#virtualvolunteering

Do you know what virtual volunteering is? Do you know what the different types of virtual volunteering are? Virtual volunteers are categorized into three specific sections, namely, direct contact volunteers, technical assistance volunteers and informal volunteers.

Direct Contact Volunteers

The volunteers who come in connection with client through chat room or e-mail are referred to as direct contact volunteers. Such volunteers can connect via Internet and do the following.

• The volunteers can offer instructions or mentor students with answers, assist a job aspirant to look for career options or make a resume, assist prisoners with their studies, help an individual learn something, etc. • Visit someone convalescing at the hospital. • Participate in an online support group to advice members with the help of a newsgroup, list or chat room. The volunteers can create a chat room support system to answer queries from people. • Assist people to learn English. • The direct contact volunteers can monitor a chat room, newsgroup or e-mail discussion team for the volunteer organization they are involved with. • Welcome in advance people who are supposed to visit summer camp or go to a hospital. They can do this from Intranet, special Web page or through e-mail. The volunteers can send information about successive services to the same group of people. • Provide training to volunteers on a specific topic of expertise. • Work with clients and other volunteers to write news about special interest group or neighbourhood. They can collect historical data about a specific place or time period and then post it on web or print it.

Technical Assistance Volunteers

Technical Assistance Volunteers offer help in regards to projects related to a specific field of expertise or assignments based on objectives. This group can include both offsite and onsite volunteers. They can help in the following ways.

• These volunteers reply to queries related to accounting, human resources, speech writing, legal issues, management related matters, establishing a video conference, rendering industrial designs and creating strategies for a specific section of a volunteering agency. They offer professional consultancy. • They are involved in searching online for information for a government scheme that can impact the clients of a volunteering agency. They implement data in the forthcoming newsletter of a volunteer agency, find URL links of organizations with equivalent focus and make use of virtual directories to upgrade database. • Change the language of a document. • Create legislative buzzer for sending through e-mail, keeping tab of legislation which can have an impact on the clients of an agency and add data to online communities like, lists and newsgroups. • Craft brochure or newsletter for an agency and edit proposal or publication made by a volunteering agency. • Create Hypercard, PowerPoint, QuickTime or other presentations made with the assistance of computers. • Compose articles for newsletters, service pages and brochures. • Volunteers proofread online publications and paper drafts. • Research and come up with information for the website of a volunteering agency. • They craft illustrations and logo design for the service pages of a volunteer organization. • Ensure accessibility of the website to handicapped people. • Mentor the different types of planning at the organizational level, create a marketing strategy, and compile a technology plan. • Upload volunteer opportunities of an agency on database. • Register home page and other service pages of a volunteering organization with online directories and search engines. • Offer high-end programming to the agency website. • Create a database system by utilizing the database software developed by the technical assistance volunteers. • Offer orientation to all volunteers though the Internet, control the activities of the volunteers in all technical aspects, maintain volunteering hours and research about experiences of volunteers with an organization. • Regularly search for news and articles on a specific topic or an agency. Informal Volunteers

Numerous online discussion forums operate without the supervision of an agency. These groups promote the questioning and answering about any subject. Such online support caters to all types of needs ranging from home-schooling of children by parents, using certain software, fans of a hobby to those suffering from a disease. Those who provide support in these informal platforms are also called volunteers.

  In order to participate in this type of setting, a user can subscribe through e-mail, indicate a news reader to a newsgroup or simply sign-up online. Volunteers do not have to adhere to any time limit; they can provide support at any time. Also, they do not have to undergo a screening procedure. Participants find such informal virtual support system very helpful and worthwhile.