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Managing Volunteers after a Disaster

Submitted by Noel Dickover on June 1, 2011 - 12:05
Revision #5Recommend a SolutionFork

How do we efficiently manage volunteers for health needs after a disaster?


For an NGO working in Disaster Preparedness, they can often get a huge influx of volunteers during a disaster, and often have to turn many away because they cannot handle the flow.  In truth, this problem is broader in that it includes:


  • Organizing before the disaster
  • Organizing during the disaster response
  • How to maintain interest after the initial emergency response?
  • Empowering volunteers to identify needs and react
  • Issues of trust or credibility

Recommended Solutions: 
Volunteers Network
Volunteers Management
Example: 

A use case might be as follows:


  1. Volunteers register with their skill sets/experiences
  2. When a disaster happens responding group can send a message to the volunteers that match their requirements (sms/mobile)
  3. Volunteers can respond that they are available
  4. Volunteers could report needs and services they have provided
  5. Other volunteers and responding organization can identify the unmet needs
  6. Efforts redirected to where they are needed
User Stories: 

This problem-set was developed at TechCamp Jakarta on May 19-20 in Indonesia.  The solution set includes:


  • Social Media could have a big role: for example creating a Facebook group to organize volunteers before a disaster
  • Database for volunteers to register with specific NGOs ahead of time
  • Mobile being able to coordinate volunteers in the field.

 Other important aspects include:

Constraints: 
Cloud-based, easy to implement.
Extra Credit: 

In thinking through the resources necessary to solve this problem, what we would want from the private sector, volunteer community, government, large scale NGOs, and/or funding organizations.

  • SMS credits to organizing number
  • Set-up of the technology
  • Need a NGO that wants to adopt the system
  • Funding to set-up/maintain
  • Doing fundraising
  • Advertising to get individuals to register (social media?)
  • Support from government/non-profits to increase credibility
Next Steps and Sustainability: 
Develop or find an existing volunteer management solution that is easy to set up and use, or develop a prototype portion of the volunteer management approach.
Qualitative Impact: 
more volunteers matriculated into the NGO disaster response effort, with their time utilized better.

Comments

May I suggest including the "armchair volunteers" around the world? There are many of us out here who immediately look for and assist with populating new Ushahidi instances, particularly in the days following a major disaster. As a frequent submitter, I concur that e-volunteer wrangling is definitely an area that needs help. For example, it would be nice if someone put serious effort into getting the word out about "Tweak the Tweet" (TtT) and ensuring that the associated Ushahidi instance knows to look for specific hashtags. A link to a Google Doc or PDF should always be at the ready, teaching newcomers how to MT for Ushahidi.
Steve J Jun 04, 2011

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