Meet Mickey Diener…

Mickey DienerAt Professionals doing good, we’ve been promoting virtual volunteering as a way to do good while staying at home. We’re also encouraging retirees to take up volunteering as a way to stay connected. Mickey Diener, one of our recent volunteers, is a perfect example of both the virtual volunteer and the retiree volunteer! Mickey is a retired technical manager and project manager who volunteered from his home in New Jersey, USA. He has cooperated with a local charity in Siem Reap to create a new website (https://www.jwoc.info/) based on their existing site, and was instrumental in helping the organisation inform and reach out to their donors. We’ve asked him some questions about his experience.

Mickey, why did you want to volunteer?

I wanted to stay involved in various technical volunteering activities. I was also looking to expand my volunteering experience in areas for social good.

Tell us more about the project you worked on.

I developed a new website for Journeys Within Our Community (JWOC), a local non-profit organization in Cambodia that provides low-income Cambodians with educational and personal development opportunities. It was equivalent to approximately 30 days of work, and it was very satisfying work, as I feel like my virtual contributions have made a great deal of impact for JWOC.

Were there any challenges you encountered while working on this project?

The only difficulty in working on this project was the time difference between Cambodia and the US. The 11–12 hour difference made the task of scheduling live meetings a bit challenging.

What would be your advice for future professional virtual volunteers wanting to follow your example?

Be ready to fully learn about the organisation you are working for!

Do you think you will ever be a virtual volunteer with us again?

Absolutely. I hope to work on another project that’s similar to the JWOC project. I have had nothing but positive experiences working with both Professionals doing good and JWOC. The communications manager of JWOC was a pleasure to work with, and I appreciated all the support shown to the both of us by JWOC’s managing director. The positivity of Pdg via communications with Luisa further added to the experience. Thank you, Luisa, for placing me with JWOC! I’m definitely looking forward to my next project.

If you’d like to have a unique experience while making a difference like Mickey did, contact Professionals doing good for more information at [email protected].

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