So you found them, now what?

You have done the work to find your new volunteer(s), what do you do next?

 Have them read a rule book (yawn), talk on the phone (not personal enough); have them watch an online orientation from home (seriously). Now I know there may be good reasons to use one of these methods; but I can't think of any!

Your volunteers came to you because of two things: 
1. They want to do, to be, to make a difference
 and/or 2. In a small way depending on your recruiting system, they came because of you and want to meet you
!

I am a firm believer in looking my new folks in the eye and telling them what I expect of them and what they can expect of me/my program. I want to see them and they want to see me.

And yes we have a lot to do as volunteer managers, so I am going to outline what I do and then some riffs you can use to help if you think its too much. 
My program has no advertising budget, and virtually no support from our internal public affairs group. Yet with a group of over 400 volunteers we still orient 10-20 new volunteers every month. The important distinction is orient; only about 75% of those who attend orientation finish the process and I'm okay with that (more later). Once a month (Thursday night twice per quarter and Saturday mid morning for the other) we hold an orientation beginning at 530 and ending around 700 PM (Saturday 1000-1130). 
What my PowerPoint orientation looks like:

• ·      Where the MRC came from

• ·      What it is

• ·      What it isn't

• ·      How our unit functions and fits into the big picture

• ·      Why its important they register now - not after something happens
• ·      What we expect from them
• ·      What they can expect from us (Our promise)
• ·      
Protection under the laws (Very important for licensed volunteers)
• ·      Personal & Family preparedness
• ·      What our unit does (activities so far this year & planned)
• ·      Reoccurring medical missions

• ·      Training and exercise
• ·      
What kind of equipment we have to serve
• ·      Partnerships for deployments - Red Cross and City disaster sheltering (Last year our volunteers served over 1,200 hours touching people that needed help- not training)
• ·      Questions
• ·      My last ask is join us on Face book - talks to us (ideas, complaints)
• ·      If you like what you hear tell your friends and co workers about us (My advertising is here)

I feel like this gives my potential volunteers enough information to know what they are getting into.

So now to the 25% drop rate; they must go home and complete IS 100 and IS 700 before they can become active. Once that is completed, we do the background check and issue a badge with an EW # on it (and a cool fleece MRC Vest). I remind them a couple of times, if no response I transfer them to the ESAR VHP and let them know they can rejoin at any time. It is better to know I have a smaller number of committed volunteers than think I have 4,000 volunteers. 
(More later about how I am sure I really have 400+ volunteers)

Riffs:

• My area is too big for me to go to all the volunteers- then how can you provide supervision? Oh you use a senior volunteer in that county, area, cool. Let them do the Face-to-Face orientation- great connection point.
• The volunteer is too busy - Then I submit if they can't give up a couple of hours, they won't show up for a real disaster.
• I'm too busy- Suck it up, this is what we do, some days are longer than others, take an extra hour for lunch. Sorry, don't mean to be harsh, but I consider this 1.5 hours a month the best part of my job!

I don't have all the answers, but this works for me and my organization, how do I know? When I call them to serve I have to turn people away. I also am constantly looking for ways to give them a chance to serve while we wait (another blog)

Want to see my orientation? - Connect with me

Disaster_dave

Who is Vulnerable?

“It is important to understand that to be young or old, a woman or a person with a disability or HIV does not, of itself, make a person vulnerable or at increased risk. Rather, it is the interplay of factors that does so...” (The Sphere Project- Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response)

I find I am often in conversations about how to serve people after a disaster and I hear planners talk about vulnerable populations; I wonder through what lens they are looking through?

In most cases it is often new immigrants, people with obvious disabilities and the poor.  While those are the usual suspects as the movie line goes, I believe it is important realize being from one of those categories is not what makes you vulnerable, it is the addition (or subtraction) of something.

Our daily lives are fairly comfortable by most means in the first world, but when something happens like Sandy, it quickly can become a 3rd world working area.  And with the subtraction of electricity, and easy access to the grocer, doctor and other support systems we depend on, someone can quickly become vulnerable.

As you look at your community whether you are a Emergency Manager, a CERT leader, an MRC member or any neighborhood program, look deeper than the pre identified "Vulnerable Pop" look at the family with a single parent, look at the older couple down the street who walk their dog, and seem to get along pretty well for their age, look at the new comer who just moved here and doesn't have connections to the community yet. Look at the UN definition above and as you view your population through that lens ask yourself " If that person (family) lost one of the following - power for a week, or access to the grocery store, drug store, or clean water or anything we take for granted would they become vulnerable?"  If the answer is yes, you have some more planning and teaching to do.

Disaster_dave

What about after disaster volunteers

As we move into a new world of volunteerism I find myself redefining how I view volunteers.  Don't get me wrong I love volunteers, and think they are a strong ally in the disaster response and recovery.  My need to have background checks is based on the sector I work in (Mass Care and/or Medical Facilities).  

But in Sandy there have been many wonderful examples of volunteers stepping up and helping.  After all that is what we all want; for people to step up and take responsibility for their recovery, but the issue is how to responsibly utilize them. There has to be a system in place to accomplish the mission.
Things a systematic plan will do:

·       utilize volunteers time well- limit the standing around doing nothing

·       Not doing double work - systematic coverage of the area, doing recovery in logical order

·       Working in a way that helps the most people - how can we get to the people who need help the most

So here is the problem, as I see it.
Organizations that have a mission and work with volunteers on a regular basis have a plan (for the most part).  The Red Cross for sheltering. MRC for medical care in shelters. CERT for community work.  But all of these organizations have a process for training and processing folks.

So who is responsible for the people who muck out houses? Who put furniture into dumpsters? Who set up feeding kitchens or coffee stops? Donation centers as in the article below.
And then how do we end and move back to normalcy?  I think that is a different article.  
So unanswered questions:

1. Should the government try to provide structure for volunteers in the settings of this article?
2. Should Local VOAD(COAD) take a more active role in the beginning of the recovery (being prepared to set up during the end of response? 
3. Is there another answer?  I don't think I have it, but someone does

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/staten-island-volunteers-fear-city-will-hamper-their-hurricane-relief-efforts/

Disaster_dave

The Unknown Volunteer

Sandy has provided us many lessons, in many different areas of disaster response, most of the lessons are not new, just reinforcement of the ones we know and are working on.  Lets look at one I have written about before and will again.  

As our climate changes (and it is) we will have more disasters caused by weather, with that knowledge, more people should join professional volunteer organizations and get trained BEFORE something happens.

As this article points out many people were turned away! Volunteers Flock to Disaster Areas, Overwhelming City Relief Centers Those people think why, I drove all the way here to help.  And bless you for wanting to help.

Now look at it from our side:

• We don't know who you are (background check, professional license) 
• We don't know what you are trained for (didn't get trained before hand)
• You don't know who we are

 We want to train you, and provide you and the people you are helping the best help we can.

"You can't afford the time to go to training before hand, because your too busy." But you aren't too busy to self deploy to a disaster zone? If you can't afford a weekend or two to train in advance, how committed are you really?  Now don't get me wrong, I think volunteers are wonderful and give greatly of their time and knowledge, but we need to get organized before.

Okay if that doesn't get your attention, think about this. In order to process & train volunteers during an event we have to take some of our most experienced volunteers off the line to do this.

Yes there are times and tasks that may not require huge sums of training, but help out all of the volunteer managers out there who are toiling nights and weekends to get volunteers signed up, checked and trained so we will be ready for the next Disaster.

Below is a place to start. Commit to being trained and ready before the next disaster strikes, and when will that be? We don't know that's why you need to do something Now!
Volunteermatch

PS: if you don't listen to me listen the President and Gov. Christie  //www.serve.gov/sandy/

 Disasterdave

Quitters?

 I have been too busy volunteering to write about volunteering last month!

 But upon my return I dug into a project that had been hanging over my head, which is the topic today.  

In January we moved our volunteer group from an Access Database (we did all the work) to an online State Database (volunteer has to do work).  And my Corps dropped from 470 to 300.  This didn't happen quickly, but the change required my volunteers to go online and build their profile, most did, many didn't.  We used a multi-pronged attack to get people to move; email, Facebook, Phone calls and a little cajoling.  

But in the end, some folks opted out.  For me this was sad on several levels:

·      The work they did to qualify (online IS 100 & 700)

·      The work we did to get them on board (Background checks, lots of paperwork)

·      The loss of their skills for little things and the “big one”

Yesterday I went into the cabinets and pulled the files of those people who left. (We color code the files based on type of volunteer – Red = Medical, Blue = EMT, Green = Behavioral Health and Yellow = support). Man, when I got done the stacks of colors was very depressing, and I moved between wanting to go knock on their doors and try to explain why they were making a mistake to a little bit of anger.

So what now? Well I am going to send them an invite to join ESAR VHP a lesser level of commitment, but a win for us if there is a big one. 

And I just have to move on, but take a few minutes to make sure I am doing everything in power to keep my volunteers involved and happy.

PS: I'm back up to 375!

What to do without disasters

 So you have a great program, great volunteers, they are all background checked and NIMS compliant, now what?
If you run a disaster volunteer (the title of this blog) program, you know that often you are left waiting, waiting, waiting for something to happen.  I know its a bit of perverse thing to do; but thats a different blog post.
My co-workers and volunteers often hear me say "volunteers don't join us to sit on a database, they volunteer to do!"
 There are some certainties that having active volunteers will fulfill.The WHY!

• Active volunteers are happier and stay with programs longer
• Active volunteers tell their friend what they do (think free advertising)
• Active volunteers get noticed when they are doing (Think free advertising)
• Active volunteers can help move your mission/program forward

Another certainty is you will have to work more to keep volunteers busy; it takes work to find, schedule, supervise and get things for them to do.  So now for some ideas:

MRC (Medical Reserve Corps)

• Providing health checks at community fairs (tailor what you check to the audience)
• Augmenting the Public Health mission - whatever you can do to help
• Preparedness training for vulnerable populations in your area
• Training
• Red Cross shelter training
• First Aid training
• AED training
• Cultural competency training
• Radiological training/briefing
• HAM radio (for warning and notifications)

CERT (Community Emergency Response Team)

• Teaching Preparedness training for the community (vulnerable pops, kids, etc.)
• First Aid
• Shelter Training
•  Community education (excuse me, did you know you live in a flood plain?)
• Other ideas - Here
• Pet sheltering training

Volunteer Fire Fighters

• Teach Fire education in schools
• Teach Fire education with vulnerable populations
• Inspection and education (while they may not be able to do official inspections, they can augment your current program)

I know that some of these suggestions may not work (cost, law/rules/unions, interest, etc.)
I know I missed some ideas (please give me input and I'll add to the list allowing everyone to benefit from our collective wisdom)
And most of all I listed only three types of disaster volunteers, you are welcome to add to my list.

Thanks for reading
Disaster_Dave

Volunteer your way into a job

The article below highlights points that work in volunteering your way into a job.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryhannon/2012/06/30/six-reasons-you-should-volunteer-your-way-to-a-job/


I am often asked how I got into Emergency Management (and I think its the most often answer given by others).  I volunteered !

I began volunteering with the American Red Cross to give back to my community, the more I volunteered, the more I became very interested in the Emergency Management field.  After about a year and a half, A job came open and I was encouraged to interview for it; and as they say "everything else is history' But how!

Was I already trained in emergency management ? Nope? What did I do?

1. I asked what did they need! And then did it!
2. I showed up when I said I would/on time (like a job)!
3. I asked to take on leadership and help!
4. When I saw a need I spoke up and offered help!
5. And once I got the position I dove in and made sure they knew they made a good choice.

I love my field of Emergency Management and enjoy talking to folks making the change and trying to figure out how to get in.




disaster dave