Building a Digital Volunteer Program

The following prompts are intended for organizations that are considering launching and maximizing the benefits of a digital volunteer program. Digital Volunteers are trained, “trusted agents” with experience in social media emergency management (SMEM) operations that provide digital surge support to an agency during an incident. Before you begin, consider:

• Engaging an attorney as part of digital volunteer program planning. It is important to consider strategies and policies to mitigate liability and associated risks of a digital volunteer program, as volunteers may be considered to be acting on an organization’s behalf.
• Reviewing common Digital Volunteer Roles and Responsibilities and Characteristics of Effective Volunteer Programs on the Resources Page.

There are five steps to developing a Digital Volunteer Program. Users must click Save at the bottom of each page to prevent loss of work. Clicking through the steps in the navigation bar does not save work.

• Step 1: Plan and Prepare
• Step 2: Develop a Standard Operating Procedure
• Step 3: Develop a Standard Operating Procedure (Continued)
• Step 4: Develop a Memorandum of Understanding
• Step 5: Stand Up the Digital Volunteer Program

Building a Digital Volunteer Program will take approximately one hour. Responses will be saved for 14 days. After 14 days, data will no longer be stored for security purposes.