Creating a Managing Virtual Volunteers Guide – A Project Outline

The Project:

A group of ASAE members – virtual volunteers – are collaborating on a guide to help all associations harness the value of virtual volunteering. The virtual guide will cover all aspects of recruiting and managing virtual volunteers. Along the way, we are conducting an experiment to essentially test what we’re writing about. So all the virtual volunteers will have the opportunity to learn by doing.

We’ll capture this learning in a Learning Lab on August 5 at ASAE13 in Atlanta: “A Virtual Volunteer: A Live Experiment in Crowdsourcing”.

The project completion date is August 31, 2013. The call for volunteers is open (and will remain open through the project!).

This paper will initially focus on the project outline and will be updated to capture the project progress.

The Project Schedule:

  • Orientation Calls: Tuesday, July 9th at 1:00PM ET and Monday, July 15th at 1:00PM ET
  • Work begins: Tuesday, July 9, 2013
  • BETA Available: Monday, August 5, 2013
  • Resource Live to community: September 3, 2013

The Players:

We are looking for Section Editors, Content Contributors and a Style Editor. See more details on each position below. The time commitment is variable especially for content contributors since we are asking you to simply add content based on your knowledge – so it may take you as little as an hour or two.

The project leads Peggy Hoffman, Peter Houstle and Leslie White are available to chat, answer questions and talk options.

Job Descriptions…

PROJECT LEADS – Responsible for overall project launch through completion of the Beta version release to community on August 31, and design and facilitation of the ASAE session in Atlanta, August 5, 2013.

Responsibilities: Overall project launch, initial wiki set-up, recruiting and managing volunteers, serving as point person for technical questions, monitoring progress against project schedule, evaluating the project and volunteer activity.
Skills & Knowledge: Strong writing and editing skills; comfortable working on a wiki or on-line content platform; comfortable managing other volunteers or teams to accomplish the stated goals; experience or knowledge in volunteer management and association management.

Commitment: Oversee the project launch, the ASAE Annual Meeting Session (Atlanta 2013) and completing through Phase 2.

Filled: Peggy Hoffman, CAE, Peter Houstle and Leslie White

SECTION EDITORS – Responsible for content development in a given section by coordinating the content contributors and serving as the section point person for questions and submissions. Serves as a blend between a copy editor and a managing editor.

Responsibilities: Reviewing the content for appropriateness and completeness; de-duping or merging content; seeking clarifications from contributors; editing to unify style; and organizing the key topic areas and actively seeking contributions as needed. Editors may submit content, and like the contributors, are required to do so in compliance with copyright laws. A section may have co-editors.
Skills & Knowledge: Strong writing and editing skills; comfortable working on a wiki or on-line content platform; comfortable managing other volunteers or teams to accomplish the stated goals; experience or knowledge in volunteer management and association management.

Commitment: Initial commitment through August 31 to assure sufficient content in the section to Beta launch the resource.

Estimated time required: 3-6 hrs per month

No. of Positions: 8, one per section (may have co-editors)

CONTRIBUTORS – Responsible for writing copy and/or contributing samples, templates and other resources.

Responsibilities: Submitting clearly written copy appropriate to the topic area or resources; uploading the copy or resources to the wiki site; and making any edits or changes as requested by the section editor, project lead or other volunteer. Note: contributors attest that they are submitting copy in compliance with copyright laws.

Skills & Knowledge: Strong writing skills; comfortable working on a wiki or on-line content platform; experience or knowledge in volunteer management and topic area.

Commitment: Initial commitment through August 31 to assure sufficient content in the section to Beta launch the resource.
Estimated time required: 1+ hours (It’s really up to you!)

No. of Positions: unlimited

STYLE EDITOR – Responsible for developing the style manual for the wiki and assuring content follows the basic style.

Responsibilities: Establish the style manual for use including appropriate use of abbreviations, capitalizations, font formatting; share with all; periodically monitor for consistency.

Skills & Knowledge: Strong writing and editing skills; comfortable working on a wiki or on-line content platform

Commitment: Initial commitment through August 31 Beta launch.
Estimated time required: 3-6 hrs

No. of Positions: 1