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Working With Volunteers Before and After a Disaster
Anyone in Volunteer Administration can tell you that people have different reasons for volunteering. And, they always need something from the experience. To be successful at managing volunteers you need to identify what each one needs from the experience. And, you have to have a plan to be able to match volunteers with needed work. If you wait until a disaster happens, unsolicited volunteers will appear and may create a "disaster within a disaster". This common pattern prompted national efforts to help local agencies understand what typically happens and how to manage people's good intentions during the hectic time before, during, and after a disaster.
To follow are the first three paragraphs of an online booklet developed to help local agencies. They identify who developed the booklet, why it was developed, and how they hope it will help your agency.
Managing
Spontaneous Volunteers in Times of Disaster: "When disaster– natural or man-made – strikes a community, specific emergency management and nonprofit organizations automatically respond according to a pre-established plan. Each of these designated organizations has a specific role to play in ensuring an effective response to and recovery from the disaster’s devastation. Yet one element within the present system continues to pose a challenge: spontaneous, unaffiliated volunteers. Spontaneous, unaffiliated volunteers – our neighbors and ordinary citizens – often arrive on-site at a disaster ready to help. Yet because they are not associated with any part of the existing emergency management response system, their offers of help are often underutilized and even problematic to professional responders. The paradox is clear: people’s willingness to volunteer versus the system’s capacity to utilize them effectively. The events of September 11 dramatically illustrated the need for better planning in this arena, and the issue of unaffiliated volunteers began receiving increased attention. In April 2002, UPS, the Points of Light Foundation & Volunteer Center National Network, and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) convened a National Leadership Forum on Disaster Volunteerism. The Forum brought together leadership and operations experts from the volunteer and emergency management communities, Volunteer Centers, firefighters, local government emergency management staff, and those with years of hands-on experience. Participants representing over 45 organizations identified challenges and opportunities associated with disaster volunteering; developed preliminary recommendations and action steps for addressing the challenges of spontaneous volunteers; and secured commitment from participating organizations to work toward the recommendations proposed. The
Forum’s initial work and findings were important first steps.
Quite evident, however, was the need for additional tools, training
and resources to implement recommendations at the local level. In
the spring of 2003, the National Voluntary Organizations Active
in Disaster (NVOAD) coalition established a Volunteer Management
Committee to continue this work. The committee consists of representatives
with hands-on experience in emergency management and volunteer management.
Members were chosen for their broad expertise as well as their ability
to secure a commitment of resources by their organizations towards
implementing the recommendations. The committee is staffed by the
Points of Light Foundation and funded by a grant from The UPS Foundation.
The manual offers step-by-step strategies for effectively utilizing unsolicited volunteers who want to help during a time of disaster.
Legislation Related to Volunteers and Liability
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