0 to 2000 in a week — Mutual Aid
The Greenwich Covid19 Mutual Aid group is a volunteer-run group that provides volunteer services for the neighbours in need. We are building a community and operation — shared resources and decentralised autonomy — to best support the ones in need and the volunteers.
Background
I set up the Greenwich Covid19 Mutual Aid Facebook group on March 14th (while having anxiety about the world and contributing to Coronavirustechhandbook.com)
7 days later
Operation running smoothly with governance policies, data management, Trello-based request management, live mapping of requests, coordinating with local charity and community, establishing safeguarding measures, collaborating with council. 2000+ members. 15+ neighbourhood / ward whatsapp groups.
We are still learning. Aside from filling grocery delivery requests, we are seeing many vulnerable groups (i.e. asylum seekers, refugees, mental illness) who need help. We have had a lot of other groups asking us about our process, so we thought we’d share it with you all.
📆 Timeline
Day 1. 800 members in FB group in under 24 hour.
Day 2. Leader of the council reached out to offer support.
Day 3. F2F planning meeting (Just right before the advice of no social gathering 🤷🏻♀️)
Day 4. Storming. Guidelines, leafleting, tooling setup
Day 5. Forming. Steering committee set up. First steering call. First triage. Operationalise.
Day 6. Operating. More organised leafletting. Daily stand-up. Triage, triage, triage.
Day 7. Optimise. Improving processes. First partnership support fulfilled (local food bank and local storage) Additional tooling — volunteer management.
💪🏼 Governance & Process
We have set up our ways-of-working to be able to respond and change rapidly.
Steering group — A group of people with different expertise to drive different areas of development.
Neighbourhood key contacts — Organise volunteers and requests.
Support groups — Additional support like PR, video editing, data-based operation etc.
💻 Tooling
This is just our first step. We are keeping our tooling light so we can combine operation easily with others in later days.
This is the first post of the series. We will be telling and sharing our stories / difficulties / reflections about what we are doing in the next little while. We are working with a group of technologists to help other Mutual aid group get up and running. Join in and bring some hope in this difficult time. Tell us what you’d like to hear more.
Thanks to
🙋🏼♀️🙋🏾🙋🏻♂️Most importantly: the amazing people and volunteers. Tara Bloom for all her tech genius. Continuous collaboration with Greenwich Council and council leader. Theresa Burton for guidance. Susanne 🍠 for her agile coaching support. Paul Roberts for bouncing ideas.
Free upgrade from slack. Ed from Mushroom. The whole Greenwich Mutual Aid steering group, the neighbourhoods, and the kind hearts that keep our spirits bright.
