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Volunteer for Amit

Page history last edited by Jackie Dechongkit 12 years, 5 months ago

To join our volunteer mailing list, go to

http://groups.google.com/group/teamamit

Check our Facebook page out for latest volunteer requests.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/amitguptaneedsyou

How to Help Amit

We are on a mission to register as many South Asian marrow donors as possible by November 30.

Organize a Drive - USA (4-10 hours required)
Find Others to Host Drives (Time commitment is variable. Take on as much or as little as you want.)
Ask Sikh groups to host a drive. (Time commitment is variable. Take on as much or as little as you want.)
Refine Drive Materials (4-6 hours)
Get Us (Good) Publicity
Make this Wiki Better
Coordinators

Organize a Drive - USA (4-10 hours required)

To get started, fill out this form:

http://amitguptaneedsyou.tumblr.com/organize-a-drive

If you do not hear from anyone within 24 hours, please email teamamitoutreach@googlegroups.com directly.

Organizing a drive is easy and fun! No prior experience necessary. All we need is a place and a source of South Asians. Universities, work places, religious centers, anywhere... even bars!

Once you have a date and location, use this form to let us know. We will put you in touch with the right people to get you started. We need at least 5 days notice, but the more time you give us, the more we can help you promote the event.
You will need a location where you can set up a couple table and chairs. If you can recruit a volunteer task force, great! If not, let us know and we will wrangle some for you. Please note, at a religious institution, the registration rate is significantly higher when you have devotees members working the drive versus outside volunteers.

To calculate how many people you need, assume each registration takes one volunteer 10 minutes. So take the number of people you want to register, divide by the number of hours, and divide that by six. So if you are expecting 50 registrants during a two-hour drive, then you will need at least 4.17 people. (Though we prefer volunteers in integral quantities.) That is the bare minimum. More is better.
The only training your volunteers need can be accomplished in one hour via conference call. No special medical knowledge is required

Promote the drive. Send out emails, post flyers, and go door-to-door if you must. Reach out to local media for help too. If possible, ask the priest to make an announcement at the congregation prior to the drive.
Hold the drive. Save a life! You'll be glad you did.

Marrow Drive Handbook

h ttp://volunteerforamit.pbworks.com/w/page/47274354/Marrow%20Drive%20Handbook

Find Others to Host Drives (Time commitment is variable. Take on as much or as little as you want.)

We've started a Google doc (request access first) with some contact information for various organizations around the country, but we need people to follow up with them directly. For those who are reaching out to the organizations, here are some strategies, from most effective to least. We've found that we get the best responses when a South Asian makes the contact. (If you are not South Asian, this shouldn't prevent you from trying.) We are also pretty saturated in the New York and Northern California area, so focus on other geographic areas.

Recruit your mom. This can not be over emphasized. Finding an "in" is a valuable part of this process. Get the word out to your South Asian friends and their mothers. Ask them to do the initial email or phone call for you. It can be as simple as having them say, "Hey, my son's friend needs help. Can we organize a drive?" Use our email templates as a launching point.
Visit in person. Bring flyers so you can get the word out, even if they decline to host a drive.
Call. Check out our phone scripts.
Send an email. Remember we have email templates.
Blackmail. (Just kidding.)

Regardless of how you choose to contact these groups, when you choose a row, let us know that you are working that lead by putting your name in the Assigned column. Make a note of all activity in the History column ("jsmith met in person 10/30, jsmith followed up by phone 10/31," etc...)

Reaching out to the organizations is the first priority, but you could also help by populating this spreadsheet. We also have some demographic data to help you focus your search, but right now, a personal connection somewhere is more valuable than going into a South Asian hotspot cold.
Take a look at the Assignments sheet. Assign yourself some work to yourself by filling out columns C. Please only bite off as much as you can chew.
If you are collecting contact information, go to the corresponding sheet and start populating. We will not be explicitly farming out work to get businesses and nonprofit contact info, but if you know of any juicy ones (that have lots of South Asians), add them to the list. We are also working the South Asian fraternity/sorority angle, so if you have any ins there, email teamamitoutreach@googlegroups.com.

Ask Sikh groups to host a drive. (Time commitment is variable. Take on as much or as little as you want.)

Here is a preview of the Google doc.

We have a Google doc (request access first) with some contact information for various Sikh organizations. We need people to follow up with them directly. For those who are making the calls, here are some strategies, from most effective to least. We've found that we get the best responses when a South Asian makes the contact. (If you are not South Asian, this shouldn't prevent you from trying.)

Recruit your mom. This can not be over emphasized. Finding an "in" is a valuable part of this process. Get the word out to your South Asian friends and their mothers. Ask them to do the initial email or phone call for you. It can be as simple as having them say, "Hey, my son's friend needs help. Can we organize a drive?" Use our email templates as a launching point.
Visit in person. Bring flyers so you can get the word out, even if they decline to host a drive.
Call. Check out our phone scripts.
Send an email. Remember we have email templates.

Once you get someone to agree to host a drive, send their email and phone number to teamamitoutreach@googlegroups.com.

Refine Drive Materials (4-6 hours)

This is a job for one person who is available for a few hours during the working day over the course of several days. We are looking for someone who is good at writing how-tos and working with images to explain things clearly. This person would help us rewrite some of the materials that get sent to drive organizers. And if you've volunteered at a drive already, even better! Please email Jackie at anyjackie@gmail.com for more information.