Virtual Volunteering

Potential of virtual volunteering January 27, 2012: D. MURALI ‘Kaho, Karo, ya Karwao,’ or ‘Say, Do, or Get it Done,’ reads the tagline of http://karmayog.org, “a resource that enables you to ‘Improve Your World’ by connecting you with like-minded people and organisations in your locality, city and world.’ Describing Karmayog as ‘an excellent example’ of how technology has impacted volunteering in a positive way, Femida Handy, Meenaz Kassam, Jillian Ingold and Bhagyashree Ranade write inFrom Seva to Cyberspace: The many faces of volunteering in India(www.sagepublications.com) that ‘virtual volunteering’ is attracting technologically savvy youth to participate in volunteer projects in India and to collaborate with others globally to make a difference. One learns that the organisation connects citizens, NGOs, corporations, media, and government, through online and offline methods. “Karmayog’s interests extend to the corporate sector as well, where it works with corporations to promote volunteering among their employees. Karmayog also conducts an annual evaluation of the CSR (corporate social responsibility) efforts of the 500 largest companies in India.” IT and CSR A chapter devoted to CSR mentions initiatives such as IT (information technology) and vocational training given by the Tata companies to communities, ‘on-demand community programmes’ in IBM India, time-offs in Microsoft, and funding assistance by Wipro. It can be instructive to know from www.tata.com that Clause 10 of the Tata Code of Conduct mandates Tata companies to encourage volunteering among their employees and help them around their areas of operation. The book speaks of the ‘Directory of Employee Volunteers’ established by the group as an efficient way of matching jobs in the community with available employee skills and interests. One other example from the IT space is of Wipro where the authors find that ‘involvement in the disaster relief activities increased awareness in a number of Wipro volunteers of the dire needs of the community and instilled in them a desire to continue their service even after the immediate crisis was over. A quote of a Wipro official cited in the book concedes that companies cannot function as ‘islands of excellence’ in a community that is dismally lacking in the basic necessities of life, because such inequality breeds resentment; something too critical to ignore, considering the fact that the community is the source from which companies will find their future employees. Never too late To emphasise that it is never too late to volunteer, the authors highlight the example of a CSR effort in Infosys which engages retired professionals. The company has “various teams of employee volunteers who are actively involved in providing additional support to government schools on weekends. They exploit the skills and experience of retired school teachers in Bangalore to assist them in their efforts to provide free education for children in government-sponsored childcare centres and orphanages.” The concluding chapter of the book reminds that virtual volunteering enables ‘volunteering in your pajamas’ because many services can be provided over the Internet by volunteers using their home computers. Examples of such services listed by the authors include translating documents, sending out information to members, conducting online research, providing online mentoring, fundraising campaigns, and signing of petitions. “As NGOs struggle to meet the growing demands of their members and clients with limited resources, virtual volunteering is particularly beneficial because it can bring many specialised services to the organisation at reduced costs.” Insights of value to the different stakeholders in the sphere of volunteering. BookPeek.blogspot.com http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/d-murali/article2839655.ece?homepage=true B