of the same techniques to flashmob serving sandwiches to homeless people. That would be microvolunteering, but decidedly not virtual.
