May 27 Outreach Meeting

From E-Democracy.Org

May 27, Noon meeting

Cathi reviewed questions from previous meeting: Continue with current activities without new relationships? Satisfied with what we’re doing? Need more outreach? How do we evaluate what we’ve done, where do we go?

Possibility of Survey. Volunteer survey to SP-U list: interest in helping with workshops/anything else Evaluation questions Interest in being on committees Other workshop ideas Help in a workshop

Survey interest in helping what was interesting/useful workshop topic ideas

Survey those not current participants…(past participants, etc) helpful, how heard about it (spif, library, street posting, peace calendar, etc), ideas of what is needed (besides workshops), willing to volunteer

we need to both determine resources and determine level of success, both with existing audience and with target audience. Who is our target audience and are we reaching them. What other resources do we need?

Resources-new volunteers? What other resources do we need? To continue what we are doing…$, people what success are we achieving? who is our target audience? are we reaching them? current participants mostly 40+(but range teen-60+)

Outreach to seniors? At senior high-rises, etc.

Mondays? Change dates? Formerly Tuesdays, changed due to conflicts with other programs at the request of the library.

Not currently reaching target audience of low income/immigrant/frogtown residents/etc

Existing resources: workshops, database, email list

Need someone who can handle administrative/logistical details.

Stock workshops--+increase outreach, leverage what we already have.

Possibility of building 4-5 hours a week into rondo ctep workplan for workshops and coordinating volunteers.

Possibility of grant for next year (e-democracy.org grantwriter for volunteer coordinator for next year)

Other internships/volunteer opportunities aside from ctep? Already pursued, not easy or profitable, due to length of recruiting process and the fact the e-dem doesn’t have a good structure in place for bringing in/managing interns.

Other, non-workshop ideas: tabling changes: visit places in neighborhood, do more outreach. Visit senior places, or other groups/community groups/ngos, different times…targeted outreach.

Need to get one or two people out of G65 for once/twice month for outreach.

Survey those folks who have used our services, because they can tell us whether our services have value.

Also go to other useful contacts with survey, have you heard about us? Here are some things that we do, do you find them interesting? Would you like to partner? Would you like to talk about working together?

Library survey, one day of the week, each of us

List of canned workshop, are library users interested in these canned workshops? Also have an “other” category. Will you attend?

Survey spif members and public officials. Have you heard of the work we are doing at rondo? What have you heard? Would you be willing to volunteer? How?

All survey s link to volunteer survey, rather than all asking same question.

Better phrasing: in which ways would you be willing to help with this effort?

Surveys: 4 groups: past users, community organizations, spif/public officials, library users ask for volunteers at and of survey.

Have coffee with them. Everyone. To establish a strong personal relationship.

Volunteer appreciation event.

Events for people from the community. Food fair?

How to do surveys? Spif and former participants are easy to reach,

Nonprofit survey: target recent contacts rather than mass broadcasts (ppl, wilder, citizens league, etc). ask (now that program is established) what orgs that are working with pops not connected to web think we should do to better reach audience. Are you in contact with pops with low digital skills. If so, directly or indirectly? Do you know of people of any type who might benefit from this type of program? If so, who would be the person to contact? Find out : five orgs with concrete need, five people with interest, so we can target these orgs/people. Also ask about opportunities to host workshops, opportunities for publicizing workshops: boards, newsletters, etc. other ideas, tabling, outside workshops, mentoring, outside tabling, workshops.

4 surveys, points of interest: evaluation visibility (how visible is the project?) program ideas audience (who are we reaching?) volunteers other resources (newsletters for advertising, etc)

need to : draft surveys, get them out, get them back. timeframe: soon. Collaborate via word docs

ask about times in surveys (particularly library survey)

database.

Step1: surveys,

Step2: decisions about fall at end of June (include all potential volunteers)

Get questions out this week, ideas back this week, surveys ready by Friday. Responses by 13th. Send out reminders.

Meeting july 1, 6pm rondo, go over surveys, decide what will happen in the fall.\

Surveys drafted by Friday the 30th, sent out to users on Monday, also sent to spif. Library survey ready to be printed on Friday, all need to figure out dates, print out copies, administer. Days: Monday, tim, Tuesday, cathi, Wednesday, gary, Thursday RM

From database: frogtown orgs, stpaul orgs,