Managing Spontaneous Community Volunteers in Disasters

Managing Spontaneous Community Volunteers in Disasters

Author: Lisa Orloff

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2011-04-25

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1439818339

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While history has identified a need for improved coordination during emergencies, it has also demonstrated that community volunteers positively impact their neighborhoods during times of crisis. Laying out the rationale and process by which emergency managers, community leaders, and non-governmental aid organizations can effectively collaborate and integrate citizen response, Spontaneous Community Volunteers in Disasters explains how to engage, train, and utilize spontaneous unaffiliated community volunteers (SUCV). The book prepares leaders to integrate local volunteers into any scale emergency response. Protocols and flexible management solutions are outlined to ensure safe and effective planning and execution. Work templates provided can be modified to suit the needs of any community. This accessible manual provides the tools to: Assess your agency’s role, tasks, and challenges to meet community needs in a disaster Build a plan for managing SUCVs by developing internal and external protocols Develop effective spot screening and selection methods Engage community members in information-sharing and outreach campaigns Consider policies and procedures that create relevant roles for volunteers and community groups to build a resilient team for disaster recovery Provide National Incident Management System (NIMS) compliant answers to address common barriers to using SUCVs Combining field experience and psychosocial research, the book makes a strong case as to why community involvement in disaster response will have a positive impact on a community’s resilient recovery. Praise for Spontaneous Community Volunteers in Disasters: All emergency management coordinators can benefit from this book. —Howard Butt, New Jersey State Police, State CERT Coordinator Lisa Orloff has done an excellent job in both identifying a significant opportunity in emergency response and meticulously outlining how that opportunity can best be leveraged. —Dr. Michael Chumer, New Jersey Institute of Technology The Alliance for Nonprofit Management has nominated the book for the Terry McAdam Award. This award is bestowed upon the Committee's choice for the most inspirational and useful new book published for the nonprofit sector.


The Complete Idiot's Guide to Recruiting and Managing Volunteers

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Recruiting and Managing Volunteers

Author: John L. Lipp

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2009-10-06

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 1101140615

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Advice on the unique challenges of managing a volunteer workforce Volunteers provide vital services to millions of people each year. However, because of their work's special nature, they're one of the most challenging work forces to manage and retain. Lipp has managed these workers for over 20 years and shares his experience in recruiting, balancing paid and volunteer staff, creating schedules that work, addressing the transient nature of volunteers, motivation, and retention. • Expert author in the field • There is a growing need for volunteer workers as budgets are cut • Most current book on the subject • Clear, jargon-free text full of anecdotes and step-by-step advice


Volunteer Management

Volunteer Management

Author: Jaclyn S. Piatak

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-11-11

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 1040227694

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Volunteers play a critical role in serving communities and delivering public services. Volunteers serve across many areas — in schools, human service organizations, emergency services, and more. By providing services to those in need, volunteers expand the capacity of organizations and can devote extra time to the populations they serve. While research on volunteering has shifted from a focus on recruitment and motivation to management and retention, the focus is largely on universal, one-size-fits-all prescriptions. Volunteer management only recently moved to a contingency perspective focused on organizational needs. However, volunteer management should adapt to meet the needs of organizations and volunteers. Taking a strategic approach, this book provides an overview of volunteer management from planning and recruitment to engagement and evaluation, considering both organizational and volunteer needs and capacity. We develop a strategic volunteer management approach for volunteering to benefit not only the organizations and communities served, but also volunteers and society more broadly. This book advances research on volunteer management by combining the organizational and volunteer perspectives, provides a guide for volunteer administrators and coordinators, and serves well as a text for courses in volunteer management, nonprofit management, and human resource management.


The Handbook of Applied Communication Research

The Handbook of Applied Communication Research

Author: H. Dan O'Hair

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2020-04-24

Total Pages: 1043

ISBN-13: 1119399874

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An authoritative survey of different contexts, methodologies, and theories of applied communication The field of Applied Communication Research (ACR) has made substantial progress over the past five decades in studying communication problems, and in making contributions to help solve them. Changes in society, human relationships, climate and the environment, and digital media have presented myriad contexts in which to apply communication theory. The Handbook of Applied Communication Research addresses a wide array of contemporary communication issues, their research implications in various contexts, and the challenges and opportunities for using communication to manage problems. This innovative work brings together the diverse perspectives of a team of notable international scholars from across disciplines. The Handbook of Applied Communication Research includes discussion and analysis spread across two comprehensive volumes. Volume one introduces ACR, explores what is possible in the field, and examines theoretical perspectives, organizational communication, risk and crisis communication, and media, data, design, and technology. The second volume focuses on real-world communication topics such as health and education communication, legal, ethical, and policy issues, and volunteerism, social justice, and communication activism. Each chapter addresses a specific issue or concern, and discusses the choices faced by participants in the communication process. This important contribution to communication research: Explores how various communication contexts are best approached Addresses balancing scientific findings with social and cultural issues Discusses how and to what extent media can mitigate the effects of adverse events Features original findings from ongoing research programs and original communication models and frameworks Presents the best available research and insights on where current research and best practices should move in the future A major addition to the body of knowledge in the field, The Handbook of Applied Communication Research is an invaluable work for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars.


Spontaneous Venturing

Spontaneous Venturing

Author: Dean A. Shepherd

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2019-01-15

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0262038870

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Identifying a new approach to disaster response: spontaneous, compassionate, and impromptu actions to alleviate suffering. In Spontaneous Venturing, Dean Shepherd and Trenton Williams identify and describe a new approach for responding to disaster and suffering: the local organizing of spontaneous, compassionate, and impromptu actions—the rapid emergence of a compassionate venture. This approach, termed by the authors “spontaneous venturing,” can be more effective than the traditional “command-and-control” methods of large disaster relief organizations. It can customize and target resources and deliver them quickly, helping victims almost immediately. For example, during the catastrophic 2009 bushfires in Victoria, Australia—the focal disaster for the book—residents organized an impromptu relief center that collected and distributed urgently needed goods without red tape. Special bonds and friendships formed among the volunteers and victims; some were both volunteer and victim. Many victims were able to mobilize resources despite considerable personal losses. Shepherd and Williams describe the lasting impact of disaster and tell the stories of Victoria residents who organized in the aftermath of the bushfires. They consider the limitations of traditional disaster relief efforts and explain that when victims take action to help others, they develop behavioral, emotional, and assumptive resilience; venturing leads to social interaction, community connections, and other positive outcomes. Finally, they explore spontaneous venturing in a less-developed country, investigating the activities of Haitians after the devastating 2010 earthquake. The lesson for communities hit by disaster: find opportunities for compassionate action.


The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook

The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook

Author: Jayne Cravens

Publisher: Energize, Inc.

Published: 2014-01-15

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 094057666X

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What is virtual volunteering? It’s work done by volunteers online, via computers, smartphones or other hand-held devices, and often from afar. More and more organizations around the world are engaging people who want to contribute their skills via the Internet. The service may be done virtually, but the volunteers are real! In The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, international volunteerism consultants Jayne Cravens and Susan J. Ellis emphasize that online service should be integrated into an organization’s overall strategy for involving volunteers. They maintain that the basic principles of volunteer management should apply equally to volunteers working online or onsite. Whether you’re tech-savvy or still a newbie in cyberspace, this book will show you how to lead online volunteers successfully by: -Overcoming resistance to online volunteer service and the myths surrounding it; -Designing virtual volunteering assignments, from micro-volunteering to long-term projects, from Web research to working directly with clients via the Internet; -Adding a virtual component to any volunteer’s service; -Interviewing and screening online volunteers; -Managing risk and protecting confidentiality in online interactions; -Creating online communities for volunteers; -Offering orientation and training via Internet tools; -Recruiting new volunteers successfully through the Web and social media; and -Assuring accessibility and diversity among online volunteers. Cravens and Ellis fervently believe that future volunteer management practitioners will automatically incorporate online service into community engagement, making this book the last virtual volunteering guidebook that anyone has to write!


Essential Volunteer Management

Essential Volunteer Management

Author: Steve McCurley

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 9781900360180

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This handbook covers an introduction to volunteer management, planning for a volunteer programme, creating motivating volunteer jobs, recruitment, screening and interviewing, orientation and training, supervision, and volunteer and staff relations.


Disaster Volunteers

Disaster Volunteers

Author: Brenda D. Phillips

Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann

Published: 2020-01-21

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0128138467

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Volunteer work can make a difference to those harmed by natural, technological, and human-induced disasters if it is done well. Disaster Volunteers provides readers with information on why people volunteer, the benefits gained by volunteers and recipients, and how to leverage such good will. Learning from a variety of past disasters, readers will gain realistic insights into the challenges of disaster contexts. Equipped with evidence-based best practices, Dr. Phillips organizes and illustrates necessary steps to recruit, train, manage, reward, and retain volunteers throughout the life cycle of disasters. This important resource walks both organizations and individuals through the entire process of volunteer engagement from recruiting and training to managing as well as rewarding and retaining volunteers and provides an engaging and informative set of useful and evidence-based chapters. Disaster Volunteers fills an existing gap in books on volunteer disaster management by incorporating research, generating sound recommendations, grounding ideas in a disaster context, and offering an inviting set of examples from which readers can learn.


Decision Aid Models for Disaster Management and Emergencies

Decision Aid Models for Disaster Management and Emergencies

Author: Begoña Vitoriano

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-01-26

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 9491216740

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Disaster management is a process or strategy that is implemented when any type of catastrophic event takes place. The process may be initiated when anything threatens to disrupt normal operations or puts the lives of human beings at risk. Governments on all levels as well as many businesses create some sort of disaster plan that make it possible to overcome the catastrophe and return to normal function as quickly as possible. Response to natural disasters (e.g., floods, earthquakes) or technological disaster (e.g., nuclear, chemical) is an extreme complex process that involves severe time pressure, various uncertainties, high non-linearity and many stakeholders. Disaster management often requires several autonomous agencies to collaboratively mitigate, prepare, respond, and recover from heterogeneous and dynamic sets of hazards to society. Almost all disasters involve high degrees of novelty to deal with most unexpected various uncertainties and dynamic time pressures. Existing studies and approaches within disaster management have mainly been focused on some specific type of disasters with certain agency oriented. There is a lack of a general framework to deal with similarities and synergies among different disasters by taking their specific features into account. This book provides with various decisions analysis theories and support tools in complex systems in general and in disaster management in particular. The book is also generated during a long-term preparation of a European project proposal among most leading experts in the areas related to the book title. Chapters are evaluated based on quality and originality in theory and methodology, application oriented, relevance to the title of the book.


The Palgrave Handbook of Volunteering, Civic Participation, and Nonprofit Associations

The Palgrave Handbook of Volunteering, Civic Participation, and Nonprofit Associations

Author: David Horton Smith

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-01-18

Total Pages: 1505

ISBN-13: 1137263172

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Written by over 200 leading experts from over seventy countries, this handbook provides a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of the latest theory and research on volunteering, civic participation and nonprofit membership associations. The first handbook on the subject to be truly multinational and interdisciplinary in its authorship, it represents a major milestone for the discipline. Each chapter follows a rigorous theoretical structure examining definitions, historical background, key analytical issues, usable knowledge, and future trends and required research. The nine parts of the handbook cover the historical and conceptual background of the discipline; special types of volunteering; the major activity areas of volunteering and associations; influences on volunteering and association participation; the internal structures of associations; the internal processes of associations; the external environments of associations; the scope and impacts of volunteering and associations; and conclusions and future prospects. This handbook provides an essential reference work for third-sector research and practice, including a valuable glossary of terms defining over eighty key concepts. Sponsored by the International Council of Voluntarism, Civil Society, and Social Economy Researcher Associations (ICSERA; www.icsera.org), it will appeal to scholars, policymakers and practitioners, and helps to define the emergent academic discipline of voluntaristics.