Develop a Productive Online Volunteer Program through the Use of Appropriate Technology
About
Randy Tyler is a recognized pioneer and expert in Online Volunteer program development. Since 1998, his work has been noted by numerous news sources from The New York Times to CTV's Canada AM, and shared with non-profit organizations through provincial, national and international conference presentations and published articles. Randy provides training, workshops, presentations and consultation for non-profit organizations. He is a Gold Medallist graduate of both the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba. For further information, please visit: http://www.RandyTyler.org
The following content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
As a non-profit organization, there are a number of effective, easy and free ways to promote, reflect, demonstrate or illustrate your mission, whether it be, for example, your events, the contributions of your online volunteers or how you are making an impact. One such method is to use Google's (free) Web Albums. However, at minimum, you must ensure that your precious memories and stories sitting on Google's servers are regularly backed up to a local computer. One quick and easy way to backup your photos from Google's photo sharing site (without requiring other applications to be installed) is to use the free Picasa Webalbums Assistant, as I will briefly explain below. How to download photos from Google's photo sharing site using Picasa Webalbums Assistant:
download the zipped file (PWA0_3_1.zip) to your desktop
extract the files from the zip archive (with WinZip, 7Zip or similar program)
double click on the 53 KB file called "PWA3.jar"
agree to the terms of use (if you so choose)
if you agree to the terms of use, as shown in the screen capture above, you will now have the option to select whether you want to download a public album (where you will be prompted for the UserID of the Album owner) or an album from an invitation URL (where you will be required to copy/paste the invitation URL e-mailed to you)
once you provide either the UserID or invitation URL, Picasa Webalbums Assistant will display thumbnails of all the photos within the specific album you haveselected
check the photos you would like to download and then click the "Download Selected" button.
You will then be prompted to choose a location to save your photos (I suggest you save the photos to a folder where you will be able to easily locate them, such as your desktop).
if you have Java 5 or later installed and doubleclicking on the PWA3.jar file fails to launch the Picasa Webalbums Assistant application, you may lost the file type/application association.
If you are using Windows XP or Vista, you can download Jarfix 1.1. (39 KB) to restore the .jar file association to the Java Runtime Environment
the Webalbums Assistant application (PWA3.jar) can also be launched from the command line as in the following example (the PAW3.jar file and the lib folder, which also contains nine jar files, in this example are on my desktop): C:\Documents and Settings\Randy Tyler\Desktop>java -jar PWA3.jar
For further information about how a non profit organization can develop a productive virtual volunteering program through the use of appropriate technology, please visit this Online Volunteering Resource.
At one level, virtual volunteering (also referred to as, for example, online volunteering, e-volunteering, Internet volunteering, cyber volunteering, inclusive volunteering, volunteering without barriers and borders) is volunteering via the Internet. At a deeper level, virtual volunteering reflects a much larger and richer social phenomenon, as reflected in Randy Tyler's definition of online volunteering (which was conceived by MYS's Online Volunteer Program Developer, Randy Tyler). Geoff Edwards, an MYS Vancouver-based online volunteer, brought life to Randy's definition in his voice narration and Toronto-based MYS Online Volunteer, Svitlana Chepurna, visually illustrated Randy's definition of Virtual Volunteering in the Flash-based Video.
Most not-for-profit organizations still rely (only) on face-to-face volunteers to help plan, organize and execute their special events. However, Canadian-based charitable organization, Macdonald Youth Services (MYS), has demonstrated that Internet-based volunteers can play a key role in the success of special events. "I have worked on a number of events in the past, but this is the first time that I have been able to work with virtual volunteers and it was an absolutely amazing experience", stated Event Co-ordinator, Julie Fine. "I had no idea the quality of work that was available and the variety that the virtual volunteers could provide, and I was constantly amazed as I worked over the past eight months on a number of projects, " continued Fine. MYS extends their thanks to New York-based online volunteer Richard Wagner for editing the video. The 90 second Video is available for download from the above link. For further information, please contact Randy Tyler www.mys.ca/volunter or directly at RandyTyler@gmail.com or visit: About Online Volunteering by Pioneering Online Volunteer Program Developer, Presenter and Trainer, Randy Tyler.
Although Skype states their VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) application is relatively "easy to download, install and use", a visual tutorial may help those with installing and using this program for the first time. As apart of the best practises publication about Online Volunteering being developed by Randy Tyler, MYS has facilitated the creation of many how-to videos.
MYS is pleased to share a video tutorial that provides an overview of how to download, install, configure and use Skype for Windows. MYS extends their thanks to online volunteer Yu Cheng, who now lives in China, for creating the approximate nine minute video.
Download the "How to Use Skype with Virtual Volunteers" instructional video from the link above, now. For further information, please contact RandyTyler www.mys.ca/volunter or directly by visiting Online Volunteering or e-mail RandyTyler@gmail.com.
The potential of the Internet to help non-profit organizations in one of the most challenging of tasks was demonstrated by MYS Online Volunteer Program Developer Randy Tyler. Online volunteers from Detroit, Michigan; Toronto, Ontario; Clinton, New York and Portland, Oregon joined virtual hands to produce a 30 second, 75 year time capsule TV PSA about MYS. MYS extends their thanks to online volunteers Kibben Miller, Richard Wagner, Gerard Doyle and Rebecca Webb for producing the video. For further information, contact Randy Tyler www.mys.ca/volunter or visit pioneering online volunteer program developer Randy Tyler or e-mail RandyTyler@gmail.com
