Voluntary Contributors: How to Guide Them (Buddy System?)

GIVernance
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The Buddy System proposed and we implemented likely applies to direct hires and long-term contributors. But I’ve been asked a couple of times how people who voluntarily contribute get a buddy. When do they get a buddy? Do they get a buddy?

We gathered a quick feedback from our last GIVernance call and here’s an outline:

  • A lot of people come in and poke around but some people are still trying to fit in, once a person has an idea of where they want to contribute, then this should be identified before getting a buddy

  • The Buddy System should be for fulltime and long-term contributors. Once they get a certain amount of people join a working group - maybe a team buddy call. Doesn’t want to add bandwidth by every volunteer having a buddy from the Giveth core team

  • Have monthly contributor onboarding (per working group or as a whole (?)) that would mitigate people needing buddies who are voluntary contributors

Your thoughts on how to clarify and establish this process would be absolutely valuable. It would be great to have some clear guidance on this for future voluntary contributors.

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I think that for starters, it would be nice to have a monthly volunteer contributor AMA. maybe we bring in 2-3 core contributors into that call to answer questions.

I would feel pretty confident in answer most volunteer questions, and ones I couldn’t I would relay to the right people.

We can see what kind of turn out there is (see the demand), see the types of questions being asked… and if it feels like we need more support… we could consider having more specific types of calls like, for example, one per WG.

I think we could announce these calls to our team at the beginning of the month and encourage them to spread the message to interested volunteers. then we announce in the general channel a few days before the call and again on the day of the call… and then go from there.

It can be an iterative process.

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