National Council Communication - January 2011
From AFSWiki
The final one of the three National Council 2010 Goals is to "Prioritize the development of the Sending Review Project and support volunteer opportunities for engagement". The Sending Review Project team has had two multi-day meetings already this fall. The first meeting focused on the restructuring of the sending activities and the change from a "production model" (i.e. one which was staff-led and handed off potential sending students through various staff as the students progressed through the lead-generation, pre-application, and application process) to a "relationship model" where the local volunteers were involved in every phase of the process and developing an ongoing relationship with the student through all the phases of the process.
The second meeting of the team was held in mid-November and focused on the short-term of the Summer 2011 cycle and how to identify and move students through this new process. Consistent with the National Council goal, three volunteers took part in this meeting. These three volunteers were Sue Poet (chair of the Sending Advisory Group (SAGe) and a sending coordinator from the Colorado Rockies Team), Marc Patsiner (another member of SAGe and the sending coordinator from the San Antonio Chapter), and Al Russell (a member of the National Council and the sending coordinator for the DelMarPa Team).
Why is this important?
In order to meet our organizational commitment both to our AFS partners and to support the business goals of AFS-USA, we need to have a plan that can meet our sending objectives of 800-900 students for 2011 (exclusive of those from Sponsored Programs - Congress-Bundestag, YES, and NSLI-Y). It has become apparent that a staff-driven model does not scale well, so we need to have more involvement from our sending volunteers.
What can I look forward to?
Those volunteers who are involved in sending should expect to receive additional communication from the sending department. In addition, we will need to involve volunteers in future phases of the Sending Review Project as we begin looking beyond the short-term goal of 2011.
What if I want more details?
This particular goal has been delegated to the Sending Staff and the Sending Advisory Group. If you wish to have further details, please contact them at Sending@afsusa.org. For overall National Council information, please contact the National Council at NationalCouncil@afsusa.org
