Guest post by Monique Cuvelier, CEO, Talance, Inc.
Reprinted with permission from Talance, Inc.
As any charitable organization knows, volunteers are superstars. They give love and expertise and don’t ask for a dime in return. They can be especially helpful if your organization has a website.
Bearing in mind that an entire Web development project is long-term and requires dedicated knowledge and commitment that you’re better off hiring someone to do (upshot: it’s easier to fire someone whose work you’re not happy with), there are still plenty of other tasks you can assign out to people who want to help.
Here are a few:
- Social networking cheerleader
- Add comments to blogs
- Contribute blog entries
- Participate in discussion on bulletin boards
- Data entry (i.e., cutting and pasting info into a new site)
- Web site promotion
- Adding your Web site to directories
- Writing news updates about events
- Website literacy workshops
- Checking for dead links
- Updating old content
- Convert press releases for Web sites
- Usability testing (i.e., make sure everything works in a logical way).
- Bug reporting (i.e., look for and report errors or problems)
- Identify requirements for new development
- Browser testing
- Taking pictures for the Web site
- Formatting and uploading pictures
- Making videos for the site
- Uploading videos onto a service like YouTube or Vimeo, and adding them to site
- Help manage wiki
Anything we missed? Add your ideas below.
Monique Cuvelier is the CEO of Talance, a Boston, MA-based interactive design agency that plans and launches Web sites for nonprofits. She launched her first Web site in 1994. Today she is a frequent presenter and has written professionally on technology for more than 17 years.
[Photo: AVP Volunteer 2 by yuan2003, on Flickr]
Hi again,
I realize I didn’t ellaborate more, things are crazy around here…We’ve been given alot of charity…from family and people they know…but I have and will continue to donate my time and energy into helping our children and their friends by remaining a first a parent…then a friend…To rebuild todays out of control youth, into upstanding members of community, who will themselves do in kind!
God Bless
David and Cassie-Lee
This sounds like a great program! Can’t wait to donate to charity! I know I can help!
God Bless,
David and Cassie-Lee
PROMISES–SCHOOL OF MENTORS WOULD BE HONORED TO HAVE PEOPLE LIKE YOU TO TRAIN OUR CLIENTS TO KEEP US CURRENT AND UP TO DATE WITH TECHNOLOGY. NOT ONLY IS THIS AN INCREDIBLE SKILL BUILDER, THEY ARE POSITIVE ACTIVITIES THAT CAN KEEP OUR CHILDREN OFF THE STREETS AND FOCUSED ON CAREERS AND BUSINESS. I LIVE IN THE KANSAS CITY METROPOLITAN AREA AND I THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST 3 OF THESE 26 SCHOOLS THAT WILL BE CLOSING AT THE END OF THIS YEAR FOR TECH TRAINING PURPOSES. GOD BLESS ALL THE GOOD WORK YOU PUT IN THIS AREA AND I WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU HERE. THANKS RUTH
Good day , i wish ask how can i be a volunteer .
This is a great blog! I think that too often, volunteers are overlooked for helping with “techy” projects. This makes a great point that even if a volunteer isn’t a web professional, he or she can still help keep the website up to date–even if they just check it once a week to make sure it is all working properly.
The great thing about blog entries, is that most blogging programs let you add users as “contributors” that can write, but not publish, so that their entries can be reviewed.