You have determined your data collection method, designed your questionnaires and materials, selected your participants (or samples), and tested your questions on a few close colleagues and friends. Determine whether you need to conduct orientation and training for your colleagues or any volunteers who will assist you.
If you need volunteers to assist with door-to-door canvassing or distributing surveys, this communication can be a part of your volunteer recruitment efforts. Host an event at the local university, high school, youth center or community center – it might help to promise volunteers a certificate or small honorarium (maybe even a t-shirt!) for their participation.
Your training and preparation will depend on the kind of outreach and data collection you choose, but be ready to provide talking points, answers to frequently asked questions, or training (including handouts with relevant overviews and briefings) on the following topics:
- How will colleagues and the volunteers transmit responses or communicate in general – such as any unexpected issues or delays, problems with data collection and other questions to the core team? Determine whether there will be a single point of contact to field questions and organize volunteers, an email or shared drive to store responses on the cloud, or a form (electronic or hard copy) where responses can be entered. Make sure that your volunteers and colleagues will behave appropriately, will refer residents to the relevant authority (and not answer questions they do not know the answers to or on behalf of the local authority) and are sufficiently supervised and supported by the core team.
- What are your protocols for meeting standards for data privacy and data integrity? Will volunteers or colleagues be handling private personal information; what steps or precautions will be taken to ensure this is done correctly, in a way that respects local residents and is in line with relevant laws?
- What is your risk mitigation strategy? How will you ensure that colleagues and volunteers are safe? Will you organize volunteers and enumerators into groups rather than have them work alone; will you provide interpreters; will you organize transportation, water, and snacks; how will you handle risks from excessive heat or cold?
- Do you need to organize training or briefing materials for volunteers and colleagues conducting surveys and canvassing? Consider whether it will be necessary to print and distribute maps, provide talking points (about what they are doing and how responses will be used) and example dialogues (see Annex IX: Surveys for an example), set and establish a schedule for canvassing and due dates for distribution of surveys, and offer an explanation or guidance for any other components that will make their work easier and clearer.