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Jayne Cravens

Jayne Cravens is an internationally-recognized researcher, consultant and trainer. Her work is focused on communications, volunteer involvement, community engagement, and effective project management. She is the co-author, with Susan J. Ellis, of The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, the most comprehensive work to date on involving and supporting volunteers using Internet tools. She is a pioneer regarding the research, promotion and practice of virtual volunteering, including virtual teams, microvolunteering,  and crowdsourcing. She is also a veteran manager of various local and international initiatives, including United Nations programs, and has worked in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Egypt, and Poland, among other countries, helping with communications and community engagement strategies.

Cravens became active online in 1993, and she created one of the first web sites to help to build the capacity of nonprofits to use the Internet. She also tracks practices to prevent folklore and rumors from derailing humanitarian aid and development activities. She has been quoted in articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press, as well as for reports by CNN, Deutsche Well, and the BBC. Resources from her web site, coyotecommunications.com, are frequently cited in reports and articles by a variety of organizations, online, and in-print. Cravens received her BA in Journalism from Western Kentucky University and her Master's degree in Development Management from Open University in the U.K. A native of Kentucky, she lived in Germany for eight years and has visited more than 30 countries, many of them by motorcycle. She is based near Portland, Oregon in the USA.