CAM Durango Youth Coalition

As for what I'd like to see in the guide from our standpoint, I would say briefly that I'd love to see a really user-friendly calendar where groups can add their events/logos/photos etc and one that is prominent on the main page of the site as well.  Buzztown is already doing this somewhat so maybe their calendar can somehow also be housed on your site?  For example, if just a running calendar that was updated daily showing that day's events, or that week's events could appear on your site since Buzztown already manages something like that?

I'd like to see a really easy way for people to go look for service opportunities, volunteer opportunities, and also paid opportunities within the community.  Each organization who is a part of this guide could update their information about what they are looking for, a wish list of sorts, and maybe that includes things they need, rather than just volunteer help on certain topics or for certain events.  For example, what if someone just wanted to know how they could help but they don't have much time, so they could go to a site that allowed them to see options for one-time volunteer opportunities at events, but which also showed options for more long term volunteering needs, and also internships or jobs both part-time or full-time.  It would be neat for folks to be able to sort information for themselves in that way, I say this because I get tired of young people telling me they just don't know how to get involved or where to start...and this could be a great place to eliminate that argument haha.  This could also help show where organizations are overlapping in their needs, so maybe if they collaborated, it could be accomplished more easily!  And for us, if there was a way to sort information to view just those opportunities or organizations related to youth, then that would make sense for us in using the site (we are essentially clustered with other folks in a youth-based area). 

I'd like to see interactivity with the community and fun things as well.  Debates going on in a blog or questions posed for community members to respond to.  Maybe the webmaster will spend some time blogging on the site to get people's interest and build that dialogue.  Maybe there could be options that tie into local TV/radio etc.  We could run some audio pieces from KDUR or KSUT on there that are of interest to this community, Buzztown could have online trainings for non-profits that are recorded and kept on the site as a resource, people could add their own non-profit resources to a resource page.  Maybe we could partner with John Sheedy at Animas High School (he and I have talked about this idea) to have a contest once every month where people vote on or suggest ideas for a mini-documentary in our community, and then a student or John's class (or however we figured it out) could then do the documentary and post it on the site.

And the obvious, information about each of the community organizations that shows who works for them, what they do, links to their resources and websites. 

As for a information gathering process for us...we don't really have much of one.  I try to get age, name, email, graduation year, school (if they are in school), and phone number from the young people we come across, as well as a short idea of what groups they are already in or what topics they are interested in.  I have attached a sheet that I tried using for awhile but hasn't worked out too well in getting liaisons at our meetings, but ideally this is something we'd like to see happen. 

Riley