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| 5.
| The Internet: a useful tool for the Third Sector? |
On the Internet it is increasingly common to find portals specializing in solidarity-related subjects, voluntary service and, particularly countless NGOs and solidarity organizations. Greater ease of "uploading" webpages and access to them have made the Internet an increasingly important arena for the third sector. The crisis facing dotcom firms does not seem to have affected solidarity.com or the thirdsector.com, no doubt because their plans were much more modest and they were much less well developed, with infinitely smaller investments.
The Internet undoubtedly offers advantages which can be put to use by the third sector:
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Communication is almost instantaneous, information can be posted on the web within minutes.
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Documents on the Internet can be updated and changed rapidly.
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Taking orders, consulting databases, donations, etc., are comfortable and easy for the user, whether internal or external to the organization.
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The information is live, graphic and interactive, can contain text, images, colour, menus, downloadable documents, video, sound, etc.
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Its low cost compared with printed documents, it being unnecessary to buy paper, print it, distribute it, etc, and the fact that it takes very little time to produce compared with traditional forms of publication.
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It knows no frontiers. Any user in any part of the world can access the information.
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Once again, and on the Internet it could not be otherwise, the English-speaking world is at a huge advantage as regards the presence of solidarity pages on the web. A few short years ago (although it is true that on the web that is a long time) in Spanish we found hardly more than a few personal pages, generally created by volunteers, dealing with a range of subjects related to the field, more or less extensive pages belonging to a few associations where a professor or student interested in the third sector and solidarity posted information on their university server. They were very static pages, often poor in terms of their design and content and doubtlessly took little advantage of the interactivity of the Internet. At that early stage, Internet service providers habitually offered limited space where associations could post little more than their address, telephone and objectives.
But the event that perhaps best showed the enormous possibilities of the Internet for the third sector in Spain was Hurricane Mitch. The Internet became a source of information for NGOs on the situation on the ground and at the same time proved to be a very efficient tool for collecting funds. The information on what was happening on the ground reached the headquarters of organizations via the Internet, these put it on the web immediately and people interested accessed it and made their donations online. At the same time they received information on where their funds were going via the web. The disaster caused by Hurricane Mitch undoubtedly opened the eyes of Spanish NGOs to the potential of the web. NGOs started to be aware of the importance of the Internet.
Today, solidarity is present on the Internet – with varying degrees of success – in all fields: information, forums, chat, the sale of solidarity products, fund-raising, systems for communicating with members and the organization's volunteers, etc. NGOs are aware of the possibilities opening before them. In their most optimistic predictions, the organizers of the Porto Alegre World Social Forum expected around 2,000 participants; there were more than 5,000. They attributed it to the "Internet effect". A month before the forum they had launched their website. The Internet has the ability to connect groups around the world rapidly, creating a base of people who are aware, and prepared to act. Human rights, environment and, above all, anti-globalisation movement groups believe that use of the Internet is fundamental to spreading their ideas. Undoubtedly, the work of many groups is receiving an enormous boost thanks to the web.
Providing information on the characteristics of the organization is perhaps one of the classic aspects and is one which the NGOs have developed most commonly on the web (information on objectives, projects, areas of work, etc). Thousands of organizations, large and small, from north and south, are to be found with information of this kind. The information is normally fairly static and is not updated as often as necessary.
The Internet increasingly gives organizations more reliable provision of information on what is happening in the world. NGOs have their own network of delegates and counterparts who, via e-mail, send up-to-the-minute information on what is happening in the countries where their projects are being carried out. This ease of communication has meant a big reduction in the cost of communication for NGOs. In addition, it allows them to provide immediate information on what is happening. Within minutes of the wave of attacks on the US, the American Red Cross had information on its website, which was complemented by appeals to the population on how they could collaborate.
Apart from that, increasingly frequent are news agencies specializing in providing information on humanitarian and solidarity issues in which the general public can participate, on social movements and on information generated by the organizations themselves, like for example Alertnet, Canal Solidario, info-ONG and One World.
Online awareness raising campaigns have also proved to be effective both as a purely awareness raising element and in promoting the active participation of the general public in a particular cause, such as fund raising. Promoting active participation is perhaps where the Internet demonstrates it full potential. For example, the American Heritage Forest campaign, the objective of which was to stop the building of roads in national parks, succeeded in sending the White House some 170,000 e-mail messages generated by outdoor enthusiasts. With an Internet campaign, small groups can make a big impact, an impact that they cannot achieve using any other medium. There is even the possibility that defence groups could exist exclusively in a virtual environment.
Perhaps lately we can all bring to mind the campaign run by Amnesty International to save Safiya and more recently Amina, women condemned to death by stoning in Nigeria, and the campaign Juntos por África (Together for Africa).
Spaces devoted to fund raising appear increasingly frequently on the sites of many NGOs with systems of varying degrees of sophistication. Online donations face certain problems, such as the continuing fear of providing bank details, despite being in a secure environment. However, it means that donations can be more of a reflex action. The potential donor enters the site, can read information on the organization, see the projects it is carrying out, understand the problems facing a particular group of people or country and, with that information, decide to make a donation to the development of a particular project or to the organization's general costs. At the same time, for the NGO it simplifies the process of making donations tremendously, making it very simple to provide the donor with a receipt and periodical information on the destination of the money given. Donors can know exactly how their money is being used, so that the transparency of the organization is hugely increased. A similar case is that of attracting new members, with the added advantage of being able to vary membership whenever desired.
Apart from this, for web users solidarity can be free. Agreements between NGOs and companies allow projects to be backed with the companies paying a certain amount in exchange for the web user clicking on an icon and viewing a banner belonging to the company providing support. The Clic solidario site brings together a large number of the existing initiatives to donate money by a single click.
For attracting volunteers there can also be big advantages. On the one hand it allows the would-be volunteer to know what positions are available, so that it is no longer a question of joining an organization in a general sense but instead a priori of choosing the area of the organization you wish to work in. In the English-speaking world there are Volunteer Centres, where different organization in a particular place can display their vacant positions, as if it were a job centre, and where potential volunteers can access, search and select the option that most interests them. In Spain we have hacesfalta.org, risolidaria.org and voluntariado.net. Some organizations also have this system at their disposal. Apart from that, the organization assists with the process, the information has now been entered on a database by the potential volunteer and identity cards, certificates, information about training etc can be produced.
One of the most promising fields is perhaps training. Paid personnel can be used for the training of volunteers, both at centres and in the field and for external personnel, who may pay for the training undergone. The ease of being able to train a large number of people seems a significant advantage. However, contrary to what many might think, the costs of training will not be lower. The installation of infrastructure, purchasing computers and training the teaching staff, among others, mean that these systems cannot be seen as the solution to reducing costs.
There are basically two forms of self-study training, one where the learners follow the course via the Internet and set their own rhythm of learning. The level of knowledge is evaluated by questionnaires which the system itself corrects. In the second format, a monitor is responsible for following the learners, setting the pace of learning, proposing tasks, setting up periodical contact between the learners and the teacher, with online queries being possible, a virtual library being available, etc. In Spain, one of the leaders in distance learning is perhaps the UOC, which has developed a variety of learning materials for the Spanish Red Cross, such as its Accident Prevention Workshop, Basic Institutional Training Course and a First Aid Course.
The sale of products via the web, while it has not met expectations, can also be an appropriate field for organizations. Some have interesting pages selling the organization's publicity material (key rings, t-shirts, posters, etc), publications and reports, etc. It is, certainly, true that in this field associations are not free of the difficulties e-commerce has come up against.
One of the advantages that was quickly appreciated was the ease the Internet provided for networking and initiatives slowly began to appear that facilitated work and the exchange of information between different NGOs. Online resources, advertisements for volunteer posts, posts for paid personnel, documentation, forums, chat etc, all became available. Two of the most interesting initiatives in this respect are perhaps Risolidaria and Voluntariado.net. Initiatives of this sort are possibly those that take most advantage of the web's potential, no longer in isolation but providing services of interest to NGOs, volunteers and people interested in humanitarian issues. Others are networked in a very original fashion, like the Helping to Help Foundation which attempts to put potential donors in online contact with potential receivers. The receivers of any form of assistance in turn become donors as they agree to give 10% of the aid received to another group or project they consider may need it. In this way, the creation of networks of economic solidarity is favoured.
The Internet is also a medium for providing expert advice for NGOs. Initiatives have been begun such as Solired which provides free professional help for NGOs, with the backing of volunteer professionals qualified in different fields – technical, legal, organizational, commercial, etc. The Internet is the channel for the exchange of this information and personalized information is provided on the queries organizations make. Others offer Internet-based consultancy by providing material that organizations can examine such as the Guía de gestión de entidades sin ánimo de lucro (Guide to managing non-profit making bodies) and Idealistas.org.
But the Internet is not only useful for associations, as its advantages can have a direct effect on an organization's beneficiaries. For example it can contribute to and complement at-home teleassistance projects, with aspects such as telemedicine and videoconferencing, enabling more personal, direct communication with beneficiaries in order to ascertain their state of health. It is a field that has not yet been fully developed but where we can expect major developments.
But the web can also make enormous contributions to the internal workings of NGOs with decentralized operations. The decentralized work of many organizations can be problematic in their day-to-day running and having centres that are connected to each other via the web makes it easier for all to share the same information in real time. Orders, personnel management, updating databases, dealing with internal processes, etc, can be made more efficient in networked organizations. Intranets with management tools and information of interest to all their members will see progressive development in the third sector.
There also needs to be significant room for participation. The participation of members and volunteers can be a vital aspect. Often it is difficult to know the opinions of our members and volunteers; organizations may have channels open for participation but they do not work as well as might be desired. The Internet is a fundamental space for participation; running opinion polls, forums and chat, access to private areas with information for members only, etc, can make members and volunteers feel more important within the organization and more party to its decisions. It is certainly true that, to date, experiences of this sort sometimes do not produce the desired results; for example chat sessions, unless they have someone who is important in the organization as a speaker, are very poorly participated.
There can little doubt that the third sector has taken advantage of only a small proportion of the potential the web has to offer. Really taking advantage of the web means major investments that are understandably not within the possibilities of all; NGOs in the southern hemisphere cannot make such investments, but neither can many in the north. The dotcom crisis has caused a certain lack of confidence when it comes to investing meagre resources in this field.
Having a site on the Internet is cheap; taking advantage of all its potential not so. This will mean that the majority will not be able to enjoy, at least in the short term, this technology. How up-to-the-minute and valid the information is will be increasingly important, which will mean that pages that are very attractive but hard to update will fall by the wayside, unlike pages that are more "sober" but easier to update.
The third sector will, once again, have to use its creativity to have a proper presence on the Internet and that means, once again too, being networked. Internet portals where numerous organizations participate may be the solution for many. Such portals, enriched by the contributions of different organizations and with appropriate technological support, will be the alternative for many, who – otherwise – would find no place on the web.
Apart from that, NGOs in the northern hemisphere will have to start to include development projects that include their counterparts' technological development. The development and strengthening of NGOs in the southern hemisphere, among other aspects, entails taking advantage of information technology.
It is possible that the services we provide for our users have not benefited sufficiently from the Internet. We will have to analyse how the Internet can directly affect improvement in the quality of the services we are providing. We should not forget that investments NGOs make in the Internet will make sense only to the extent that we are able to offer its advantages directly to our beneficiaries.
Finally, the Internet provides ideal conditions for encouraging participation. NGOs will have to be both creative and daring in order to boost the participation of civil society via the Internet, by creating spaces for solidarity and commitment. Only by turning our pages into spaces for participation and opinion will we differentiate ourselves from other forms of being on the web, and thus be able to turn the Internet into a space for solidarity and commitment.
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[Published on: October 2002]
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| ©
2002 byJuan Manuel Suárez del Toro Rivero |
| ©
2002 by FUOC |
| Original title: Las nuevas tecnologías, una oportunidad para la acción humanitaria. |
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