Would you trust a volunteer to help maintain your organization's servers? Okay, probably not, but what about taking out an iPad to collect constituent data? Or setting up wi-fi hot spots after a disaster.

Volunteers are the lifeblood of many a nonprofit, and there are many ways you can engage them in technical roles – but it requires a special skill set to manage them. We'll explore the pros and cons of a volunteer workforce supporting technology at our upcoming webinar, "Engaging Volunteers in Technical Roles".

Learn more and register today >>

In this webinar, you'll learn:

• How to train IT leadership on how to manage volunteers and plan what will be done before the volunteers come knocking
• How to vet volunteers the same as paid staff
• How to empower (and contain) the volunteer with job descriptions, responsibilities and accountability

I've seen so many political activist volunteers out with clipboards this month. Simply having a tablet to collect information would make them stand out. Then, they could tag the location, even accept on-the-spot donations – and not worry about transcription errors when they get back to the office.

We need to help these people out!