The project, launched by the Volunteer Office and ITER, aims to improve the activity of the entities that collaborate with the program through the implementation of technological tools.
The Institute of Technology and of Renewable Energies (ITER) and the Volunteer Office of Tenerife Isla Solidaria program, managed by Sinpromi, are working together to execute a project that aims for the digital transformation of the island’s volunteer associations.
Fifty entities in the third sector will be able to benefit from this action that will go on during the next four years, to progressively implement the use of technological tools in their management and services.
The main objectives of the project are to increase the capacity of the organizations to carry out their tasks and procedures, to help them maintain their aid activity, and to encourage them to reach a greater number of beneficiaries.
For its execution, almost three million euros has been planned to finance this four-year period project. This year 566,290 euros will be allocated to the project.
This collaboration was born during the pandemic, which escalated the situation of those groups in the island in a vulnerable situation and highlighted the needs of the entities of the Third Sector, which were also affected by social distancing measures.
The Volunteer Office of the Tenerife Isla Solidaria program, managed by Sinpromi, contacted ITER to jointly look for alternatives that could help maintain the activity of aiding people. Thus, the ‘Online Volunteering’ project was launched, as the first action to initiate an accelerated process of digital transformation of the entities of the third sector.
This project aimed to provide digital tools that helped in the work of volunteer organizations, especially in three areas particularly sensitive: Food distribution to families with limited economic resources, home monitoring of the elderly, and support for people of the LGTBIQ + collective.
Thanks to the work carried out by the multidisciplinary team of the project, made up by the staff of the Volunteer Office and ITER, in close collaboration with the volunteer entities, a set of tools were launched, based on Google Workspace.
At the end of this first experience, the collaboration focused in the development of food distribution activities, being able to monitor these activities daily, and to know the status of the distribution among the beneficiaries in real time.
This experience has served as the first stage for the approach of a more ambitious project of digital transformation of the activity of the volunteer entities that collaborate with the Tenerife Isla Solidaria program.
ITER has participated in the design phase of this new project of the Volunteer Office, which aims to initiate a diagnosis of the activity carried out by volunteer entities, to continue with the implementation of technological tools that can lead to a digitalization process.
As in any digital transformation process, the ultimate goal is to increase the capacity of organizations to perform their task in a more efficient way, allowing them to increase their productivity, without an excessive increase in the resources necessary for this improvement. In the case of voluntary entities, this productivity improvement translates into a greater number of beneficiaries, and a better management of the funds used to carry out the activity.
The project also includes awareness-raising, information and training actions that will be open to all associations and other social agents. As well as support services to help manage the changes in the organizations and a make an easier adaptation in the use of the new technological tools.