Many agencies have created e-mail-based discussion groups or newsgroups (USENET) for their volunteers, including the Virtual Volunteering Project. These groups allow agencies to easily make announcements to volunteers, and, sometimes, allow volunteers to interact with each other, get suggestions and feedback, and ask questions. These online groups can serve as a written record of participation, concerns, trends and issues for volunteers.

"...allowing volunteers to ask questions of each other is a marvelous way to create a sense of community among volunteers..."

Since April 1998, the VV Project has solicited feedback from various agencies to see how they use their own e-mail group or newsgroups to interact with their volunteers. In addition, CompuMentor, San Jose Children's Musical Theater, LibertyNet, Boulder Community Net and the American Lung Association have been generous enough to let the VV Project staff join their lists and observe first hand how they are used to interact with volunteers.

In all cases, these lists are used by the volunteer manager to communicate volunteer opportunities and/or updates for the volunteers. Some of the groups do not allow volunteers to post to the list; it's an announcement/update vehicle, not a discussion group. Others do allow volunteers to use the list to post, ask questions of each other, etc.

There are pros and cons to both approaches. Any list, for volunteers or otherwise, can get out of control with off-topic posts. Ways to solve this is to remind off-topic posters about the purpose of the list, create a moderator function where all posts must be approved before they are posted, or, eliminate the ability of all but the volunteer manager to post altogether.

Some organizations have said they won't allow volunteers to post because of privacy issues -- they are very protective of the e-mail addresses of their volunteers. Some agencies have said they fear someone posting something confidential or negative about the organization to all the other volunteers. (more information about confidentiality in online programs).

On the other hand, allowing volunteers to ask questions of each other is a marvelous way to create a sense of community among volunteers, and promotes the idea of just how important their work is to the organization. Volunteers often help each other (and the volunteer manager) with various issues, and volunteers seem to really value hearing suggestions from other volunteers -- the people who have "been there."

A good example of an online discussion group for volunteers is PCORPS-L (which is gatewayed to the newsgroup bit.org.peace-corps). This is for people who have served or who are interested in serving in the Peace Corps. It is not sponsored by the Peace Corps itself, however, and they have no control over what someone says about the program on this list. Discussions on this list have included:

Keys to the Success of List for Volunteers
The key to creating and maintaining a successful list for volunteers is to determine a mission/reason for the list, and express this mission clearly and effectively to potential participants. Why is this list necessary for your volunteers? What do you want the volunteers to value about the list? What do you want to happen as a result of the list?

A successful list also takes more than participants -- you will also need people filling these roles:

VOLUNTEERS CAN FILL ALL OF THESE ROLES. Just as with any task, match volunteers to roles based on their experience and interest.

The list owner must make incentives obvious and valuable to increase and maintain volunteers' motivation to participate. Some groups require all volunteers to subscribe to a list. In addition, some groups also emphasize a sense of responsibility in members to post, making it part of their volunteer commitment, to maintain a certain level of participation in lists.

Other suggestions:

For more suggestions, visit The Moderator's Home Page, Resources for Moderators and Facilitators of Online Discussion, at http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~mpc3/moderators.html. This is a growing set of resources, mostly scholarly, for moderators of online discussions, including chats, listservs and newsgroups. This is an extensive bibliography of netiquette guides, sample editorial policies, using online discussion groups in classrooms, tips for moderating, and information on teaching online.

Reprinted with permission from the Virtual Volunteering Project, http://www.serviceleader.org/vv/ part of the Charles A. Dana Center, at the University of Texas at Austin. Visit this valuable site for the latest update on this subject.