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Metropolitan Austin Interactive Network

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Finding a Volunteer To Help Build or Maintain Your Nonprofit's Web Site

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There are a number of ways to find volunteers who can help your nonprofit agency build a web site. Before you start looking, however, you need to write a task description for this person. At minimum, you will want someone who:

• has some experience designing web pages, even just personal pages for themselves or friends, and has samples of their work available for your review
  
  
• can convert the text you have (from brochures, annual reports, newsletters, etc.) on whatever kind of computer you have to .HTML
  
  
• understands your organization and its mission
  
  
• will respect your deadlines
  
  
• can speak in "non-techie" language as much as possible
  
  
• will show other people at your organization how to upload your web pages and graphics to the MAIN server, and will be able to do this for you as needed.
  
  
• and will show other people at your organization how to make changes to web pages (so you don't have to rely on the volunteer for all web work).
  
  

Before you start recruiting, you will also need to have all of the text and graphics you want to go on your web site already on your computer, ready to e-mail or download on to a disk to give to a volunteer.

Text needs to be in "text only" or .txt format -- in most programs, you open the file with the text you want and choose "Save As" under "File" on the menu bar, and "text only" is one of your choices.

For graphics, including pictures and logos, these will need to be in .gif or .jpg format. Not all volunteers will have scanners, so you may have to scan pictures and other graphics yourself beforehand; Kinkos and other such places can help, for a small fee. Also, ask around on your staff and among your current volunteers -- often, someone you know will have a scanner you can use.

Once you've completed these two steps, you are ready to recruit a volunteer to help you with your web site. Directors of Volunteers in Austin (DOVIA) as an online guide, "Recruiting Volunteers in the Greater Austin Metropolitan Area ," http://www.main.org/dovia/tools/recruit.htm , with complete information on recruiting volunteers through the Austin or Round Rock United Ways, the University of Texas at Austin's Volunteer Center, RSVP, and many online areas, such as Austin-focused newsgroups and Web sites (VolunteerMatch, CitySearch, etc.).

The Virtual Volunteering Project has information to help agencies recruit volunteers via the Internet -- these volunteers can help you in whole or in part from their home or work computers. See Marketing Volunteer Opportunities Online, http://www.serviceleader.org/vv/vmarket.html