Power Analysis 101

JULIA SLEEPER-WHITING,

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TREE STREET YOUTH

Today’s Agenda

5:30-5:45 Intro

5:45-6:15 Power and Equity Intro/Grounding

6:15-6:35 Your Charge!

6:35-7:05 Break Out Rooms

7:05-7:20 Share Out

7:20-7:30 Close out

- Next meeting: Dec 7 from 5:30 - 7:30PM

- Reminder - orientation Nov 5 9-10AM

-Survey Options! (Select all you want to be apart of!)

- Ed Eval design space

- Fundraising event meeting space

- Policy design space

- Finance meeting

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What is Power?

Tree Street Youth-Samara Project

Ability to make Decisions that have implications/impact on others

Tree Street Youth-Samara Project

Don’t get it twisted

• Power is Neutral
• Power can be used as a tool to advance equity
• Power can be used as a tool to prevent equity

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Who has more power?

Tree Street Youth-Samara Project

Who has more power?

Tree Street Youth-Samara Project

Who has more power?

Tree Street Youth-Samara Project

Who has more power?

Tree Street Youth-Samara Project

Who has more power?

Tree Street Youth-Samara Project

Types of Power

• Structural Power-Person who holds the position that has the ability to make decisions for others
• Systemic Power-Person that has ability to influence outcomes grounded in knowledge of how systems/processes function to achieve certain results
• Relational Power-Person who has ability to influence or move/organize large groups of people grounded in building relationships and trust
• Identity Power-Person who has ability to influence others due to one’s personal identity or belonging to a group
• Personal Power-Person’s ability to make decisions for oneself and control outcome for self

Tree Street Youth-Samara Strategies

Mechanisms/Tactics of Systemic Power

Tree Street Youth-Samara Project

Your Charge!

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Develop a PROCESS to create a policy around Volunteers at Tree grounded in equity and power sharing

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What would your process look like (not the actual content of the policy), considering power and equity, to create a well rounded, accessible policy?

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Consider staffing needs, liability, expenses, safety, needs of volunteers

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Portraits of Volunteers

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Consider this in the design of your process - whatever policy has to be applicable to:

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• Court mandated, Kid
• Parent has relationship with DHHS, due to historic child protective case, but has kids back
• Newly arrived asylum seeker, needs to do so many hours to get GA
• Bates student, seems nice, but Tree knows nothing about, who is required to do 30 hours for their class
• Random person off the street (just moved to the area), musician who wants to come teach a class
• High school student with community service requirement, not a regular participant at Tree
• Partner agencies' support staff wants to volunteer with Sequoia with shared lived experience (peer recovery)
• Group of volunteers from a bank who want to volunteer

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Group 1-NOTES

• Inclusivity - including the right people in the decision making process: program staff, youth, parents, HR/legal/finance folks, board, community members, representatives from institutions we receive volunteers from (colleges, high schools), interpreters, local/influential community leaders. Research group that can look at other policies/models to help us draft ours? Volunteerism/community outreach role (as a way to address staffing capacity for volunteer oversight)?
• Reality - the more people in the room, how can you still maintain representation while still being efficient and ultimately create a policy? → Break into groups. Determine the questions each group should focus on (youth - what is needed, what is wanted vs. legal team - what are the liabilities?, etc.). Set a limit on # of people in each group.
• Ideas from Breakout groups are then brought back to a core decision-making group that drafts the policy. (who is then part of that core drafting group?? Including 1 person from each of the breakout groups)
• Recognize constraints - what are the things we absolutely cannot change? Review “best practices” and determine what actually would be applicable/work at Tree. Recognize what is sustainable for Tree - demands on staff oversight, capacity as an organization to host volunteers & different types of volunteers. Volunteers needing a background check would need to be a consistent volunteer - not a 1 or 2 time thing (to justify cost to TSY)
• Creating distinct types of volunteer activities & therefore different screening processes (i.e. not needing background check for non-direct service volunteer work?)
• Identify barriers to volunteering for different types of volunteers - consider language, access, funds for a background check. (Parent volunteer access? Specific volunteer opportunities/events for parents/families? Especially for parents with language/financial barriers). Ensuring TSY budget covers the cost of background checks…
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Group 1-Process

Group 2-NOTES

• Board members are also volunteers (we are proximate)
• Staff members
• What has worked, what hasn’t
• Research in regard to background check process
• Opinion of old volunteers-people who have volunteered before
• Youth who already have backgrounds-their needs
• Are there other pathways to determine-credibility?
• What can Tree do for the volunteer?-like a Bates student
• What are we looking for in volunteers? What do we want them to do? What is the role they play? What do we want for them?
• Regulations/Requirements in existent?-What do we need to do that is non-negotiable
• What do the kids want/need? What more do they want out of programs? What would we need in a volunteer?
• Research what is working/not working for other non-profits
• How to source information-DEDICATED people who are able/willing to put in the time to lean into this issue and follow through-Example: Ad Hoc Commitees
• Being on the ground to gather the information
• Surveys?-Old volunteers-get feedback about experience-needs
• Blasting a ton of people also to see the results
• Can be very short-3 questions
• Policy to get them in...but practices around how to support them more? What are they learning? How do we support them intentionally/coach them?

Group 2-Process

• How to choose people as volunteers/How to keep them
• Feedback from past, current, volunteers is a critical piece of the process (surveys?)
• How do you determine where you need/how you use volunteers
• Feedback from Staff (do they even want volunteers/what kinds)
• What are liability non-negotiables?
• Insurance requiremenets, legal requirements, cost analysis/background check options
• A Group needs to be established to carry out the work
• Commitment to creating and carrying out the process and seeing it through

Group 3-NOTES

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• Define
• What needs need to be met "Why"
• What are our equity highlights, mission statement?
• Requirements, what makes a good volunteer
• Who interviews
• Ability to adjust to individual situations
• Onboarding process, acclimation to Tree
• Off boarding steps
• Crowdsourced background check
• Constraints,
• legal, financial, insurance,
• safety requirements at Tree
• Risks, what might go wrong or get missed
• Don’t forget risk to reputation
• Controls, how do you control for the unknown "manage risk"
• Who has power to approve volunteer
• Incident response, internal reporting, close the loop
• Communications plan, how to engage prospective volunteers
• Tracking & Reporting
• Training
• Staff, Volunteers, etc.
• Youth, what rights and obligations they have
• Process review
• What have other organizations done with similar values
• Subject matter experts in consideration of power dynamics
• Program owners/Staff/end-users
• Lawyer, Insurance agent
• kids
• Future improvements

PDCA - Plan, Do, Check, Adjust

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Group 3-Process

CLOSE OUT!!!

-Survey Options! (Select all you want to be apart of!)

- Ed Eval design space

- Fundraising event meeting space

- Policy design space

- Finance meeting

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Additional Question: Community Walk-About!