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Asha SF: Frequently Asked Questions

1. What can I do as a volunteer?

There are lots of things you can do as a volunteer. Here are some options:

1. Help choose which projects to fund and how much to fund. This is the most important activity in Asha and the reason why the organization exists.
2. Research into topics that are relevant to Asha e.g. Right to Information Act, Right to Education, Self-sustenance activities etc.
3. Help organize fundraisers or volunteer outreach events
4. Organize Talks or panel discussions with prominent social workers or activists or authors
5. Help with the website
6. Create publicity material such as banners, posters, flyers
7. Create graphics for the website
8. Network with other local non-profits and organizations, find and build synergies
9. Build out an online application to organize all merchandising (sourcing, sales, shipping) for all of Asha
   

2. I'd like to work on Projects, what can I do?

You can become a project steward and help review and choose projects.

3. What does it mean to steward or manage a project?

Stewarding or managing a project is not as onerous or difficult as it sounds. The following outline describes the overall process.

1. Proposal Selection: Select an interesting proposal from the Asha pipleline
2. Basic Review: Basic review means you do a quick study of the project and determine if it is worth pursuing. You would contact the people listed in the proposal to find out if they still need money as stated in the proposal, what the current state of the project is.
3. Basic Review Presentation: Present your analysis to the other volunteers in the chapter with your recommendation for pursuing the proposal or not.If the proposal is worth pursuing and you would like to personally follow up with the proposal, you become the project steward. You can also get another volunteer to team up with you for this proposal.
   
4. Detailed Review: You would contact the people in the project and get more details about what they want to do, how much they want, how they would ensure the money will be spent right. You will also arrange for a site visit. You can contact various Asha email lists and arrange for someone in India or from the U.S. to visit the project. You can visit it yourself. In this step there'll be a lot of back and forth between you and the people working in the project. You can choose to call them or work over email.
   
5. Detailed Review Presentation: Present the detailed proposal and the budget to the chapter. You will field questions from volunteers. This is more of a deep dive where  we the entire chapter as a team scrutinizes the project.
   
6. Proposal Scrutiny Period: After the detailed review presentation, you'll have a chance to research answers for Qs that came up in the previous step. Other volunteers will have a chance to study the proposal and project at home. Q&A can occur over email.
   
7. Vote on Project: When everyone has had a chance to study the proposal and ask questions (minimum 4 weeks), you'll setup an online poll where everyone votes to send or not send money to the project.
8. Monitor Project: You will follow the money from Asha's accounts to the project NGO. You will maintain regular contact with them to make sure everything is going well. You will also regularly report back to the chapter.

4. How much time does all this Asha work take?

You can spend as much or as little time on Asha work as you can afford to. All volunteers are encouraged to attend chapter meetings which is for 2 hours every third sunday. If you were a project steward, you would need spend sufficient time to move the proposal through the process to funding. At a minimum, a steward will spend on average 1 - 2 hours per week. If you were involved in planning or executing events, then you would spend whatever time it takes to do your part in the organization. Planning and organization could take at least 3 - 4 hours per week depending on the event. Some volunteers help out on the day of the event in which case it is a few hours for that event.

5. I'm new to Asha. Should I take up a proposal to review?

You can certainly take up a proposal to review. If you've not done this before, the best thing to do would be to select a proposal and do basic review. That will give you a flavor for project stewardship.