Optimize Vol Distribution to Increase Project & Volunteer Engagement

[PamelaJohn]

PROBLEM: 850 Volunteers; 22 Active Projects; 16 Inactive Projects

Over-Referral of Volunteers to Projects = Disengagement

• Projects using common tech get inundated with larger number of volunteers
  • May leave Slack
  • To avoid disruptions of onboarding each new volunteer
  • To open multiple channels to accommodate different facets of project (FE, BE, Data Analysis)
  • Too many volunteers may result in lack of volunteer engagement or competition among volunteers

Under-Referral of Volunteers to Projects = Disengagement

• Projects using uncommon tech may not receive enough volunteer assistance
• Projects not receiving the assistance they need go dormant and inactive
  • 16 projects have not taken off because they either lack
  • Tech leadership, or
  • Project management assistance
  • Clearly defined MVP to attract experienced volunteers with limited time to offer

More Volunteers than Projects = Disengagement

• Inability for a Vol to engage with a project of interest
• Volunteer to drift away from ProgCode
• Volunteer goes inactive

Potential Solutions

• Survey Team Leads for feedback to assess pain points re: over-referral; under-referral
• Better track volunteer skills, experience and interests #69 Comment
• Hold regularly scheduled, informal Brainstorming or Jam Sessions
  • Techies pitch their wildest tech dreams
  • Activists pitch their dream tools
  • Problem-solvers brainstorm solutions
• When Jam Sessions are fruitful, refer to Hackathon to jump-start project
• Enable remote attendance at ProgCode Hackathons

[stephenscapelliti]

Propose, as a "Potential Solution", the willingness/feasibility of members trained in an uncommon tech to train/guide others willing to learn.

• Could we/should we offer a tutoring channel, either now or at some point down the line?
• This might be a function into which ProgCode could invest some of its revenue, as a member service.

[rapicastillo]

Consent to Consider and Proceed

[rapicastillo]

• I'm planning an App Creators round table, have a conversation with them
• My own process of referral - I would PM the leaders first, and give them the names / handles for the volunteers. And let them be the one to choose to engage
• Jam Sessions is a great idea!

[PamelaJohn]

@rapicastillo I spoke at length with @devin and @jpb5013 about creating an opt-in "Members Directory" similar to the Volunteer link on the ProgCode tool kit.

Members would create a very short listing, bubbling in tech stack/language/platform skills, experiences and interests and include how much time they have to volunteer as well as preferred means of contact (DM or email). Ideally it would be easy for them to update in case time availability changes.

@jpb5013 & I will try to fold this issue into larger, process issues and eventually close this issue. [@jpb5013 / @devin, please correct any misstatements or add on anything I may have forgotten to include. Thanks!]

[adcor]

Hello all (This is Unsio). So I had some thoughts on engagement. That it might be good to have some regularly scheduled reasons for people to just hang out while maybe working on stuff. These were the ideas I had so far.

Programming Show and tell (Is there a personal project you've been working on? A technology or library you love, share it here),

Code and a Movie (Come hang out, watch a movie (or show), hack leisurely on some projects.)

Coders explain code to non-coders (Don't know a thing about code? Want to learn a little more so you can better communicate your ideas. Come learn the basics, the lingo, so that you can communicate effectively with your friendly neighborhood programmers)

Mentor/mentee hour (Are You a junior dev? Would you like help getting to the next level? Come join the mentor mentee hour, meet a mentor who you can discuss your issues with. Develop the skills to become a better prog coder, and a better programmer.)

Monthly Virtual Hackathon (Time to go all out. Intense session for programmers and non programmers to come online and rip through project issues. ) --lol, probably a better way of articulating this.

[stephenscapelliti]

Adiron, these are fantastic suggestions! Much of this probably could be accomplished easily enough using a Zoom conference link and some well-laid out agendas.

Several members during onboarding sessions have offered to be mentors, while others have said that they would love the opportunity to learn from more-experienced coders. And those of us who don't code always struggle with both the terminology and context. I just learned the relevance of HTML5, CSS, and Java from Aubrey. Both of these topics could be useful in the Virtual Conference..

Would you mind posting these in the #pitch-zone channel?

[adcor]

Will do!

[PamelaJohn]

Really brilliant ideas @adcor! Do you envision a particular channel (or maybe multiple channels) for these ideas or maybe periodically scheduled video calls? Would love to hear your thoughts around the process that each engagement activity would take. Super exciting!

[jpb5013]

These are awesome @adcor. Do you think any of these could be applicable through chat rather than video call? I have to imagine video call is one of the bigger hurdles people have to getting involved, so if we had some activities happening live through chat at a designated time I think that could encourage broader participation.