Need your feedback – Volunteer App

6 thoughts on “Need your feedback – Volunteer App”

1. Hi …

   Overview:  my volunteering has become relatively focused — I probably won't be canvassing outside my own precinct, truly hate outbound phone banks, am not much into social events (planning OR attending),

    

   Volunteer side
   1. When you decide to volunteer and peruse the available events, what percentage of the time are you on your cell phone?   Almost none.
   2. What do you want to know when you are deciding if you are going to volunteer for an event?  who benefits, location, time commitment, some way to see if any of the people I already know are signed up for it.
   3. What criteria should we use to present to determine what events to suggest to you?  opt-in categories — I'd like to be able see events that match what I've defined (starter ideas above) — and perhaps some additional "marquee" events that groups could pay for as a way to generate support for maintenance & further development.
   4. We will lets you find upcoming events three ways: Search (think Google), Calendar (think Outlook), and Marquee (think Netflix side scroll). Which of those will you use? If several, what percentage each?  If I can set up criteria and see events that "fit" on a calendar or list, I would rarely use search.
   5. What should we do to help insure that you show up for the events you have signed up for?  Another org I volunteer with has a "score" to show hours reported and confirmed.  I suppose you could do some sort of "ratio" thing which say how much confirmed time compared to how much signed up for …
   6. This will ask you after each event to rate it – will you fill that out?  probably not … and almost certainly not if it is not nuanced.  Awarding "stars" without context doesn't motivate me to do it.
   7. How often, and by what means (email, text) should we remind you of events you have signed up for?  on other calendars, I set "reminders" that are different for different events.  is that hard to do?
   8. Should we, if so, by what means, and how often, should we push to you upcoming events you might want to attend?  Another organization sends out "updates" weekly — and I'm on the verge of opting out entirely.  as most of the weekly material is redundant and I can't set boundaries for the few things I am interested in.
   9. What can we do to make you feel good about volunteering (in the app, not other things campaigns can do)? A thing that would make me feel good about volunteering would be space to "offer" things I enjoy doing as a volunteer.  The opt-in categories would be good for most things — but "eccentric" offers could also be of interest.  One person in my district is known to enjoy providing some variation on her Mac & Cheese for events.  Another offers to make margaritas for various gatherings.  Letting people advertise what would bring them joy or satisfaction in a volunteer role could liven things up.

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2. Hi all;
   I am writing an application … It has a component for volunteers and a component for campaign managers. 
   Events have 1 interest (canvassing, fund-raising calls, etc.) and 0 – N tags (Climate, Inflation, LGBT+, etc.). I don’t know what a 0-N tag is.
   Volunteer side
   1. When you decide to volunteer and peruse the available events, what percentage of the time are you on your cell phone? 60% the rest on a tablet
   2. What do you want to know when you are deciding if you are going to volunteer for an event? Canvassing – where and what type of turf – apartments, country spread out, burbs, or ? Phoning – what kind of leadership and are the tech bugs worked out. Easy way to record responses. 
   3. What criteria should we use to present to determine what events to suggest to you? What i say i’m good at or enjoy doing. Nobody trusts their data to volunteers anymore, but I’m good at it.
   4. We will lets you find upcoming events three ways: Search (think Google), Calendar (think Outlook), and Marquee (think Netflix side scroll). Which of those will you use? If several, what percentage each? Probably Search or Calendar 70% since my time is limited.
   5. What should we do to help insure that you show up for the events you have signed up for?

   One reminder or text message. A friendly message from one person, not several from various team members.
   6. This will ask you after each event to rate it – will you fill that out?  Probably not unless it was really awful or great, or i have an idea to make itbetter.
   7. How often, and by what means (email, text) should we remind you of events you have signed up for? Day before and day of by text.
   8. Should we, if so, by what means, and how often, should we push to you upcoming events you might want to attend? Never. I will have signed up for what i can do.
   9. What can we do to make you feel good about volunteering (in the app, not other things campaigns can do)? Personal touch – friendly message or call from one consistent person. Obama 08 – it’s all about building connections.

   Manager side
   1. When you enter the information to create an event, what percentage of the time are you on your cell phone? Not editing a detail, but the major work of initially entering an event.  On a desktop or tablet 90%
   2. This will easily show you the upcoming events you own and the list of volunteers for each event. What other information do you need? Notes on volunteers – reliability, preferences, physical limitatioins if any
   3. After each event this will ask you to rate the event and each volunteer. Will you fill that out, and do so accurately about the volunteers? Yes
   4. Are there any reports you need from the system? Success / contact rate, unfinished portions of turf / calls, anecdotes and notes entered.
   For those wondering, volunteers with low ratings or that don’t show up will not be shamed. But the system will, as it gets a track record for individuals, then take that in to account as to what events to show them. If you suck at fundraising, then you just won’t see fundraising events. If you rock at canvassing, you’re mostly going to see canvassing events

   Sounds about right.

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3. JohnInDenver – First off, thank you for the feedback. This helps – a lot!

   To let you know that I'm making use of this, here's what I'm taking away from your comments:

   1. It's nice to see a fellow individual who prefers a real screen 🙂
   2. Benefits, location, & time we've got. But it's an interesting idea to list fellow volunteers. Putting that on the consider for version 1.1 list. We'll need to address privacy for this, which means asking a user if they can be listed.
   3. The opt-in categories we have (Interests & Tags). In addition I'm using AI to prioritize what events a user will prefer. It'll take data (i.e. use) to train it, but it already does a decent job I think.
   4. Really interesting idea for you to set when you're open in the calendar – added to ver 1.1 list.
   5. At present the plan is to not shame people. So no negative for missing an event although the AI will take that into account on what it shows you. But in version 2, after we have a sizeable base, I'm thinking we may do like Stack Overflow and there would be points, including negative points. But the balance should be 95% positive, 5% negative for the average volunteer.
   6. Rating at present is two 5 star questions: How effective was it and how much did you enjoy it. And an optional text box to write anything.
   7. That is a really interesting idea – having options on how/when to remind you with a default set. Question, would you want to set this per event, per event type, or just for all events per your user profile? And what would you like those options to be?
   8. Whatever we do, we'll make it very easy to opt out.
   9. I think we have it able to do this. But it depends on the campaigns putting that information in the event info. And you filling out your profile fully. And then our training the AI.

   Again thanks

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   1. DavidThi808
      “Question, would you want to set this per event, per event type, or just for all events per your user profile? And what would you like those options to be?”

      I’d like to set it per event … or even better (probably a longer term integration), simply offer to put it on MY calendar and let me make the “reminder” choices with the possibilities there.

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      1. JohnInDenver – we already have in version 2 letting you connect your calendar and we put it there. So that is coming…

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4. kwtree – First off, thank you for the feedback. This helps – a lot!

   "0 – N tags" means we have tags like Education, Rural Issues, etc. and each event can tag themselves with 0, 1, 2, 3, … of those tags (with N being the number of tags we have). Sorry, it's a programming construct.

   What I'm taking away from this:

   1. Again a pleasant surprise that a lot of time is on a larger screen. A phone screen is incredibly hard to clearly & cleanly provide all the information for numerous events.
   2. The campaigns can provide that information. If they will… As to the app when you do the canvassing, that's VAN, not this app. This app's job is to get you there.
   3. You will be able to tell it what skills you have. And the party can set what you're certified in. This will take time to get everyone using it effectively, but the app has it in place.
   4. Thanks.
   5. We'll definitely make this programmable because I'm with you, reminders can fast become annoying.
   6. Ok.
   7. Ok.
   8. We'll make it very easy to opt out.
   9. That's on the campaign. Although in another 2 – 3 years we can probably have the AI do all this and you'll think it's a person providing the personal touch. 

   And the manager side:

   1. That's good to hear – because it's pretty much impossible to make an easy to use UI that fits on a phone.
   2. We'll have that information except for physical limitations (see below). But it's going to take data (i.e. lots of use) to make effective use of it.
   3. Really good if this is done.
   4. This is the VAN app, not this app.

   One decision I made was to not record any demographic information about volunteers. So no gender, race, age, orientation, limitations, etc. The reason why is if you have that data it always ends up being input into the AI for training. And then it is (example, don't know if this is what it would do specifically) not showing young men canvassing events because women are more successful at it and all hell breaks loose because that is discrimination.

   And if it's not going to go into the model, why have the data? So not going to track anything like this in version 1.0. In the future, who knows.

   Again, thanks

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