Keep Calm and Volunteer !

When I read the article by Voida, Yao and Korn (2015) entitled (Infra)structures of volunteering, I really could relate to what they tackled in it being previously a volunteer..

In this paper, the authors start off by defining volunteering as “a phenomenon that extends beyond any one system, transcends physical and virtual realms, and permeates the everyday lives of many civically engaged individuals and groups”.

Acknowledging that the construct of volunteering is not very well understood, they suggest that volunteering revolves mainly around creating a group-based collective identity and what drives it is the motivation to serve the community. As such, collective volunteers usually get involved in organizations to reaffirm their group identity. Yet another aspect of volunteering which is equally important is ‘reflexive volunteering’ which encompasses volunteering practices beyond an organization, more spontaneous and more self-organized  and is usually driven by one’s own experience and aims at getting the work done rather than belonging to a group.

In addition, the authors introduce the concept of ‘infrastructure’ which entails the support of local practices through, natural, large-scale and ready to use technology. Infrastructure is perceived as being ‘invisible’, temporal (changing over time) intertwining technological and social structures and embedded in the latter. In line with that, the authors are interested to explore the interplay between technology infrastructure and volunteering and the implications for design.

Based on an exploratory study which entailed participants logging their volunteering experiences to a diary via Google Docs spreadsheets and then through follow up semi-structured interviews, the authors captured the following findings:

• There are two types of volunteering; planned and systematic on one hand which includes scheduled activities, advancing a sense of commitment versus spontaneous and unpredictable volunteering which mainly involves helping others in line with social structures and social relationships.
• Different classes of technology are used either to plan or coordinate volunteer work which usually relies on email lists and Google Docs spreadsheets while micro-coordination is supported by cell phone calls and messaging and Facebook. Also, the technology used varies whether the volunteer is working alone (e.g. using communication media) or with others (e.g. design softwares, software development tools, etc.…)
• The nature of relationships between the volunteers and beneficiaries and the relationships among volunteers influence the type of help provided by the volunteers. Additionally, volunteering within the scope of an organization was perceived as ‘fun’ since it often brings together people with a similar mind-set. Also, volunteers reported that the extent of help would depend on the closeness of the person to them and the type of help needed which sometimes requires them to provide it alone.
• There are three core areas underlining the interdependencies between the volunteering work and social structures of volunteering: expertise and empathy, reciprocity and obligation and impact.
• Disconnect exists between the social structures and the actual volunteering work; these two are not integrated when examining technologies since technology was either used to organize the volunteering experience or to trigger social structures but not the two together.

In line with these findings, the authors discuss the idea of designing foundational infrastructures which support the processes of volunteering while catering for the ‘helping others element’. This implies that the idea is not to simply automate or amplify the skills/tasks of volunteers but try to induce their active engagement through technology to promote continuous positive change. Current technological infrastructures need to be deeply explored to be understood in a holistic manner in order to be able to provide insights on the actual impact of the work done by volunteers.

Personally, I would agree with the authors and concur with their findings. An example of this existing disconnect when approaching the use of technology in the volunteering field is manifested in the work of Merkel et al. (2007) where they examine non-profit organizations and how to consolidate their technological experience by focusing mainly on processes within the organizations such as volunteer management without really tackling the role of technology in bringing forward the impact aspect of projects.  Moreover, looking back at my volunteering experience, technology was deployed as they mentioned either to carry out specific tasks or to incite volunteers to provide help or link them to potential beneficiaries. As a result, I think that current ‘technology infrastructure’ could actually be integrating these two elements and ought to clearly expose the outcomes of the volunteering experience. However, it has to be easily manipulated in order for volunteers to interact with it dynamically and perceive it as an integrative tool.

An example of a networking platform combining many aspects of the volunteering experience is GiveGab, which is quite integrative of technology features and somehow some of the social structures but needs as well some features to reflect the impact of the work done by volunteers

 

On another note, concerning a personal experience I had with a piece of technology, I directly think of the first time I got an iPhone, and I believe the framework advanced in the paper by Grönvall et al. (2014) exactly describes my experience with it. When I first received it, I thought it will probably be like the old phones mainly for calls and texting (anticipating). With time, I kind of got attached to it and started getting all sorts of covers for it (connecting). As I started to explore the content and saw that it includes apps, this is when I started searching the app store and checking the distinctive features of that phone (interpreting and exploring). Afterwards, I tried to understand what this iPhone is really doing or what is its added value (reflecting) then I got used to it and it became part of my daily life, somehow like an extension of me (appropriating). Finally, I remember how we used to discuss among a circle of friends the awesomeness of the iPhone and how it really helped in organizing our lives and brought us closer to each other with all the communication features (recounting).