About Impact Online's
"Virtual Volunteering" Program

This new program encourages development of volunteer activities that can be completed off-site via the Internet. Such Virtual Volunteering allows anyone to contribute time and expertise to nonprofit organizations, schools, government offices and other agencies that utilize volunteer services, without ever leaving his or her home or office. It also enables such agencies to expand the benefits of their volunteer programs, by allowing for more volunteers to participate, and by utilizing volunteers in new areas.

To be successful and effective in the community, nonprofit and public sector organizations need volunteers. Now, working to meet ever-increasing demands with often ever-decreasing resources, agencies need even more support. Virtual Volunteering is a way to help organizations meet the increasing challenges of the future, while also allowing them to reap tangible benefits from emerging technologies.

Many people who cannot volunteer on-site are willing to do so via their home or work computers. In fact, Impact Online has been contacted over the years by numerous individuals around the U.S. who want to help an agency via Virtual Volunteering... but we've found few organizations who know how to utilize such people.

Impact Online officially launched its Virtual Volunteering program in December 1996, but our staff has been using the phrase "Virtual Volunteering", and using volunteers "virtually", since we first went up on the Web back in 1994.

As part of its Virtual Volunteering program, Impact Online:

• continues to build this area on its Web site to showcase information about Virtual Volunteering and to facilitate matching between those who want to volunteer and those nonprofit organizations who need volunteers.

• will initially work directly with 5 - 10 organizations to help them develop effective and ongoing Virtual Volunteering programs, and to help Impact Online detail first hand the realities of setting up and maintaining such a program, such as volunteer screening, monitoring, and recognition, as well as how look for assignments within an organization that could be handled by a volunteer via online technologies.

• posts learnings and tips to its World Wide Web site regarding Virtual Volunteering, and communicate its findings via appropriate Internet discussion groups.