Online and virtual volunteering

The advent of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has transformed conventional in-person volunteering on-site into online volunteering and civic participation at a physical distance. This chapter reviews online volunteering in terms of what, where, when, who, and why. Through four cases, namely Online Volunteering (United Nations), VolunteerMatch, Virtual Volunteering Projects, and GoVolunteer, this chapter proceeds to explore the nature, scope, context, type of work performed, demographics, and motivations of online volunteers. It concludes that online volunteering will continue to increase for its cost-effectiveness but at the expense of time and operational cost in adopting ICTs. This chapter concludes with the future trends of online volunteering.