Corporation for Public Broadcasting Civic Networking
Project
Davis Community Network -
A Civic Network as a Strategy for Building a "Smart" Community
PROJECT ELEMENT: Volunteer Management System
Description:
The goal of this project element is to
work with existing
programs such as the Volunteer Center of Sacramento/Yolo Counties, the Sutter Time Exchange
Program (STEP), and five representative
volunteer-based organizations to develop and test processes, procedures,
systems and on-line tools to use as an integrated "toolkit" to support
volunteer recruitment and management over the Internet. Additional goals
include training volunteer-based agencies in the region in the use of the
Volunteer Management Toolkit, and helping them develop technology plans
(identify hardware, software and communication needs and associated funding
requirements), and strategies for obtaining resources and implementing the
plans.
Project Team:
Team Leader: Richard Lowenberg (Executive Director, DCN)
Joann Becenti (Volunteer Center of Yolo/Sacramento Counties)
Jason Coffer (DCN WebTeam)
Steve McMahon (DCN WebTeam)
Christian Sandvig (UCD-DCAS)
Vicki Suter (UCD-DCAS)
DCN Volunteer Coordinator
other DCN WebTeam members
Timeline:
Functional
Specifications, Volunteer Management System
Current status report summary:
DCN has been working closely with the Volunteer Center of Yolo/Sacramento
County, and its new Agency Coordinator, Joann Becenti. With their help,
DCN recruited a volunteer Volunteer Coordinator, Lisa Matlock, who worked
20-30 hours a week from March 1 through June 30, 1997 before she relocated
to another community. Lisa contacted the other three CPB grant recipients
and other community networks to investigate volunteer management systems,
with the most productive response for our work coming from Dr. Curtis
Priest and the LINCT system. She also participated in the civtalk and
communet lists in this regard.
Since Lisa has left and until a new coordinator is brought on board, Vicki
Suter and Richard Lowenberg are providing interim follow-through on
Volunteer Management.
Between March through July, 1997, the following primary tasks were
undertaken and completed:
DCN's volunteer web pages were developed, and are available for
volunteer sign-ups (with further developments in progress).
DCN provided a free DCN public access computer, modem, account, and
web site to the Volunteer Center of Yolo County.
Other existing volunteer management tools and systems were researched
and evaluated.
Functional specifications for the volunteer management program were
developed in coordination with the DCN Volunteer Coordinator, WebTeam,
and Volunteer Center of Yolo/Sacramento County.
A prototype system for a web-based volunteer time accounting system
has been developed, and is being used by the DCN WebTeam to track its
time. (This system has a web-based front-end, scripted middleware,
and uses Timekeeper (version .73) as the database backend.
For more information, see the detailed status report below.
Detailed Status Reports:
7/31/97
1/30/98
10/31/98
Prototypes and Examples
Example of
initial volunteer information input via the Web
Example of timecard entry (for tracking time on the CPB grant)
|
