Volunteer Promotion, Organization, Resources & Communication

[Brian Burger]

On 12/10/06, C. Martens <c.martens at rogers.com> wrote:
>
> At last night's Ubuntu Canada meeting, I was asked to put up some links
> for a couple of organizations that promote volunteerism, particularly for
> rural areas. Rural volunteerism, of course, is just one sub-topic amongst
> many on the huge topic of volunteerism itself, so these will apply to rural
> areas and big-city efforts. Some brief explanations are included.


Thanks for all these, Cathy. I'll add them to the ubuntu.ca website soon. I
think it's time to split the ubuntu.ca links list off onto a page of it's
own...

Managing volunteers, scheduling, retaining, etc. are huge topics (and the
> real challenge after you recruit them) that CivicCRM will help with. And it
> is a challenge in itself to recruit them, and that's why I want to try and
> elminate all disincentives that our organization poses to volunteers. I'm
> good at it, I've done it for over 20 years, but IMHO, having our email
> addresses show up in this mailing list, and having to go through the lengthy
> process of becoming a member in order to get privacy, is a HUGE
> disincentive. We could recruit like crazy, and get lots of people
> interested, only to have them shy away from doing any actual work after they
> see what's involved in communicating virtually with other users.


I think you're really overstating the fear people have of being public
on the net. "I'll get more spam" doesn't strike me as being high up
the list of
excuses you'll hear for not getting involved in a project.

(As for becoming an Ubuntu member for privacy, note that I'm already a
member, but have never bothered setting up my @ubuntu.com alias...)

> IMHO, a more secure method of communication is needed. Perhaps a
CivicSpace intranet?

Why? The entire larger Ubuntu project runs in an entirely transparent
manner, with (deliberately!) no closed/invite-only mailing
lists/forums/etc. (with some exceptions for strictly security-related items).
I'd hope one fairly small locoteam can manage the same thing.

As was mentioned during the IRC meeting, we're also strongly opposed to
duplication of existing efforts - and adding a forum to a group that already
has a perfectly fuctional mailing list would be classic avoidable
duplication.

Thanks again for getting those URLs for us,

Brian
(Madpilot on IRC)
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