The goal of developing this plan is to help your group determine the answers to the following questions: Why is becoming/continuing your work as a Brigade important to your community and why is your group ready to do this? What will be the focus of your work in 2016? How will your work as a Brigade drive impact in your local community, as well as for your partners and your members?
Highlight the goals of 2015 Strategic plan and briefly discuss progress / shortcomings toward the 2015 plan. How does the 2016 plan build on 2015 plan.
Describe the organization and team. What is your current organizational structure? Who is on your core team? What skills and backgrounds are missing from your core team?
Co-Captain (Jean Hanks) A Code for America Brigade Captain is a volunteer who starts and/or leads a local Brigade community. They commit to developing a sustainable civic technology community in collaboration with local government and community partners, championing Brigade activities in their city, and building out a core leadership team.
Co-Captain (Allen Clark) A Code for America Brigade Captain is a volunteer who starts and/or leads a local Brigade community. They commit to developing a sustainable civic technology community in collaboration with local government and community partners, championing Brigade activities in their city, and building out a core leadership team.
Support the goals of Code for America
- Be well versed in CfA: Purpose, Focus Areas (Health & Human Services, Economic Development, Safety & Justice, Communication & Engagement), Standards, Code of Conduct
- Be aware of the work of other Brigades
- Promote the awareness and use of CfA services at the Brigade level
Support the Brigade
- Provide organization and infrastructure support for the Brigade to function and succeed
- Provide an environment where everyone feels welcome and respected
- Grow and diversify volunteer base
- Provide communication & coordination between Brigade & CfA
- Build, strengthen, and support a core leadership team
- Serve the community that we live and work in
Develop a civic technology community
- Educate others about Open Data, Open Source Technology, civic technology, Code for America, and Friendly Code
- Develop positive working relationships with local government officials and staff
- Promote involvement of Friendly Code (organizationally and individuals) into community
- Partner with community organizations & local government
- Participate and promote CfA & Friendly Code at State -- City -- Local levels
Community Organizer (Tracy Montgomery) The Community Organizer is responsible for recruiting and welcoming new members to the Brigade and helping them get oriented. They are the point of contact for members who have questions about how to get started, what to do next, or how to help locally.
This Community Organizer should know about upcoming member events, be available to attend hack nights to assist with member questions, and create a welcoming environment.
The Community Organizer’s focuses on building and maintaining community. This includes:
- Recruiting new members
- Onboarding new members
- Empowering new members to use skills in Brigade structure
- Managing Google group
- Managing Meetup
- Helping members move up the ladder of engagement
- Keeping track of membership
Delivery Lead The Delivery Lead is the point for projects in the Brigade. The Delivery Lead should have a working knowledge of all the projects being hacked on at a given time in the Brigade, understand the needs of those projects, and help members find projects and projects find members. The Delivery Lead’s areas of focus include:
- Active knowledge of all projects being worked on in local Brigade
- Understands needs of those projects
- Connects new members to projects
- Works with project teams and project leads on project planning and accessing resources
- Understands the priorities and needs of the city
- Funnels relevant CfA Fellowship and Brigades apps to Brigade members for redeployment opportunities
Story Teller The Storyteller owns the communication streams for their local Brigade. They will focus on telling the stories of the Brigade’s impact in their community. This includes writing blog posts, coordinating with local press, connecting with local media, and working with the CfA Communications team to share stories nationally.
The Storyteller’s areas of focus include:
- Ownership of content, marketing, and social media
- Social media including Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr
- Website
- Blog
- Other content (video, photos, etc.)
- Local press
How will your core team share responsibility? How often will your core team meet? How many hours a week does everyone have to volunteer? How will you make decisions? No need to write this down but good to discuss and set expectations.
- Brigade Evangelist
- Community Data Wrangler / Data Evangelist
- Scribe / Documenter
- Developer Evangelist
- Policy Evangelist
- Event Organizer / Meeting Runner
- Trainer
- Member Support
- Government Liaison
- Non Profit / Community Group Liaison
Describe your partners and members. Who do you want to partner with in 2016?
- List both government and community partners._
What does your membership look like now and how do you want it to grow in 2016? If you don’t have a baseline of your Brigade membership demographics, it is a good idea to run an annual survey to collect this data. Here are the questions we ask.
We also have an attendance tool we can get your Brigade set up with to help you track membership activity throughout the year. Email andrewh@codeforamerica.org to get access.
Describe the work your Brigade will do and the impact it will have in your community. What will your Brigade’s activities and projects be?
- What resources will you need to do this work?
- What will the impact of the work be?
Most Brigades will focus their efforts on organizing hack nights and events like CodeAcross and National Day of Civic Hacking.
Brigade projects will often be added as they develop throughout the year and require resources outside of space at hack night or events. More experienced Brigades may have projects that they want to continue developing from the previous years.
Use this prospective projects and events template to answer these questions.
Use these tools to identify how much your Brigade will need to fundraise in 2016.
What are your projected costs for 2016?
- Use this [budget template](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ANUIfVr0M3kAFr5F6M-EnJt8dK4fMNRzBELlCfIiyUg/edit#gid=0) to document your costs.
You’ve likely identified most of your events and project costs in your projects and events spreadsheet. Transfer those to your budget spreadsheet.
Now think through any fixed costs you’ll have throughout the year. These might include venue rental for hack night, hardware, etc.
Are there any other fundraising strategies you’ll use that are not tied to projects or events?
- Crowdfunding? If so, how will you execute?
- Individual giving campaign? If so, how will you execute?
- Organizational sponsorship? If so, what / how?