Here are some guidelines to developing successful technical volunteer projects:

Commitment: The volunteer will take cues from you and the organization about how committed you are to the project, and how important the project is to your organization. If the organization is not 100% behind the project, then the volunteer won't feel inspired to be either.

Sustainability: The most important aspect in the success of mentoring projects is the commitment of the nonprofit to becoming self-sufficient. Nonprofits shouldn't rely on volunteers to be available on a long-term basis for on-call troubleshooting. The volunteer will not be around forever, and the reason you are asking a technical volunteer to help you out is because s/he has more knowledge than you about the particular issue. Take the opportunity to learn from the volunteer, so that you are incorporating a level of sustainability into the project.

Flexibility: Volunteers have limited time, especially during school or business hours. The best projects are ones that have flexible time-schedules. Delays are sometimes unavoidable; but also be aware if the volunteer is losing interest, because the early these issues are addressed, the sooner you can get back on track.

Workplan: Work together with the volunteer on developing a step-by-step plan, with some sort of timeline included. This way you both know where the project is at, and can identify when things are going off-track. This plan is a good thing to have in case staff or the volunteer changes, so you can inform the new person where things have come form, and where it's going.

Sample workplans:

• Volunteer will identify nonprofit system of work and nonprofit work needs.
• From this, volunteer will identify solutions (not necessarily computer based) which will meet the nonprofit needs according to the system of work, including changes in the system of work.
• Volunteer will be appraised of nonprofit limitations (monetary, technical, administrative). Nonprofit and volunteer will agree upon one or more solutions as their goal.
• Volunteer will then identify costs associated with meeting that goal (including computer equipment costs), and present a draft of the needs assessment.
• After a discussion of the variables, the volunteer will present a detailed needs assessment for meeting the work needs of the nonprofit or improving the system of work.
• The volunteer might be called upon to present this needs assessment to the Board for approval.

• School will furnish data sets and relations, as well as all sample input and output screens, and reports they wish to generate, to volunteer. School will also justify the use of any particular DB product they wish to use.
• Volunteer will evaluate this information to see if appropriate, and develop model layouts and reports.
• Once the modeling is agreed upon, the volunteer will program the database, and bring it back to the school for beta testing.
• The school and the volunteer will agree on the final form, after which the volunteer will provide documentation and negotiate future support.

• Nonprofit and/or volunteer will determine need and justification for LAN.
• Nonprofit will identify a person to act as system administrator, who is responsible for learning and documenting the ongoing maintenance task of the LAN.
• Volunteer will work with the system administrator to identify the type of LAN and configuration necessary, and subsequently the equipment needed (including upgrades for machines which would otherwise not be compatible).
• The volunteer and system administrator will work together to determine the workload for setting up the physical LAN, and the ongoing workload for maintaining the LAN.
• Volunteer and System administrator will produce plan, work and cost assessment for the LAN installation.
• Volunteer and nonprofit will install cables and software, as well as do any H/W configuring of computers.
• Volunteer will train system administrator in ongoing maintenance issues, and be available for another month for phone support.
• Discuss documentation and staff backup procedures.