Digital Volunteer Networks

Digital Volunteer Networks support emergency management during disasters curate, analyze, and visualize crowdsourced data. DVNs are comprised of trained volunteers, who often in their professional lives are experts in social media, communication, coding, or GIS, and work within that DVN's procedures. This section will cover the different types of DVNs, from independent non-governmental organizations to government-managed Virtual Operations Support Teams (VOSTs). At the crawl stage, emergency managers should know how to activate and work with DVNs and as you advance to the run stage you might establish a VOST that works on behalf of your EOC. DVNs and VOSTs are force multipliers that provide valuable support when properly integrated into the response structure.

Digital Humanitarian Network has developed many resources and guides to assist organizations in the process of managing digital volunteers, collaborating with volunteer & technical communities, and how establish a digital response network. These guides and others are available in the DH Network library.

Other Digital Volunteer Networks

While many Digital Volunteer Networks are part of the Digital Humanitarian Network, there are a number of additional crowdsourcing groups that provide important service before, during, and after disasters. The spreadsheet below describes additional organizations that can be activated directly, their capabilities, & how to contact them. If you have an addition to this list, please recommend it here.

In October of 2018, subject matter experts from VOSTs around the country worked with FEMA's National Integration Center to develop draft resource typing for the VOST concept. While these documents are not finalized, they provide a good template in the development of your own VOST. Typing currently exists for the Virtual Operations Support Team, a VOST Member, a VOST Supervisor, and a VOST Administrator.

Example Virtual Operations Support Teams