Online Volunteering Tips, Tools and Technology by Randy Tyler

Micro Volunteering - Untapped Potential with Some Apparent Wrinkles to Work Out

Although a number of areas appear to require further elucidation, micro volunteering seems to have untapped potential in our ever expanding and changing technological age. To place micro volunteering in context, I will briefly provide an overview of online volunteering (also known as Virtual Volunteering or Internet-based volunteering).

In essence, online volunteering enables an individual to contribute to a non-profit organization (or NGO) of their choosing from the comfort of their home (or similar venue) via an Internet connected computer. I began pioneering online volunteering with a Canadian charity in 1998, wherein I had the opportunity (and privilege) to work with Internet-based volunteers from around the globe. These highly-skilled cyber Samaritans, who were motivated by a myriad of reasons, performed a range of tasks such as video editing, PSA audio production, voice overs, tutoring, programming, photography, word processing, photo retouching, illustration and design. A volunteer management process was developed and employed that focused on the identification, articulation and means of achieving organizational needs, recruitment/retention, risk management (e.g., screening, logical assignments) and evaluation.

From my above online volunteering frame of reference, micro volunteering appears to have a number of areas that require further refinement. Moreover, a number of proposed (or considered appropriate) "micro-volunteering" tasks have been performed successfully by Virtual Volunteers (Online Volunteers) for years. Without the luxury of a full macro analysis of micro volunteering at hand, the following questions appear salient as a starting point for further dialogue:

• What specific routine and meaningful micro-volunteering tasks can be performed in what (reasonable/realistic) time frame and how will these said micro-volunteering tasks mesh (conceptually and in practice) with similar/same virtual volunteering tasks?
• For those micro volunteers involved with sensitive information or non-profit clients, what type and extent of screening will/should be undertaken?
• With limited resources, how will a non-profit manage (e.g., screen, co-ordinate, appropriately assign, supervise, document and evaluate) numerous volunteers involved in micro volunteering (such as, 100 volunteers involved in two minute tasks)?
• What motivates individuals to engage in what types of micro volunteering?
• Are there certain types of non-profit organizations (based on such variables as: mission, structure, size, geographic area, resources and/or budget) that are best suited for micro volunteering (meaning micro volunteering efforts will result in the most impact, however that may be defined, for the non-profit)?
• Are there specific types of tasks with certain types of non-profit organizations which attract specific micro volunteers?
• Continuous recruiting is a significant resource drain. What methods and strategies will assist in retaining micro volunteers?
• What specific types of devices using what type of Internet connections are best for micro volunteering?
• What motivates non-profits to embrace micro volunteering?

As technology evolves and best practices surface, micro volunteering will be further refined and its potential more fully realized.

For further information about how a non profit organization can develop a productive virtual volunteering program through the use of appropriate technology, please visit http://news.RandyTyler.org or http://www.RandyTyler.org.

How to Use Bloom, a Free Facebook Photo Uploading Program

Select Photos Can Help a Non-Profit Organization Develop a Productive Facebook Presence

With an articulated purpose, formulated objectives and action plan in place, a non-profit organization can develop a productive Facebook presence (Facebook is a social networking site with about 400 million users). Photography is one powerful medium to help you develop your organization's Facebook presence. Whether your chosen images tell client stories, illustrate community impact, recognize your donors or reflect your online volunteers' contributions, you will require an easy and efficient tool to upload your photos to Facebook. Bloom is one such free, photo uploading application.

Bloom is an easy-to-use multi-platform Java-based desktop program that allows you to upload (which also supports uploads behind a Proxy server) more than 200 photos (to a new album or existing album), select your desired level of privacy, tag people within your photos, import a photo's IPTC metadata (if available) into the photo caption, download albums, view your friends' photos as well as upload videos. Before explaining how to use Bloom, I will highlight the application's requirements.

Requirements

Minimum hardware requirements:
Pentium 3
384 MB of RAM, some images require 512MB or more
1024x768 display

Recommended hardware requirements:
Dual or quad core Intel or AMD processor
1GB of RAM
1280x1024 display

Operating Systems Supported:
Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or Windows 7 with Java 5 or Java 6 installed
Mac OS 10.4, 10.5 & 10.6 (Java 5 or Java 6 are pre-installed on Mac OS 10.5 and 10.6
A Linux distribution with Java 5 or Java 6 JRE installed such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse
Solaris 10 with Java 5 or Java 6

How to Use (Bloom v2.8.0):

• Install Bloom
• Launch Bloom
• Drag your photos into the window (white area) as shown in the screen capture above
• Provide an album name, location and album description
• Select Who Can View your Album (Privacy Level): everyone, friends, friends of friends or network
• Add photo captions (if your photos have embedded IPTC metadata, Bloom will automatically generate the photo caption from the IPTC Caption field). If your photos do not embedded IPTC metadata, you can select each photo one-at-a-time and add different photo captions. If you want to add the same caption to each photo in your album, select all photos (using CTRL A on Windows) and add your desired generic caption in Bloom's  photo caption box.
• Now press the Login button on the top left toolbar
• At the "Welcome to Bloom" window that opens, check "enhanced security" (which will provide you with an https connection), then press "Login"
• Your browser will launch so you can log in to Facebook
• After you have logged-in for the first time a window stating "Allow Bloom to access my information" will be displayed
• Click the "Login to Bloom" button (for security purposes, I recommend that you not allow Bloom continuous access privileges to Facebook. Instead, require authorization each time you upload photos to Facebook).
• If successful, you should then see a message stating "You may now close this window and return to the application (on your desktop)"
• Return to Bloom and click "I Have Successfully Logged In".
• The new album window will be displayed
• Click the "Upload Photos" buttom on the bottom right of the application
• When you finished uploading your photos, click Bloom's "Sign Out" button
• Ensure you have logged out of Facebook

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.

Free, Until Feb 24, Program Easily Removes Your Forgotten Owner PDF Passwords

Have you created a password-protected PDF that prevents your content (for example, a funding proposal or an Online Volunteering Position Description) from being copied or printed but have now lost the password? PDF (Portable Document Format) files have two common passwords: Owner (the password which restricts such functions as printing or copying of a PDF file) and User (the password required to open a PDF file).

PDF Password Remover is one such easy-to-use application that will remove the encrypted Owner password to allow the copying, modifying or printing of a PDF file. As well as being easy to use application, PDF Password Remover also:

• removes the Owner password from a single file or a group of Files (see Screen capture above)
• supports Adobe PDF 1.0 to 1.7 (which is version 8)
• does not require Acrobat or Adobe Reader to be installed
• supports English, Turkish, Thai, Latin, Korean, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Japanese and Chinese
• allows PDFs to be imported or dragged and dropped to remove Owner password
• works with Windows XP, Vista and 7 (32 bit)
• does not remove the User password required to open a PDF
• does not remove other protections, such as DRM or third party plug-ins

http://www.anypdftools.com/pdf-password-remover.html

If you do not receive your activation key (via e-mail) with a reasonable time period, contact support through their Web site. For what appeared to be a technical glitch, I had to contact support; I received an e-mail reply within a day with an accompanying activation key.

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.

A Rich Definition of Online Volunteering by Randy Tyler

(download)

Click here to download:

A-Rich-Definition-of-Online-Volunteering-By-Randy-Tyler.wmv (3.32 MB)

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.

See the link above to download Randy Tyler's rich definition of online volunteering.

For further information, please contact Randy Tyler www.mys.ca/volunter or directly at:

Pioneering Online Volunteer Program Developer, Presenter and Trainer or RandyTyler@gmail.com.