Activity: Organizing Your Volunteers Technical support is one of the largest ongoing costs of technology initiatives and is often overlooked in creating technology budgets. School support personnel are often fewer than in businesses, with schools reporting a ratio of support personnel to other staff as high as 1:500 in comparison to reports from business of a 1:50 ratio. 2 Consider your support needs and how parent and community members might help address this problem. Make preliminary plans for a technology volunteer preparation program for your school. Make a list of needs documenting the types of needs and how volunteers can support you. Conduct an informal poll of your faculty and staff to get a better idea of their needs. Talk to students and observe them using technology in classrooms and labs. Make a list of parent and community groups and businesses who should receive an invitation or announcement to participate. Prepare a newsletter, article, or press release inviting community members to your event. Schedule a preliminary meeting with parents and community members. List topics you expect to cover. Have staff members or known community members present on some of these topics at the meeting. Include a mechanism for obtaining feedback from the meeting to plan next steps. Post a brief summary of this plan to the discussion. Include a brief list of needs and how you would present them at a preliminary meeting with parents and community members. Click the "Discussion" button on the top menu bar to view your response and the responses from other participants to this activity.