Annex D: Volunteer and Donor Coordination

Dallas College Support Annex D – Volunteer and Donor Coordination

This Emergency Operations Plan Annex is hereby approved for Dallas College. This plan annex is effective immediately and supersedes all previous editions.

See Emergency Operations Plan, Authority.

This Support Annex to the Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) provides a comprehensive list of requirements and procedures for the college’s emergency operations in coordinating both volunteers and donations in support of the college’s missions during crisis or disaster. In the whole community approach to emergency management – survivors, volunteers, and those seeking to aid the college during a time of need are not seen as problems to be managed, but assets to be coordinated. The college will make efforts to apply volunteer and donated resources when practical. In many cases, specific assets are required for response and recovery operations limiting the applicability of some volunteer and donated resources.

Purpose

The purpose of this annex is to outline the college’s organization, operational concepts, responsibilities, and procedures to identify funds, goods, services, time, and talent offered by a variety of volunteer and donation sources in the event of an emergency.

Scope

The functions of the Donation and Volunteer Coordination support annex are applied to emergency incident response and recovery in which regularly available resources are overwhelmed. The support annex may also be applied to any crisis in which the college receives increasing occurrences of spontaneous volunteers or donations of any kind.

Situation

• The college should expect to experience emergencies that could threaten campus health and safety, private and public property, and necessitate the implementation of actions for the college​ to, whenever possible, utilize volunteer resources and donations most effectively.
• Unsolicited donations and spontaneous volunteers must be addressed early to avoid uncoordinated freelance activities.

Assumptions

• Many volunteers may be spontaneous and unaffiliated with known volunteer organizations.
• Spontaneous volunteers generally arrive with the best of intentions but may not be fully self-sustaining during an emergency. This may further strain limited college resources.
• Volunteers may have little or no training in emergency or disaster related fields or be able to provide credentials for vetting to assist in response or recovery operations.
• Donations may come without solicitation and in-kind goods donations may not match need.

• Coordinate and assess for situational need of volunteer resources.
• Coordinate and maintain list of pre-identified volunteers for exercise, drill, disaster, or emergency events.
• Coordinate with external affairs on situational need of goods donations and management of item acceptance control.
• Manage monetary donations through the college foundation office based on established need.
• Coordinate with ESF 15 for public messaging to share any volunteer or donation additional needs, met needs, lack thereof, or any iteration based on the situation.
• Coordinate with ESF 7 to provide asset inventory from volunteer and donation resources.
• Establish volunteer coordination center or station if necessary.

The college will pre-script messaging related to donations and volunteers in coordination with ESF 15. As a disaster or emergency unfolds, messaging must go out through channels approved by the PIO (ESF 15) in order to inform the public of any college needs or inform of already met needs. This action can minimize excess in donations of goods that do not meet mission needs and limit the number of volunteers going unassigned or those unable to be accepted due to mission specific need or overwhelming volume of volunteers.

Agreements or MOUs between the college and partner VOADs will be established in order to direct excesses in donations or volunteers to contribute to community or good will efforts through other organizations. This action can minimize waste from donations that do not fit the need of the mission and avoid turning down support from spontaneous volunteers who may not directly fit a role needed in response or recovery.

Annex coordinator(s) will become familiar with and utilize an online recovery management site to direct all incoming offers of volunteer assistance, goods, services, and monetary donations.

Donation Coordination and Management

Dallas College Foundation will establish and staff any donation collection point(s) necessary for receiving monetary or in-kind donations. As the primary agency is a 501(c)(3) and all donations received will be handled according to the college’s legal requirements and follow established best practices. Donors must complete the required donation forms established by the Foundation office and donors must be informed that excess monetary donations may remain in the student emergency fund and/or in-kind goods that exceed need or do not meet need may be donated to other relief entities or through established MOUs. Should the college manage any donation through the institution or other institutional office rather than the Foundation it shall be properly documented, justified, and supported by policy or SOG.

This notice may be provided through a special emergency/disaster donation for or through the standard in-kind gifts form acknowledging the gift has no restrictions other than those written in by the donor provided that:

1. No conflict(s) of interest exists between the donor, Foundation, or receiving entity.
2. There is no known misuse of donated resource(s).
3. Donating the goods or funds will not imperil the donor or the Foundation.

As necessary, the primary agency will coordinate with ESF 7 to establish donation reception and/or distribution point(s). Should the volume exceed available storage on-premise the primary agency should coordinate with ESF 7 for additional storage and/or ESF 15 to communicate the need to slow or halt solicitation of goods donations.

All donations received will be documented and inventoried to be assets available to ESF 7 for any response or recovery mission with unmet need.

Need for additional human resources beyond college personnel may utilize volunteer groups and individual volunteers. Whenever possible, and as determined necessary by ESF 7 who will maintain a list of already deployed resources, already established volunteer groups may be requested by the primary agency. These groups may include CERT, Red Cross, Salvation Army, and other VOADs and NGOs.

The primary agency will, as necessary, establish and staff volunteer coordination point(s) in coordination with ESF 7. Coordination point(s) will be the rally point for established volunteer groups and a location to where individual and unaffiliated spontaneous volunteers may be directed.

Unaffiliated volunteers may require interview and credential vetting based on any assignment detail. The primary agency will establish a process to vet such volunteers should volunteers with a special mission or task assignment requiring credentialing be needed.

All volunteers will, upon registration at the coordination point:

• Be required to sign any waiver or release as established by the primary agency and SOGs.
• Be provided a volunteer safety sheet and volunteer time sheet.
• Be instructed on when/where to report based on assignment by EOC operations or Incident Command.

All volunteers are expected to defer to the direction of the incident commander or to any emergency response professional who appears on the scene. The incident commander has the authority to restrict access to a scene.

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Definitions