Habitat For Humanity

Several years ago, I worked on a couple Habitat for Humanity houses. It was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life. Anything involving hammers and sawdust is a good thing in my book.

I don’t know if Habitat For Humanity or any of its regional organizations have gone down the wiki path yet, but Habitat house projects are the perfect setting for using a wiki. A Habitat house is an ‘extreme’ example of an activity-centric wiki, but any other group involved in projects and activities will see some commonality with this example.

The typical Habitat house has these attributes, all of which can be facilitated with a wiki:

People – Habitat managers and coordinators; volunteers from the sponsoring church, school, or civic organizations; the building contractor ‘partner’; various professional trades (electric, plumbing, concrete, framing, heat and cooling, etc; local zoning and building inspectors; contributors; and vendors donating or underwriting materials and equipment.

Groups/Activities – fund raisers; material acquisition; food and beverage; construction teams for each week and each stage of construction, communications; and many more I’m sure that I wasn’t even aware of

Information – the timeline, blueprints, materials lists, needed tools and equipment, punchlist; safety requirements; skills inventory; availability of volunteers; and anything else that may have been written in or attached to the hundreds of emails that probably ricocheted back and forth amongst all the people involved in the typical Habitat project.

Safety and Training – Volunteers come from all walks of life. Many, like me, are weekend warriors with the scars to prove it. Others aren’t so sure of which end of the hammer to hold. Habitat is big on safety – hard hats, goggles, steel toe boots, and training for everyone.

Planning – There is an extraordinary amount of planning that goes into a Habitat house prior any construction actually beginning. The Partner family signs up for a significant commitment (time contribution and mortgage) and the volunteer sponsoring organization must demonstrate its ability to see the project through. Habitat provides wonderful expertise and support in the process, but there is a lot of communication, information, and activity to coordinate leading up to the groundbreaking.

Process - House construction typically follows a 12 week timeline with most volunteer work occurring on Saturdays. During the week, professional trades will typically contribute those areas that require professional certifications and inspections.

Schedule and Status – For the uninitiated, showing up at a Habitat construction site strikes one as a unique mix of chaos, motivation, and fun. I was amazed that anything got done, not to mention how well it got done. The onsite Habitat coordinators have a weekly schedule of what needs to be done by professionals and volunteers alike. They mentor the sponsor managers in seeing this process through and follow-up with a weekly punchlist of items to be fixed, changed, or enhanced before the next week’s activities can commence. It requires extraordinary focus, flexibility, and coordination.

The wiki will facilitate the information and communication that is constantly evolving during a project (especially for those who are involved intermittently) but it won’t replace the sense of community you get when you are actually on site. It’s fun, intimidating, and very satisfying working with an army of people.

One of the cool things you can do is constantly post photos of the project and volunteers as the project progresses – it keeps people engaged who are not on site every week and it can energize those who show up Saturday morning having seen the progress online. The wiki can end up being a constantly evolving newsletter or intranet for the project. It can also become a permanent archive for Habitat, the family living in it, and the organization that sponsored the house.

Every volunteer organization I’ve been involved with deals with the same attributes – if they are actually working to accomplish something! It may not be on the same scale as a Habitat house, but the coordination and communication of planning, information, people, schedule, issues, status, and process is pretty much identical for any activity focused group.

Clearly, Habitat has a mission and actually produces something – houses. Most nonprofits that rely on volunteers also have similar needs and project management attributes that wikis can facilitate and improve everyone’s sense of participation and contribution.

Comments

[Michael McLawhorn]

Hi.

There's a Habitat for Humanity chapter starting up in my area and I wanted to look into doing just what you propose, using a Wiki to help organize and publicize efforts. What's a good starting point for getting information on setting up a Wiki and assessing my needs in terms of features? I've looked at the Wikipedia wiki software comparison chart, but I'm drowning in information right now.

[Linda in Kentucky]

Hi I just wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU to all of the volunteers that come together to give a family in need a home and a new start at life. These homes are wonderfully built and make such a difference in a families lives. I am the proud owner of a habitat for humanity house (2 1/2 yrs now). If it were not for all of the people that had a heart of gold and gave their blood, sweat, tears and time for someone they did not know before hand. I have made many new friendships that will last a lifetime. If not for their efforts I don't know what I would have done. Hugs to all.