❖ Heads up! This article is intended for Site Managers.

Does your organization help out during a crisis? You may be wondering how you can take advantage of your volunteer management software during an emergency. That's where the Disaster Dashboard comes in! This module can be enabled or disabled depending on your organization's needs. Here, we cover: 

• The Disaster Dashboard
• What if there isn't an existing emergency? 
  • Help prepare your volunteer community
  • Share information with your volunteers
  • Stay informed
• What if there is an emergency?

The Disaster Dashboard

The Disaster Dashboard allows you to keep track of important data during times of emergency. You may wish to enable the dashboard when your organization responds to local, state, or national states of emergency—e.g., hurricane cleanup and relief efforts. 

What if there isn't an existing emergency? 

Don't have an existing emergency to support? No worries! There are actions you can take when there isn't an emergency to respond to, for example:

Help prepare your volunteer community

It's important to prepare your volunteer community so they're ready to respond when disasters strike. Help them prepare by encouraging them to: 

1. Check "contact me in the event of a disaster" in their profiles. 

• Note the importance of keeping their contact information current. 

2. Complete their disaster track profile. 

• You can invite users to a disaster track through a join link or by email. Click here for more information. 

3. Respond to disaster Needs when notified. 

Share information with your volunteers

One thing you can do is share information with your volunteers. Here are just a few suggestions we recommend: 

• Share what ways volunteers may be asked to help in the event of a disaster.
  • These can be tasks like clearing brush, providing medical aid, passing out food and supplies, etc.  
• How they can get involved during an emergency
  • Share how their involvement can make an impact
  • This is a good time to also inform them of any benefits their support provides to the community or themselves
• What your organization's role is during those times
  • Is it a support role, setting up stations, providing medical care, requesting donations, etc.?
    

You can set up space on your site to highlight this information and share resources or past experiences so they know what is involved in the process. This can be done with a spotlight or through a custom page. 

Stay informed

Run through our help resources to understand how you can set up your dashboard and manage those features. Staying informed about how the dashboard works and your role can help mitigate any stress if an emergency or crisis takes you by surprise. 

• Ready to learn about setting up your dashboard? Click here! 

What if there is an emergency?

If an emergency or crisis occurs, know that we have tools and the dashboard ready to deploy in support of your organization's mission and needs. 

• Resources about the Disaster Dashboard can be found here. 
• You are also supported by a series of Pendo walkthroughs when accessing and setting up the Disaster Dashboard. 
  • These popups help guide you through the process as you click through this area of the site. 
  • If you close the Pendo popups, you can easily access them by clicking the pink (?) in the bottom right corner of your screen. 
  • You can also hover over any of the pink (?) icons to review help text about the steps outlined in the dashboard or access helpful resource links.