How does Asha support new chapters? How does Asha support current chapters? Motivation: Enhance learning without going back to square one Create stable chapters with a dedicated volunteer based Chapter Development

Why chapter development? Asha Abroad is growing very fast, 10 new chapters in the past year in 3 different countries –Need to make it easier for new chapters to get familiar with Asha –Need to transfer learning to new chapters and volunteers High volunteer turnover rates in Asha Abroad –Average volunteer lifetime is down to 3 years –Need to find a way to handle these transitions issues –Need to find a way to handle dormant chapters Foster organizational learning –There is a need to find a way for volunteers with different levels of experience to contribute to the organizational learning –Cultivate deeper understanding of the purpose of our projects, stress on projects being key drivers of our growth, as opposed to fund raising capability alone Organization can become a conduit for funds Organization can become a feel-good organization

Chapter development for new chapters Mentoring process in place –Currently secretary team handling all new chapter requests and mentoring –Previously, a system of mentor chapters was present Too few chapters coming forward to be mentor chapters –A mentor group was then tried, that would act as the virtual “mentor chapter” for all new chapters Mentor group is practically non-functional Asha Abroad demographic –Continue to attract more volunteers from the university as compared to full time employees. How do new chapters form in Asha –We require at least 6 people to be at the new location –Read through the material on the website for new chapters –Begin with at least one conference call with the new volunteers –Chapter has to sign the chapter registration form, that outlines the undertakings by the new chapters

Chapter development for new chapters Publicity, Treasury and fund raising modules –Develop modules for publicity, treasury and fund raising that chapters can use as “learning aids” on these topics Understanding projects –Need a pool of volunteers with experience in actual project work, site visits, etc that chapters can consult Objective is to give guidance to chapter’s ability to work with projects Volunteers in this group cannot solicit funds for projects from the new chapters –Develop the Asha Knowledge base to have basic reading material on various project categories Tap new chapters for various focus group activity –Build capacity at the chapter level to tie focus group activities to current project partners For eg. How can new chapters funding a certain school have teachers from their school participate in learning network or Sanctuary workshops? –Tap new chapters for easy and well defined tasks: web update tasks, publicity tasks, etc Asha dashboard

Chapter development for existing chapters Existing chapters need to continue to invest in themselves and each other for creating stable chapters –Develop the framework for more inter-chapter activity in projects, volunteer mentoring and focus group activity –Rotating system of regional responsibilities, to build chapter and volunteer capacity for Asha-wide activities –Revive Asha Speaker series as an annual event, like WAH, NOH, etc. Chapters actively work together in organizing relevant speaker tours, have regional issue- based conferences –A healthy chapter has A healthy project steward-projects ratio (preferably 1:1, not worse than 1:2), A healthy funds disbursement ratio (preferably 0.6 or better), A healthy event hosting schedule (preferably 2 fund raisers a year, atleast 1 donor/ community outreach, and 1 volunteer team building (non-Asha) activity) Evolve a process to deal with dormant chapters: –Work in progress to have a clean closure for dormant chapters –Currently, we treat them as new chapters when they re-start –Dormant chapters can be revived by continuing to engage the few (1-3) interested volunteers at the Asha-wide level, and then supporting them when the critical mass of volunteers is formed to restart the chapter

Chapter development for existing chapters Chapter closures: –No well-defined concept of chapter closure in Asha yet –Need to develop a process for closing chapters Not enough activity Projects suffering due to bandwidth problems, lack of accountability and responsibility Chapters violate Asha core values or Asha operating guidelines Chapter issues –Serious chapter issues often do not boil up to the asha- coordination level This in turn hurts the chapter as the problem lingers through successive generation of volunteers at the chapter –Need to develop the concept of accountability, without infringing on chapter and volunteer freedom

Well defined tasks where we need help Prepare and forward new chapter process to the ARC –Complete new chapter kit ( Ashima Sood from Cornell and Ravi Manghani from Seattle working on this) –Compile basic new volunteer kit that chapters can use with chapter specific additions (from volunteer kits prepared by Seattle, NYCNJ, Colorado) –Determine exact modifications to chapter registrations for international registration process Prepare modules on publicity, treasury and fund raising with other functional teams and distribute them to all chapters Develop rotating system of regional responsibilities across Asha Evolve processes for chapter closures Evolve processes for dormant chapters

Well, that was the easy part.. A lot of our current issues are with regard to chapters not following guidelines and responsibilities –Chapter contacts not updated –Chapter tax filings are not accurate and/or not done on time Asha-wide treasury team always having to rush to beat the clock on tax filings and account tallies –Chapters not notifying dormant or closed status Most importantly, projects are not handed on clearly Donation amounts are not transferred cleanly

What do we want to do?