Organising an Online do_action Event

We are currently updating the names of our contributor roles throughout our resources. The new role names are Community Team Event SupporterEvent Supporter Event Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues. (formerly MentorEvent Supporter Event Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues.), Community Team Program SupporterProgram Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. (formerly DeputyProgram Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook.), and Program ManagerProgram Manager Program Managers (formerly Super Deputies) are Program Supporters who can perform extra tasks on WordCamp.org like creating new sites and publishing WordCamps to the schedule. (formerly Super DeputyProgram Manager Program Managers (formerly Super Deputies) are Program Supporters who can perform extra tasks on WordCamp.org like creating new sites and publishing WordCamps to the schedule.).

We strongly encourage in-person do_actiondo_action do_action hackathons are community-organised events that are focussed on using WordPress to give deserving charitable organisations their own online presence. Learn more on doaction.org. events, but in the current time of crisis we are making allowances and suggestions for online events until things have returned to normal again.

If you are organising an online/virtual do_action event, you can do things a little differently to an in-person event. Here are some suggestions of things you can change if you wish to do so:

  1. Organise a country-wide do_action event. Since these events are going to be virtual, it makes sense to bring in talents from the whole country, as well as reach more non-profit organisations that would otherwise be possible.
  2. Spread the work out over a few days/weeks. In order to give people the time to work on the websites for the non-profit organisations, allow them to work over a longer time period than just one day. A format I quite like the idea of is giving each team 1 week to complete their work.
  3. Provide virtual communication channels. Use your local WordPress community SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. group (or create one if you don’t have one already) and set up separate channels for each team to communicate. You could also use some of the tools we suggest for meetups to expand on the communication options.

Want to learn more about how to organize an online do_action charity hackathon? Check out this live Tuesday Training video to learn more!

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