Just how valuable are those volunteer hours?

Just as important as technology is in helping to bring people together to capture the outpouring of support in coordination and communication following disasters, are the people who drop what they're doing to help--the Volunteers.

Volunteers are a lifeline following an event, they do everything from feeding to working at points of distribution, to mobilizing cleanup operations, as well as advocate for those who may not have a voice. Their actions save affected homeowners time and money through sweat equity in cleanup activities and voice unmet needs that traditional emergency management may not be able to identify. But beyond the direct benefit homeowners receive by welcoming groups of volunteers into their homes / onto their properties, is the potential financial benefit that the impacted municipality can reap if the Volunteer hours and tracked and properly reported.

The reimbursement of Volunteer hours for work done on private property is something that few people know about, and fewer people understand. But given the potential for offsetting some of the financial burden incurred by communities cleaning up, one would think that this would be common knowledge--as far as I know...it is not.

The process of reimbursement for Volunteer hours after a disaster has long been a question that many national non profits and community based organizations have asked, but due to the ambiguity surrounding whether the work Volunteers do qualifies for reimbursement has been difficult to get a straight answer to. The stories of the millions of dollars Volunteers saved the city of Joplin through meticulous hours tracking and reporting are the stuff of legend, but yet when I have asked for guidance on the process, who to talk to, and ultimately who had the authority to make that determination, I've gotten a variety of answers.

The question(s)
Who can responding organizations go to prior to engaging in cleanup activities to get a clear answer on whether or not the hours worked on private property by Volunteers are eligible for municipal reimbursement under the Stafford Act? In addition, if hours are applicable, what metrics need to be tracked for reporting and who does that reporting go to?

Cost Share
Often referred to as "the soft match," a community can apply the documented value of Voluntary labor for certain activities against the amount they owe the Federal government to offset costs. As an example, if the Federal government is covering 75% of the costs and the municipality 25%, then Voluntary hours could be applied to reduce the financial burden owed by the city. If you want more info on this check out FEMA's Public Assistance Applicant Handbook page 6.

This is a great way to communicate and reinforce the natural desire people have to help a community in need, and to promote the value of affiliating Volunteers with organizations who can provide this added benefit to an impacted municipality. However, the fact remains that few know or understand how to navigate this process, and the perceived nuance that pervade the mechanics of securing a designation and all the requirements that go with it only add to the mystery.

While I could write a lot on the subject, the bottom line is that after reading through FEMA's:

• Debris Removal from Private Property Policy Statement
• Key Sections of the PA Applicant Handbook
• Relevant Sections of the Stafford Act

And speaking with FEMA and reps from impact municipalities, I still don't feel I know what the triggers are to start this process, who on the ground makes that determination (because in my experience it's not the FCO as some of the documentation indicates), if the act of bringing debris to the curb of private property (the majority of the activity Volunteers engage in) is covered, who ultimately to report the information to, and whether or not there is a template that exists that you can give to community's to help them jump start the process.

While this is an esoteric topic, the benefits of gaining clarity around the issue could be far reaching. As previously stated, with the proliferation of spontaneous response groups sprouting up after events, untold numbers of Volunteer hours are going un-reported. If there was a concise way to show the value in following guidelines on tracking Volunteer hours, I believe it would work to bring more groups to the table around a common cause--helping individuals and families while also advancing the goal of community-wide recovery.

If anyone has or can gain insight based on the linked documents, please leave comments...as I am by no means the expert, just someone who knows the importance of gaining clarity around this issue.

The Digital Divide

While the rapid evolution of technology appears to be the panacea for what ails communities struggling with preparedness, response, and recovery issues, it's important to remember that not everyone has the same access to, or comfort with existing or newer technological innovations. While the technologist is pushing the envelope and creating new opportunities to utilize technological platforms following disasters, there are a lot of people out there who don't fall under the digital umbrella.

Dubbed 'The Digital Divide,' the below infographic does a good job of highlighting some of the remaining challenges to the widespread adoption of technology; however, what the infographic fails to include is the aging population and how the internet usage of those 65 and older are only at 42 percent according to livescience.com. Given that the focus of so many organizations following an event is on addressing the needs of vulnerable populations like the elderly, their lack of access to reliable communications has, and will continue to hamper the communication of critical information before, during, and after an event.

As we look to technology to spur innovation and enable resource strapped muncipalities to do more with less, we must remember that crucial stakeholders aren't currently a part of the preparedness/resilience conversation. I believe that civic engagement and tech innovation are essential to mitigating the loss of life during an event and leveraging the support given after, but that it's up to the communications providers to put the infrastructure in place and offer reliable services so that the innovations can have an impact.

The Languages of Disaster

A series of these maps are making the rounds on the internets illustrating the regional differences in vocabulary...the bottom line being, different parts of the country use different words for the same thing: soda = pop / hoagie = sub / sneaker = tennis shoe / etc...























The same can be said for how we talk about disasters, the nomenclature we use is as varied and idiosyncratic as the communities we help. The two camps that exist in the disaster world are those in the traditional emergency management infrastructure and those who are not.

Traditional emergency management is based on the tenants of the command and control structure of NIMS and ICS, and within that camp there's SEMS, the foundational "language" on which NIMS is based. Within this acronym-laden alphabet soup lives a language / structure with it's own HR procedures, protocols, ways of conducting field ops, and ways of requesting assistance from neighboring jurisdictions.

The other camp are the non-profit organizations and everyone else, including people holding positions within local gov't, all of whom speak their own language or are making it up as they go as it relates to response and recovery activities. This is not to say that some of the national organizations / city governments don't have personnel who aren't "versed" in NIMS/ICS, but it's usually only a small percentage and ends up reinforcing a divide between established response organizations and those emergent groups who only stand up after an event.

One of the hurdles that exists in bridging this gap is that a NIMS org chart looks like this:

Nice. Organized. Clear Delineation of Roles and Responsibilities

And a non-profit org chart is more like this:

Too many jobs for too few people

And the org chart for spontaneous groups look like this:

There isn't one

State and Local Emergency Management Agencies speak NIMS/ICS because there are funding strings attached, the non-profit world usually receives their funding from private sources and are beholden to a different set of requirements--none of which have anything to do with ensuring NIMS/ICS compliance.

When NIMS/ICS aren't part of the daily operational vernacular, there are going to be problems in level setting expectations and creating a common place to start from following an event, especially when trying to bring the various players together to create a unified and cohesive response effort.

To help create consistency in operations from a county, state, and federal perspective, a series of frameworks have been created: The National Prevention Framework, The National Mitigation Framework, The National Response Framework, and The National Disaster Recovery Framework. While the debate rages on about whether or not the federal gov't has too many or not enough frameworks, the fact remains that they exist and provide a roadmap in which roles and responsibilities are outlined.

If you turn to the non-profit sector or beyond you'll find that no such guidance exists. National VOAD has consensus and guidance documents but nothing that sets forth expectations around roles and responsibilities following an event, leaving the door open for a re-interpretation of how things should go every time disaster strikes.

The command and control mentality only works to a point, but if the whole of community and community resilience talk is to be anything more than words, a common language and common ground need to be found to bridge the gaps that currently exist. If we don't speak the same language, working together will continue to be a struggle fraught with the same mis-interpretations and mis-understandings that have plagued response for as long as I've been a part of it.

Thank you

The initial feedback I've received on the blog has been great...please keep your comments and questions coming.

I wanted to let you know that I don't plan on posting on weekends, so please check back on Monday for a new post.

Thanks again.

-Jeremey

Innovation + Civic Engagement = Secret Sauce

Who doesn't love a Venn diagram?

Secret Sauce...that's what we're all after right? Finding the balance, the intersection between civic engagement and innovation, where capable, hungry individuals and organizations are working to streamline access to new and exciting ways to help their communities in both times of disaster and not.

The fluid nature of innovation and the reactive spikes in civic engagement following disasters makes harnessing the confluence of these two elements difficult. However, I believe what happened following Hurricane Sandy is a great example of Secret Sauce in action; where volunteerism and civic engagement fueled by new tech platforms aided community-wide response and recovery activities. At the time it was messy and chaotic, but the new ideas and perspectives on how to approach many of the challenges that continue to pervade response and recovery, were a welcomed breath of fresh air.

Because the life cycle of a technology employed in response is so short, it's almost guaranteed that the next time it's used, lessons learned from its previous deployment will have gone into creating version 2.0. While creating newer and more efficient applications and systems is good, I believe the key to retaining the secret sauce is to maintain a technology's simplicity while enhancing its functionality. Of course that's easier said than done, but it's important to remember that during times of disaster people revert to what they know and what's easiest, which is why you see so many people doing coordination with a pen and legal pads.

The confluence of motivated people and new technology rallying around a common cause is rare, but we have the good fortune in disaster response to have an abundance of both. I believe the key to ensuring that every community gets their own brand of Secret Sauce is to aggressively promote innovation while nurturing and rewarding civic engagement that promotes community cohesion.

Hacking our way towards Resilience

The concepts of preparedness and whole of community are being pushed to the forefront of the conversation when talking about creating community resilience; transforming them from abstract ideas and words used in grant proposals, to tangible ideas and actions.

Civic engagement and the growing base of concerned and motivated individuals rallying around the idea that they can create a tangible impact on their community through technological ideation is spurring a wave of innovation. It's casting a broad net that is reaching a new breed of disaster practitioner--the technologist. An example of this transition can be seen in the integration of technology in civic activism through groups like Code for America and events like the national day of civic hacking. These forms of civic engagement have also worked to influence disaster response and recovery.

http://h4d2.eu/ (Hackathon for Disaster Response 2.0)

http://codeforamerica.org/2013/05/31/be-part-of-something-big-this-weekend/

http://hackeroo.io/

http://rockawayhelp.com/

https://www.hackerleague.org/

The recent surge in civic engagement has predominately come in the form of Hackathons; a hackathon being an "event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackathon). The focus or theme around these events is to address a community-based issue and they are drawing bright, young innovators to the table and are producing some surprising ideas and apps centered around the idea of Peer-to-Peer disaster recovery / survivor-centric response. 

With the recognition that technology and mobile platforms are rapidly changing how the business of disaster response and recovery is conducted, the focus of some of these coding marathons is to address the challenges communities face as they work through the turbulence of community-wide recovery. The resources are out there as well as a loose infrastructure needed to galvanize a community around the cause of streamlined/expedited disaster response and recovery...all that remains is the will to push it forward and make it a reality.

Given the popularity and explosive growth civic hacking has experienced, I believe there is  an opportunity for National VOAD and FEMA's Innovation advisory team to sponsor a disaster hackathon of their own. Organizing and leveraging the ideas and spirit of civic engagement to address the common challenges of community-wide response and recovery, is a way to create resilience and engage a constituency that has the 'local touch' and can provide the context needed to make the apps relevant with the backing of national coalitions and entities that can push for widespread adoption.

Europe is underwater...

With the national focus on Granbury, Moore, El Reno, and to a lesser extent, the Midwest, as they deal with breached levees and habitual spring flooding, we seem to have overlooked the fact that large portions of major European cities are underwater...or maybe I'm living under a rock. Either way, to hear it from the European Environmental Agency:

Days of heavy rain over the past week have left parts of the Czech capital Prague, Austria and Germany under water, killing at least 11 people. More than 10,000 have been evacuated from their homes in Germany, with analysts predicting the spread of the floods to Slovakia and Hungary in the coming days.

Passau, Southern Germany

The road to recovery is long and arduous, and with so many communities both domestically and around the world working through their respective response and recovery processes, it is my hope that those who are impacted navigate their personal recovery quickly and with as little grief as possible.