How We Work!
I just came out of two ZOOM meetings for ACT. These days, we have many ZOOM meetings. Partially because our Board is still meeting in person quarterly and partially because we have not been able to travel to Uganda for over 2 years!
I thought you might be interested in how we work - at least on the US side. We have seven Teams made up of all volunteers with an ACT US Board Member leading each team. These Teams meet about once-a-month, sometimes less. We try to include our Ugandan staff in these meetings when we can. The 8-hour time difference makes that difficult. Our team work here is for the purpose of supporting the work being done by our nine staff members in Uganda. We have about 45 volunteer team members on our teams. Perhaps you are one of them! Thanks!
Let's do some math - and this will involve making some assumptions. 45 volunteers who may average 5 (sometimes a lot more) hours a week with, at least, three of us working 30 hours or more per week. When you total the hours it reflects the work time of about five, 40-hour-per-week, employees. If ACT paid five employees an average, US nonprofit salary of $58,000/year, it would cost $290,000 USD per year for just the work that is done here in the US by our dedicated volunteers. This is, in my opinion, a very conservative estimate given the education and experience of all of our volunteers. We have many volunteers with many years of experience and advanced degrees. But alas, this is just a conservative estimate - none of us keep track of our hours.
Besides the time and expertise that the ACT US volunteers contribute, most of these folks are our biggest donors. And the best gift of all is their love and care for our Ugandan partners!
Here are the ACT US Teams:
Communications Team - this team supports the mission of ACT by providing clear, accessible, current communication vehicles for different ACT audiences - email, social media, videos, etc. This team manages the ACT Contact Database.
HANDS Team (Helping Agriculture New Development & Sustainability) - this team promotes and supports the advancement of successful and sustainable agricultural projects and education.
HEAL Team (Health is Elemental to All Life) - this team supports and advises the Ugandan HEAL staff who oversee volunteer Health Promotion Workers that facilitate dialogues in the villages to identify greatest health issues and help community members to agree on an action plan to address the issues.
HONOR Scholarship Team (Honesty, Opportunity, Need, Ownership and Respect) - this team supports and advises the work of this program in Uganda which currently has around 200 scholarship recipients.
Resource Development Team - this team ensures there is funding for all the work of ACT whether that be by writing grants, online fund-raising campaigns or events.
TEACH Team (Targeting Educational Advancement for CHildren) - this team supports the staff and administration of Muko High School providing technical expertise in curriculum, teaching methodology, business administration and the discipline of students.
Uniquely Uganda Handcrafts Team - this team oversees the in-person and online sales in the US of the handcrafts produced by the women of Muko Sub County. This team also provides design suggestions for the handcrafts.
- Someone with social media skills to manage our Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest accounts. (1-2 hours per week at your convenience from your own home/office)
- Someone who has a desire for merchandising to manage our two online "stores" that sell the handcrafts. actuganda.org/shop and https://www.etsy.com/shop/uniquelyugandaact/
- Someone who has an interest in helping in fund development - creating online fund-raising campaigns, planning events, donor management.
- Sue Waechter
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