Volunteer Management in Disaster- you are behind when you start

Last week I attended a a Volunteer Reception Center exercise by one of my contemporaries who is the EM coordinator for ESCA (a consortium of smaller cities who have come together to hire an Emergency Management group across two counties). A tip of the hat to Dan Good who wrote the plan and conducted the drill.
Our conversation got me thinking about this question:

As we have seen in the last few disasters the Volunteer Reception Centers are set up days after the impact. So what do you do to get all the spontaneous volunteers who are already running shelters, cleaning up and many other important task signed up?

Why bother you might say? Just a couple of good reasons:

1.  The first is command and control! Not doing things twice; knowing the volunteer is who they say they are.
2. The Second reason is that if this disaster becomes a presidential declared disaster you will have a chance for reimbursement from the Federal Government and State.  Typically you (or your county or state)have a percentage of that to share.  Usually 75% Feds + 25% at the state level, and the state often splits the 25% with the municipality. Guess what? Those volunteer hours can help pay down your city/counties portion.  But you have to track them.

Did that help get your attention? 

So now you have your Volunteer center up and are smoothly signing people in and dispatching them to leaders who will use them.  So now to scoop up the un-registered volunteer; you can do several things and these are just suggestions:

1. send a team out in the field to register and brief people where they are (big groups).  take water and snacks to show support and give them a reason to stop working.
2. Put the word out to the leaders of operations at the next meeting that all volunteers must pass through the registration station and you will get them back ASAP.
3. Set up the sign up team at a common point- chow hall/shower area/sleeping area

Other reasons to get the unregistered logged in:

•  Making sure everyone is working off the same page
• Liability protection
• Proper numbers for feeding- nothing like a tired hungry volunteer when you tell him not enough food
• Proper numbers for sleeping places- Except a tired dirty volunteer with no place to sleep
• Enough shower & bathrooms
• Enough medical folks to care for booboo's

disaster_dave

Ahhh my nightmare is true!

If I have one thing that wakes me in the middle of the night it is having 100’s, no thousands of spontaneous volunteers showing up after a catastrophic event! But that would never happen, right? Read this then come back, lets talk!

In April there was an earthquake near Longmen Township China that killed 160 and injured over 1,600.  But that is not the story I want to highlight here.  What we want to consider is what happened after.

Consider the words of Luo Ming the team leader with the Sichuan Emergency Response Volunteer Group “The volunteers have created a certain kind of disaster themselves,” he says, speaking with the rapid speech of someone who has not slept in 48 hours. “It seems like there are more volunteers than there are earthquake victims. They have no place to sleep, and nothing to eat, and most of them have no experience or training.”

There were so many people streaming into the area that the government had to block the area off and restrict access.

While I believe there are places for spontaneous volunteers; the ones who are there when it happens and pitch in the save their neighbors and secure the area.  But having people just show up with no training and no support is just adding to the problem. 

One of the things that a catastrophic disaster has is lack of everything, food, water, bathrooms, places to sleep; why would someone insert himself or herself into that?  Because they don’t understand the problem!

First we need to know who you are?

What skills do you have?

Are you committed or just a disaster tourist?

What support do you have (or do we as an organization provide)?

Can we utilize your skills (or lack of) outside the disaster area in support?

Your local emergency manager is going to busy trying to help the community; lets not give them another thing to worry about. So please pick one:

1.    If you really desire to be part of the solution, please go register for an organized group:

http://www.redcross.org/support/volunteer       

https://www.medicalreservecorps.gov/HomePage     

http://www.fema.gov/community-emergency-response-teams

http://www.volunteermatch.org/ 

 

2.    Or stay home

PS: I vote you pick # 1, you'll be proud of yourself

Disaster_Dave

A higher level of professionalism for volunteers

As we require a higher level of training for our volunteers we end up with more training time.  This is a double edged sword.

First it means more of a commitment from our volunteers - I have spent the last year becoming qualified as a volunteer Response Team Member for Shelterbox.  During that time I have spent hundreds of dollars, flown to Texas (on my own dime) lived outdoors in 100 degree heat and traveled again to England where I lived outdoors in cold wet weather just to become qualified as a VOLUNTEER. So why did I spend time and money to volunteer?  Because the mission of the organization speaks to me.

During all that time flying I began to think about the process I was in and the process for the volunteer program I manage and I came up with a few things to think about.

1. What is the goal of your program? How can you make it approachable, but not make it too easy? You have to keep the standards so that your volunteers feel well trained when they go into their first event. 
2. The training shouldn't stop once they get their badge - consider mentors.  Even after all I noted about my training, I am still considered a "trainee" until my first deployment; nothing test you like the real thing.
3. Your training better be awesome! If your newly found volunteers give up their evenings or weekends for training don't waste their time.  Make the training topical and interesting.
4. Make them part of the organization by asking some questions:
1. Did this training meet your expectations?
2. Do you feel prepared for _______?
3. What would they change?

While volunteers work for free, they are not cheap, you have to spend the time and effort to make them fully trained and integrated.

disaster_dave

Technology for Volunteer Programs

 I think we can all agree that one of the things all volunteer programs do not have in abundance is money for systems. Luckily there are lots of online tools to use to speak with, sign up and move your volunteers.  Today I want to take a few minutes to point out a few that I use in my program.  There are many web-based tools out there, if I missed one please let me know.  I only have two requirements:

1. It must be EASY to use - Dummy proof you might say
2. It must be my favorite price- FREE

Here are a few I like:

Zoomerang for Surveys & Polls they have combined Survey Monkey and Zoomerang.  Cant get any easier than this.  This is what I use to do my annual surveys of volunteers.  Works great, exports to EXCEL and makes nice Graphs.

 Doodle for finding the right dates for a meeting

 Sign up Genius   This is my new favorite online tool. We need to schedule shifts in a shelter, or a event. The cool thing is it won't let you over-staff, always a hassle to call volunteers back and say  "we have too many". The other cool thing is the volunteer can see who they will serve with.

DropBox  I use this to share Powerpoints that are too big to mail.  Its free, but if you send someone a document with this and they sign up to use it (So they can see the document) you get added free storage space.  A great tool!

Form Builder - Can be used to build online forms.  Pretty cool, but can't stay with free for long if you use it alot.

Free Quiz Maker  I see some pretty cool uses for this, you could design your own tests on YOUR procedures.  I will have to spend some time with it

Poll Everywhere - Saw this used at a conference, while the individual might get charges for SMS, it makes for a pretty slick presentation

While I am not advocating using either Bing or Google for serious translation, they are good for a quick peek at what someone is saying; but if its important get a real translator.

Bing Translate
Google Translate



And just a couple of cool websites thrown in for fun (cause I'm a fun guy)

HayStack - this is a real cool website to test your passwords on- interesting

Wordle- Beautiful words - You can paste any document (CEMP, Volunteer Policies, anything) and it will make a beautiful picture of the words.



Disaster Dave

How many volunteers do you REALLY have

So you have worked hard, probably for a couple of years building your pool of disaster volunteers, and in a moment of empty space you think "How many of those names will show up if we need them?"  Which is either followed by a satisfying sigh or EEEKKKKKK!

When I was at the Red Cross we planned on only 40% of our volunteers showing up, due to many factors; vacation, they can't get off work, they were part of the affected population, they can't get there, they are not comfortable in the environment (Think H1N1).  Many searches of web articles list 50% show rate.  So whats a Disaster Volunteer Manager to do?

If you have 500 volunteers then best case you have a show rate of 200.  Is that enough to fill your mission? How many locations do you have to staff? How many shifts do you need to fill? How many people will work more than one shift?
The above are some questions you need to answer.  

The danger is if your management looks at your numbers and think you can deliver ALL of those volunteers, they are going to be disappointed in you.

So what can you do to get the maximum turn out for a disaster?  Here are some things that work for me and my program:

• Communication - this is one of the most important steps. Don't sign them up and forget them.  If you deploy disaster volunteers, make sure you let EVERYONE know what the deployment group accomplished.
• Train them - if they feel comfortable with the equipment they will need to use they will be more likely to show.
• Train them how to protect themselves - I went to great links to get someone in to train on working in a Nuclear environment, why?  Because we have a Port! Because working with radiation is scarier than it really is.  Because its one of the scariest things that we could work in.
• Deploy them - So I know the title is disaster volunteers and you can't just make disasters (well you can, but its illegal). But what will they do in a disaster? In my case its medical care, so we looked for opportunities to do medical care.  We currently provide care for the homeless at two shelters on a monthly basis.  We support city and Red Cross shelters with medical support, we do medical counseling at neighborhood fairs.  So look around and find someone who needs help and help them.
•  Did I mention communicate - Email, Face Book, Linked In, give them things to look at, things to read. Tell them about the cool things THEY are doing!
• Survey says - Annually (I usually do it in April) survey your volunteers; ask them some things you want to know. How long have they been volunteers? How often do they respond? What ideas do they have?, etc
• Involve them - Give them projects. Give them leadership positions. Ask them questions.
• Thank them- Remember they are volunteers, recognize their sacrifice and genuinely thank them for what they do.

 Lastly, make sure your leadership understands what it takes to do all this, that finding them, recruiting them and keeping them takes time and money. 
And please explain that you don't really have 500 volunteers!

Disaster Dave

Opportunities to serve or how not to sit on a database

Want your volunteers to be there when you really need them (disasters)? 

Then find ways to engage them today. I often repeat, "Volunteers don't join an organization to sit in a database".  Yet that is one of the most common complaints I here from volunteers. "I did all this training, paperwork and now what..."

So again I don't have all the answers, but you might.
I began by looking at my organizations mission and seeing what wasn't getting done, or who needed help. And low and behold there was work for my volunteers to do.  

• Our volunteers currently hold medical clinics for the homeless once per month in two separate locations.

• Our volunteers (Hams) are currently working on identifying rally locations in our county that have good communications paths.  It will be a place we roll out to all of our volunteers (400+) this summer and test.  After we have proven the viability we will offer this site to our employee network.

• We support Red Cross shelters during times of need (Nurses & EMTs).

• We have used support volunteers to help us repackage some critical supplies in our warehouse.

All of this takes time and project management , yes and weekends on my part. But I believe in my program and my volunteers and they want to be useful now, they want to do now, so I continue to look for opportunities to put them to work.

After all that's why they joined, not to sit on a database !

Disaster_Dave

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