Coordinator's Role and Responsibilities
Coordinator's Role
As a WhatFriendsDo.com coordinator, you have a very special role. You are the friend or family member who serves, through the WhatFriendsDo.com webtool, as the liaison with all the other friends and family members; you are the voice of “what’s going on”. You will designate what types of assistance are needed and will provide necessary details.
The Coordinator is the person who registers a new team, sets the privacy level, distributes the weblink to family and friends, and does the “behind the scenes” tasks. These tasks include blog entries, uploading photos, entering tasks into the “Scheduling Help" section and monitoring guestbook entries. You may add/remove/change any of the types of help as the situation changes, and WhatFriendsDo.com makes it all very easy!
For teams which will be ongoing for a long period of time (more than one month) it is helpful to have more than one coordinator. It is often beneficial to designate coordinators who are close to the friend in need in different ways. For example, one coordinator might be a relative, another a co-worker, and another a church friend or neighbor. This will be especially helpful in getting the Team weblink distributed. Additional coordinators can be added or removed at any time, so as situations change so can the coordinators.
Be sure to check the Coordinator’s Guide to learn about all of the features available on your Team page, and how to use each one.
Coordinators’ Responsibilities
- Guard the privacy of your friend as well as that of all team members.
- Set Privacy Level – your friend may prefer that some people not have access to the Team page. You may change the privacy level at any time.
- Do not publish phone numbers or email addresses on the Team page or within blog entries.
- Encourage team members to post messages in the Guest Book.
- Use the blog to keep Team members up-to-date about the situation, but also about what they can do to help.
- Use "Scheduling Help" to indicate which tasks are needed for your friend. It is up to you to provide the information regarding where meals should be delivered, or where other tasks should be performed. Remember that in this instance, more information is far better than not enough.
- Automated emails will be generated when friends sign up to help. The information you provide regarding specific ways to help will automatically be included in the automated emails.
- Monitor messages posted to the Guest Book and comments posted on the Blog. Coordinators have the capability to edit or delete entries. You must use your own judgment in determining what content is inappropriate.
- You have the capability of emailing Team members. Even though you have the capability of generating an email through WhatFriendsDo.com, the email messages are sent by your own private email address, which is not affiliated with WhatFriendsDo.com. WhatFriendsDo.com is not responsible for any content of email messages generated by Coordinators. If you think it is appropriate to contact one or all team members via email rather than through a blog entry, use the email tool. WhatFriendsDo.com can give you guidance regarding certain situations, but your words are YOUR words. (See Coordinator Tips) WhatFriendsDo.com is not responsible for content.
- Note that if you are planning some sort of a surprise event for your friend, and if your friend reads the blog, you may prefer to email everyone rather than post the details of the surprise on the blog.
- Be sure to check the Team List from time to time. Coordinators have the capability of editing the Team List. If someone spells their name incorrectly (yes, it does happen!) you can fix the error. You also have the capability of removing names from the list.
- If/when the friend for whom you have created the Team is ready to post blog entries, be sure to also give them coordinator privileges.
