1. Policy Proposal
National Public Policy Challenge
Fels Institute of Government
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
March 16-17, 2013
2. Danielle Atkins, Ph.D. Candidate
Grace Bagwell, Ph.D. Candidate
Justin Bullock, Ph.D. Student
Department of Public Administration & Policy
20. FEASIBILITY
• COMMUNITY BUY-IN
– Easy to use
– Free
– No competition for funding
– Community Connection
• PROVEN TECHNOLOGY
21. FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
• COSTS
– Start-up: $18,590
• $8,000 of this total secured
– Projected yearly: $9,590
• EXTERNAL FUNDING
22. TIMELINE
Winter 2013
– Development, design, and coalition building
Summer 2013
– Website goes live
Fall 2013
– Pilot
2014 and beyond…
– Community-wide implementation
23. IMPACT
• Create formal network
• Link donors and volunteers to organization needs
• Improve volunteer management
• Maximize donations
• Meet otherwise unmet needs
2010 Census data, for a county with over 100,000 residents we have the highest poverty rate in the nation. The poverty rate in Athens Clarke county is 34.6%, higher than that of Detroit. One in three individuals in our community struggles daily to meet basic needs for things such as food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. Although Athens has over 300 nonprofits dedicated to helping meet these needs, organizations are without a formal network for coordination. Also, there is no systematic mechanism for linking donors and volunteers to organizations. This means people may not get the help they need.
I was volunteering at the Athens area homeless shelter one evening …..The high level of poverty in our community and the disconnected nature of groups and individuals trying to address these issues motivated our team to find a solution. We knew from previous research and our own community work that people in poverty don’t often have just one need but a cluster of needs. We wanted an idea that would help our community and would directly address the piecemeal approach to service delivery in Athens, enabling organizations to fill in the gaps in service delivery. Thus, PATCH WAS BORN.
PATCH stands for piecing assistance together for charitable helpers. It is an online communication network that matchesarea needs and challenges with people and solutions. We are offering a different kind of match making service. Instead of creating love connections, we’re connecting nonprofits, donors, and volunteers working toward poverty alleviation in our community. Best of all, our innovation is FREE for participants. To illustrate how PATCH will address the disconnects in our community, let’s go over an example of how PATCH will work.Community Connection.
A family comes to a homeless shelter needing housing and medical care. The organization may be able to provide housing, but not with the medical care. So, the organization posts an alert to the PATCH network which pushes the alert out to partnering organizations through text, email, or the website. Then, an organization that can provide medical assistance responds to the alert and the shelter is automatically notified. This mechanism is the same for linking organization needs to donors and volunteers. To explain more, let’s go on a tour of the PATCH website.
Welcome to our homepage. This is where organizations, donors, and volunteers PATCH into the network by signing up to create their own user profiles. Signing up will take less than sixty seconds. Here’s an example of how volunteers will register.
First, volunteers enter their basic information.
Second, they identify the types of organizations they want to serve, which will filter what requests they receive.
The mechanism is the same for donors.
Likewise, an organization that wants to partner goes to the home page and is directed to registration.
They also enter their basic information.
Second, they identify the types of services they provide, which will filter what requests they receive. Then they’re set to begin using PATCH.
Welcome Athens Area Homeless Shelter’s Patch dashboard. Let’s go over the features. At the top of the page you’ll notice several icons in blue. Most importantly, the organization can request a service which will push an alert to the appropriate audience, whether it be another organization, volunteers, or donors. Now please draw your attention the numbers below the dashboard icons. These numbers represent an important benefit of PATCH. PATCH tracks the number of request opened, pending, and fulfilled for each organization. This data collection mechanism will serve as a valuable tool for assessing the effectiveness of PATCH and for individual organization’s to track their service delivery. Below, an organization can track the requests they’ve posted and incoming requests.As an added bonus, the dashboard will also be functional as a mobile application. In addition to the website, organizations, donors, and volunteers can access the network through their cell phones or tablets. Now that your tour is complete, I’d like to address feasibility, timeline, and impact.PHONE
It’s also available as a mobile application
PATCH’S success hinges upon community buy-in from the nonprofit sector and Athenians. Our solution will be successful because it is simple, user-friendly, and link organizations, donors, and volunteers in real time. Nonprofit organizations in Athens are under severe financial and human resource constraints. PATCH will be free. We will also not compete for common resources in the Athens nonprofit community. Lastly, community buy-in will be ensured through our partnership with community connection. Community Connection is an umbrella organization that exists to build bridges between organizations, volunteers, and donors in our community. They are very interested in utilizing PATCH to accomplish their mission. In terms of the technology we propose, we know from the success of social networking sites like Facebook, that people from all age ranges and demographics can and will use the type of technology we propose.
Our project is financially feasible. Our startup costs total 18590. We have already secured 8000 of in kind donations. This included professional website design and consultation and deliverables from a public relations specialist. Our projected yearly costs are approximately 10,000. This includes server hosting and maintenance, website updates, administrative costs, and promotional materials. There are a few great avenues for external funding for patch including the ford foundation and the Kellogg foundation. The Ford foundation funds projects focused on poverty alleviation. The Kellogg foundation funds initiatives aimed at promoting collaboration among nonprofit institutions.
I’ll now share our implementation timeline. Since January, we have conducted a focus group, site visits, and interviews with key nonprofit stakeholders. In addition, we secured the partnership with Community Connection. Website design and public relations consulting was also completed. This summer, we plan to complete web programming, launch the website, and apply for external funding. Next fall, we will conduct a 3-6 month PATCH pilot with 12 community organizations recruited from Community Connection. The pilot period will be used to test functionality of the website and allow for modification. For 2014 and beyond, we will shift toward community wide implementation. Our hope is that PATCH will eventually be used in other communities.
PATCH will positively change our community in the following ways:Create a formal network of nonprofits, donors, and volunteers.Link donors and volunteers to organizations needsImprove volunteer managementMaximize donationsMeet otherwise unmet needs
Now that I’ve explained PATCH let’s revisit the story from earlier, except this time PATCH is in place and the story has a better ending. The officer arrives at the shelter to ask for emergency housing. / The manager tells him they’re at capacity but she can send out an alert on the PATCH network to see if a partner organization can fill the need. / Meanwhile, another shelter across town receives the alert. They can fill the request so they respond through the PATCH network on their smartphone, accepting the family for the night. When they accept the alert, a message is sent to the night-shift manager at the homeless shelter./ Back at the shelter, the manager receives the filled request notification and tells the family that they will find shelter at Project Safe. A family that could have been without shelter is served and organizational resources are used more efficiently. This is the story we will be able to tell after PATCH is implemented in Athens.
