The System expands the current capabilities of Volunteerism to help get more people involved, provide more choices, make it safer, increase their capabilities, and add tools to make it more efficient.

 

As with the other parts of this System, these features have applicability to many different Industries and applications.  A large part of the Volunteer Feature Set is already part of the Core System, and no further development would be required. For example, many of the selecting, scheduling, event logging, background checks, ratings, feedback, history, special instructions, training, online help, and escalation features of the System are the same as for Paid Personal Services <Read more about Personal Services Features and App>. Some of the System Features are unique for this aspect of the System, and would need to be developed.

 

The System Volunteer Features Set is designed to support:

• Help connect volunteers with individuals requiring support

• Help connect volunteers connect with Organizations and Causes they are interested in

• Help connect volunteers with groups requiring general and specific support

• Help groups create, develop, and manage volunteer activities (companies, corporations, clubs, communities, etc.)

• Generally help organizations get volunteers for regular and special needs

• Expand the variety and number of Personal Services available for volunteers and individuals with needs

• Provide Training, general instructions, online help, escalation capabilities, and specific instructions for the volunteer providing a service to an organization or individual

• Identify and match mentors with individuals that want to learn new skills

• Help establish Interagency coordination and support for volunteers and resources (including emergencies)

• Provide ratings and background and/or reference checks for volunteers

• Providing ratings and/or reference checks for individuals and organizations using volunteers

• Provides a large number of trained individuals that can provide services during an outage or emergency

• Could potentially support a program where individuals receiving Government or Charitable Aid, could be required to perform (and/or receive training) as part of the agreement for their benefits

• Could potentially support school and individual intern and training programs including practical hours and commitments for certain forms of financial aid

• Could potentially tap and more efficiently use Jail, Prison, Required Community Service individuals for supporting certain needs, and potentially receiving recommendations, training, and “good behavior” jail sentence reductions

<Read more about the Volunteer APPs>

 

Volunteer Skills Inventory & Profile

 

Having volunteers that can easily identify and participate in activates that they believe in, is important to engage and keep volunteers. The System helps volunteers identify organizations, causes, types of work, availability of their time, and work environments that they would be interested in (including skills that they have and new skills they would like to learn).

 

Volunteers would fill out online Skills Inventories and Profile that would identify:

• Availability of when they can support volunteering under normal and emergency conditions

• Preferences on type of work and organizations they would like to do

  • Specific organizations they want to be active with

  • Certain types of organizations and causes they would support if there was a need for their skills and if they would be available

  • Specific and general organizations and causes they do not want to support

• Preferred Work Environment

  • Infants, children, adolescence, adults, seniors

  • Disabled and types of disabilities

  • One-on-one or group activities

• General Abilities

• Skills and their skill level for those skills

  • Skills (Administrative, Labor, Trade, Business, Technology, General, Counseling/Support, Legal and Professional Services, etc.)

  • Skill Level (Want to learn, entry, skilled, highly skilled, can train/mentor)

• Resources that have available to use (car, tools, material, etc.)

Note: A sample Skills Inventory & Profile worksheet is available on request

 

Organization Profiles

 

Organizational Profiles help match volunteers and recipients of services with Organizations that provide volunteer services. Organizations need to explain their philosophy, mission, goals, organization, needs, etc. to attract new volunteers either for their organization, or causes that they may support.  This is true for any group that would need or support causes that need volunteers including Clubs, Communities, Corporations, Hospitals, Clinics, Retirement/Nursing/Assisted Living Centers, Government Agencies, Social Advocacy Groups, Faith Based Groups, etc.

These profiles help get volunteers to select (or exclude themselves) from certain organizations, find opportunities they are interested in supporting, sign up for assignments/training, and regular updates. Specific connections between a Volunteer and an Organization would typically have direct email or alerts through the Volunteer APP for general updates and needs.

 

If a Volunteer wishes, their profile can contain certain parameters that would allow organizations that they are not directly signed up with, to search the database of Volunteer Skills for certain needs that they may have. These parameters also allow the blocking of certain organizations or causes from contacting them.

 

Recipient Profile (Individual Needs)

 

Recipients of volunteer services need to develop profiles to help match volunteers (individuals and organizations that provide volunteer services) with current and long-term needs.  Just as with any Organization looking for volunteers, individuals will need to get their information and needs out to be found, as well as any special instruction or needs that may affect a volunteer’s choice. Needs include services, as well as any special instructions or considerations that may be needed in performing a service. For example, the individual may have Alzheimer’s, mild forms of Schizophrenia, Autism, physical limitations, language limitations, required resources, etc. that all need to be considered.

 

Organizations often supply many of the volunteer services to serve the needs of individuals. In some cases this can be a preferred approach from a management, safety, screening, and escalation point of view. Sometimes there are not organizations that can support volunteer needs for a specific individual, or all of an individual’s Whole Health needs.

 

The System supports automatic matches based on profiles could be performed based on the Volunteer’s and the Recipient’s profiles. Volunteers can also manually search these profiles for certain opportunities that they are interested in supporting (type of need, user profile, location).

When individual volunteers they are being search on, for privacy reasons, there would be generic information presented in any search as not to give name, address, phone, reference or even email. Requests for additional information can be done through the Volunteer App (System email or directly through the APP) until a link has been established between the two individuals.

 

Note: A sample Recipient Profile is available upon request

 

Sponsorships and Reference/Background Checks

 

The System is planned to support many different safeguards for Organizations, Volunteers, and Recipients of volunteer services. Some of those safeguards include the ability of having Organizational Sponsorships, and Reference/background checks for Organizations, Volunteers, and Recipients.  It is a scary world out there and there are many cases where information needs to be protected while still providing important information about individuals and organizations.

 

Many organizations already require specialized training, references, and/or background checks (e.g. criminal, driving, etc.) in order to be able to represent the organization or to interact with certain groups (e.g. children, disabilities, elderly, etc.). This is an advantage in going through an agency.

 

Sponsors can use their own internal methods for doing checks on individuals represented by them, but it is envisioned that part of the System includes recommendations for existing and new organizations on how to conduct background and reference checks, with sample situations and questions.

 

It is envisioned that volunteers can also work through agencies that might sponsor them and do reference and background checks to validate their background. This can also be true for recipients of volunteer services, as there are also dangers to Volunteers and Volunteer Organizations.

There are also possibilities (with or without a sponsor) of hooking up with a Web Service that does background and/or reference checks. Volunteers can sign-up, have their identity checked, and do background and reference checks that can be done once and then centrally accessed (generically) for verification. Skill levels (endorsements) could also be included. Recipients can also sign-up, have their identity checked, and do background and reference checks that can be done once and then centrally accessed (generically) for verification. This is in addition to generalized historical ratings for the Volunteer or Recipient.

 

The System is designed to support these features by being able to log the information, and provide different levels and degrees of access to the data based on the individuals involved. Many of these features already exist on the web, and could be incorporated into the System. These go a long way to help safeguard everyone.

 

Some examples:

• Someone could allow an agency to share that they had a clean criminal background check with other agencies

• Base information could be provided stating the person had a certain number of references checked, based a criminal background check, and has a clean driving record

• After an initial contact between a volunteer and a recipient of requested help, references could be shared between them

 

Ratings

 

There are many different ratings envisioned for the System to help identify past performance, and encourage promptness and performance of volunteers and organizations in the future. They are basically an overall rating of the individual or organization.

• Individual Volunteer ratings for individuals including on-time, skills, skill levels, # of hours, # of activities, endorsements, and performance

• Organizational ratings for on-time, skills, # of hours, # of activities,  performance, and taking care of volunteers

• Recipient (individual and/or causes) ratings for ease to work with, attitude, # of hours, and # of activities

 

Allowing access to Comments could be protected by the individual or organization (TBR), but the number of Comments and References/Endorsements could be displayed.

 

History

 

History consists of a listing of jobs performed in the past along with ratings associated with them.

They include information for the event as well as the individual(s) associated with the event:

• Date/Time/Hours associated with the effort

• Name/ID of Individual(s)/organization(s) performing and receiving the effort

• Name/ID of the Sponsor

• Individual Provider Rating (on time, skills, performance, comments)

• Organizational Provider Rating (on-time, skills, performance, taking care of volunteer(s), comments)

• End-User (individual and/or causes) Rating (ease to work with, attitude, comments)

 

The raw data is not globally available for everyone to see (TBR). Individuals and their Organizational Sponsors do have access to their data, and organizations can allow global access to their data. An individual could have more than one sponsor and their data can be combined for summary data. There may also be a special case (if needed) for any Government Agencies that may require information for individuals performing community service in lieu of jail or benefit.

 

This data can be summarized into multiple forms depending on the need and the audience.

 

Privacy

 

Privacy is basically covered in the individual sections of this page, but it is important to note that many of the interactions are between individuals that have no knowledge of each other that could be compromised or put in danger, is all of the information is available upfront. It isn’t fool proof, but other listed protections on this page are designed to help prevent issues.

The privacy (and/or generalization of information) needs to be built into the profiles, as well as summarizing certain information that would be displayed. It needs to be appropriate for Individuals and Organizations to get to the next steps between each other.

 

For example:

• On an initial contact for a service

  • The search could be for “service, skill level, zip code, sex/age preference”  this would return possible options along with their generic background check, reference, performance

  • The request would be made through an anonyms System email or APP including the basics on recipient, extent of services needed, special recipient instructions, location, approximate time frame, and the recipients generic background check, reference, performance

• On the second contact(s), there could be questions going back and forth on specifics

• On the third contact, there would be scheduling setup

 

Searches

 

Agencies, Volunteers, and Recipients all share common goals, to be able to search for good matches. The System will try to automatically match Volunteers, Organizations, and Recipients based on their profiles, and there is a rich set different parameters to help select the best matches for further consideration.

 

Volunteers can tweak their parameters and do active searches for certain opportunities that they are looking for. These searches can be outside of their entered parameters, allowing them to be able to see what is available, as well as what might show up if they changed their parameters.

Recipients can search for potential Services that they do not normally need, or are curious if certain services might be available in their area.

Some searches could be performed by organizations planning or interested in possibly performing a service or activity, which they are not sure that they can support.  This could be for large Public Organizations, Corporations/Community Groups seeing if they have the talent in-house, or even small organizations that might need some augmentation in different areas.  

 

On-Line Bulletin Boards

 

Online bulletin boards are another way for organizations, volunteers, and recipients of volunteer services to connect (including volunteer requests for learning opportunities). The System will try to automatically match Volunteers, Organizations, and Recipients, but bulletin boards can supply additional capabilities:

• Allows people who do not list available time in their profiles (or have some available time) to search for opportunities

• Organizations or Recipients can put in needs that have not yet been matched, are non-regular needs, or are last minute needs

• Allow people to be more selective in their searches for opportunities

• Note: Searches/Filters can be done on type of service, environment, location, and time and then more  information can be provided when selected

 

It is envisioned that individuals using the bulletin board would still be registered with the Volunteer Services portion of the System to be able to access the data.

 

There is also a Public Bulletin and Information Board APP for the Disaster and Outage Services porting of the System that can be incorporated to allow people to see what the needs are, and volunteer/coordinate with local agencies to help with emergency services in an area. These are designed to be able to be accessed online (for local and remote opportunities), or through high availability Kiosks in affected areas that may have limited or failed communication services. <Read more about the Public Information and Bulletin Board APP>

 

Interagency Support and Coordination

 

Single organizations can’t do everything, and many agencies depend on other agencies for support and/or resources. The System helps provide capabilities for organizations to share, request, and supply Volunteers and Resources between each other. The System can also coordinating services and feedback on recipients across agencies.  This is an important concept to provide more complete (and non-duplicate services), take care of shortfalls, share resources and be able to respond to community disasters and outages.

Volunteer and Recipient Services Management

This feature is mainly for Organizations that need or would like to have additional capabilities in managing and tracking Services and Volunteers. The System supports several tools to support this including ratings, event logging, escalation, training, etc.  

• Scheduling individuals to volunteer Activities

• Supporting escalations if there are any issues (not showing up, issue at site, etc.)Tracking hours for individuals or events to measure their performance and hours

• Have logging to show different types of hours to receive Government matching or grants

• Identifying and tracking what training people may have or need

 

Scheduling

 

The Volunteer APP uses the same scheduling that is used for Personal Services and Call Center APPs. Scheduling supports individual and role based scheduling, as well as setting up complex schedules across different individuals and/or groups that can be used for training or a future event.

 

These features can be important for multiday events that require coordination. Scheduling is also used to schedule and confirm services and resources, which gives a clear picture of events for providers, consumers, and supervisors.

 

<Read more about Scheduling, Workflow, and Escalation Services>

 

Training

 

The System supports several types of training, which can be utilized as part of the Volunteer Feature of the System. These can be general for certain skills, information related to general Volunteer work, and special ethics training, as well as specific training that could be provided by an organization related to their general training, or for specific events.

• Videos can be made and downloaded into the System for general or specific activities (e.g. overview of the Organizations history/culture/commitment, Special sensitivity/ethics training, how an activity is planned to be performed, how do specific activities)

• Downloaded Slide Presentations and Manuals

• Links to related content

• Tracking what material has been reviewed, any applicable questions/scoring, general verification of skills

• Demo and Training modes for tasks or preloaded activities

 

<Read more about Training and Demo Features>

 

Online Help, Escalation and Special Instructions

 

The System provides a number of features to support Online Help, Escalation, Special Instructions are important to make sure things are done and done correctly.

 

The System is designed to make it easy for Organizations to create and provide access to Online Help, FAQs, Special Instructions, and Escalation for both providers and receivers of volunteer services. They can be general to the System as well as created for specific activities. These are a fundamental part of the System, and the same features that are used for call centers, medical exams, personal service providers, clinics, residences, etc.

• Specific Volunteer Instructions and Escalation for the task (typically handled through the System Scheduling Feature, as well as the recipients profile information)

• Specific Service Recipient Information and Escalation if there are any issues with the volunteer service

• General Agency and Volunteer Online Help, FAQs, Special Instructions, and Escalations

• General Recipient Online Help, FAQs, Special Instructions, and Escalations

 

Ethics and Compensation

 

A tricky part of people volunteering is how do you handle any offered compensation or gifts. In some cases this could be fine, but in other cases it wouldn’t. This could vary from one organization or activity to another, but this is a concept that needs to be built into the system for the protection of everyone.

 

The concerns would mainly be people receiving volunteer services feeling pressured, tricked, stolen from, forgetting they gave something, injuries at the residence, and/or the person having some difficulty in what they can afford, shouldn’t be giving, or losing things.  We have all seen differing stories where both the volunteers and the recipients have been victims, purposely or by mistake.

 

The System is envisioned to support features to protect the Volunteers as well as the Recipients of their Services:

• One time for the System (possible yearly review)

  • Provide general guides to Volunteers and Recipients of volunteer Services on do’s, don’t, and things to think about (e.g. unlicensed work, put any valuables out of site, and to the extent possible the volunteer and recipient stay in the same rooms, etc.)

  • General ethics agreement

  • Provide online services for individuals to be bonded

  • Provide online services for recipients to get liability insurance

• Per relationship between a Specific Volunteer (or organization) and the Recipient of the service

  • Any agreements or special instructions on any compensation or gifts offered

  • Individuals to escalate to is there are any issues

• Per occurrence between a Specific Volunteer (or organization) and the Recipient of the service

  • Special instructions about the individual and the requested services

  • Any special instructions on any compensation or gifts offered

  • Individuals to escalate to is there are any issues

  • General regulatory/safety information associated with provided services