Volunteer Integration Process Project
To: Region 3 ExCom
Cc: Region 3 Committee
Sb: Region 3 Volunteer Integration Process Project Report
Dt: 20 January 2014

The Volunteer Integration Process (VIP) project is a new Region 3 
initiative.  I am serving as the Project Manager, with Dave Green as part of 
the team and the Project Champion.  This is an important project to provide 
training and support to volunteers stepping into a new role.  Currently, 
volunteers are sent an email congratulating them on their new position and 
providing some links to resources.  The purpose of the VIP project is to 
take this a step further – to not duplicate what is already being done but 
to build upon it with more personal interaction (mentoring), utilizing 
lessons learned from others who have served in those roles, and proactively 
providing guidance to the volunteer.

The plan is to determine the information needed for the new position and 
push that information to the volunteer. We will provide human mentoring, and 
include feedback and evaluation of what works for that position and what 
doesn’t. The goal is to have continuous improvement, drawing on lessons 
learned each time a volunteer steps into a new role. We also plan to have 
calendar support – where automatic reminders are sent about upcoming events 
and deadlines.

We will be starting with a subset of the Region by selecting a few Sections 
to work with, determining the volunteer roles that need such assistance and 
gathering information about the responsibilities related to those roles. We 
will build a repository of information and a network of mentors, and a 
calendar-based methodology for pushing the information to the volunteers.

We need team members.  I believe this is a very important project that could 
become something used throughout IEEE.  I know many volunteers in new roles 
who need a program like this!  If you would like to be involved, please call 
or email me.  We need people willing to serve as mentors, developers (those 
with the skill set to assist with some of the technical aspects of creating 
the repository and pushing the information out), information gatherers to 
help create the repository, and people with great ideas.  I hope you will 
all consider helping out with this VIP project.

Respectfully submitted,

Jill I. Gostin, VIP Project Manager

jgostin@ieee.org