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Newsletter
September 2009
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THIS MONTH'S TOPICS
1. TIP: How online volunteers can support organizations’ fundraising activities
2. EXPERIENCE: Focus on online volunteers: Delia Tasso
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1. TIP: How online volunteers can support organizations’ fundraising activities
Many development organizations face the challenge of finding adequate funding for their projects and activities. It is therefore not surprising that one of the most popular volunteer opportunities that organizations submit for publication on the Online Volunteering service website are requests for fundraising support.
And indeed, online volunteers can support organizations’ fundraising activities in many ways. They can help by developing fundraising strategies, sharing innovative fundraising ideas, researching potential donor organizations and funding opportunities, contacting donors to obtain submission guidelines, drafting letters and correspondence, writing project proposals, providing advice on how to approach and deal with different donors, and much more.
When you ask volunteers to support your organization’s fundraising activities it is important to remember that -- as indicated in the criteria for opportunities and because of the legal and liability implications -- online volunteers should never be requested to make in-kind donations or financial contributions, or to solicit donations from third parties. This includes the submission of funding proposals on behalf of the organization or the sending out or posting of fundraising appeals for the organization.
Before posting a volunteer opportunity asking for fundraising support for a project, consider that there are some tasks for which it may be more effective to ask online volunteers to provide direct assistance. For example, instead of asking an online volunteer to draft a funding request for organizational capacity development, consider that it may be more effective to ask online volunteers to directly provide the required training to your organization’s staff. Or instead of asking online volunteers to research potential donors to finance the design of a brochure, ask an online volunteer to design the communications material for you.
Read about the experiences of two organizations who have received fundraising support from online volunteers:
David Clemy Kawooya, Kitega Community Centre Uganda: Online volunteers have played an important role to help Kitega Community Centre with planning and organizing a fundraising event for the construction of the community’s health centre. They shared their fundraising experiences, provided suggestions on the event administration and designed sample forms that can be useful in preparing and holding an event. Moreover, they developed a comprehensive source document that facilitates the preparation of targeted funding requests.
Sandrine Wallez, Alternative Communities Trade in Vanuatu: The assistance of online volunteers in the preparation of the application for EU funding, which is a complex system, was crucial. We did not receive the funds, but the volunteers did a great job in helping us prepare the concept note in the right format. This document is now a good start to prepare our business plan.
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2. EXPERIENCE: Focus on online volunteers: Delia Tasso
When the tsunami struck Southeast Asia in 2004, Delia Tasso, an Argentinean by birth and translator by profession and passion, happened to volunteer for a local organization in her adoptive country of Italy. It supported an NGO operating in India's south-eastern state of Tamil Nadu, one of the areas worst affected by the tsunami.
This turned out to be the start of Delia’s online volunteering career: “From my home office I improvised a virtual information centre that circulated translations of articles and clippings from newspapers, magazines and blogs among friends and donors. Local and national newspapers and television stations picked up some of our materials, and donations have made it possible for the Indian NGO not only to pay for substantial emergency relief but also to fund a number of post-emergency projects.”
It was during that time that Delia discovered www.onlinevolunteering.org. As a translator, she appreciates the opportunity to combine professional and other obligations with her volunteering activities: “Online collaboration allows for a considerable amount of flexibility, in terms of filling the idle time between two projects or exploiting time differences among places. And with good team work there is plenty of room for negotiation and for reconciling different professional and personal interests.”
Her first assignment facilitated via the UNV Online Volunteering service was a translation for the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), an organization that works to improve the living conditions of producers and users of bamboo and rattan, and to promote use of these raw materials in the context of sustainable development.
“The assignment looked almost irresistible: a whole book about bamboo, one of my favourite plant species,” remembers Delia, who was honoured as Online Volunteer of the Year 2006 for her engagement with INBAR. “It reopened a window on the wide and diverse universe of bamboo, a family of plants with so many implications for sustainable development in the age of climate change that is also essential for the livelihoods and cultures of millions of people in Asia, Africa and the Americas.”
The online volunteer translation tasks that followed are countless. “Since most of the opportunities deal with documents that are not usually on the translation market, I tend to pick up those related to areas or issues I may be familiar with or interested in as an expert or as a concerned citizen, but have less chance of scrutinizing on a more ‘professional’ basis (in terms of analyzing field terminology, style, international data banks, resources, etc.).”
Further translation assignments that Delia enjoyed a lot were the new Online Volunteering service website, a brochure for UNAIDS/Brazil, the joint publication ‘Volunteering and Social Activism: Pathways for participation in human development’ developed by the World Alliance for Citizen Participation (CIVICUS), International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE) and UNV, “whose teams provided me with plenty of support”, and her current project, the translation of the organization All In Diary’s 50-page information tool for humanitarian workers “because the manual is teaching me a lot about the history of humanitarian law and the various aspects of humanitarian response.”
When asked how much time she spends on average volunteering online, Delia says: “It very much depends on the characteristics of the original. Texts are written by and for people and nothing can be taken for granted, so you need time for research and for elaboration with the rest of the team, which implies a variable amount of interaction with the host organization. This is essential because in an ultimate analysis, theirs is the content and the centre of the stage. The translator is like the orchestra in an opera theatre: they are there even when you cannot see them.”
Delia, a strong believer in teamwork, advises organizations that involve online volunteers in translation tasks to "develop an organic and inclusive team which lasts until the document reaches the intended audience and, if available, forward feedback from readers and users to the translator. Any translation is just one of the many possible versions, there is always room for improving and learning, and few things are as stimulating as reality check.”
And this is what she would like to share with her fellow translators: "Do come on board. Get ready to interact with an online team and make the most out of the two basic tools of the trade: your integrity and your intellectual curiosity."
