Community organizing with diaper banks
Community organizers help people solve problems such as not having a diaper for their baby. It’s a big need.
Most child care facilities require parents to provide diapers for their child. Nationally, 57% of parents experiencing diaper need who rely on child care said they missed an average of four days of school or work in the past month because they didn’t have diapers. – NDBN
Mothers of Hope and Power Coalition are community organizers that help those in need through a host of services including free diapers. They use an automated chatbot to build opt-in contact lists of the people getting diapers. This enables them to both help communities and organize them collective action.
Chatbots for community organizing
Chatbots are small programs that can help community organizers and campaigns easily manage routine tasks such as providing information and collecting contact information. Chatbots respond to inquiries automatically and can be set up in a day for $100 and cost about 5 cents per person helped. Organizers choose the keyword that should be texted in, what questions the chatbot should ask, what information to saved and the answers it should provide. Learn more about chatbots here.
The Diaper Bank Chatbot for instance responds to the keyword ‘diapers’, asks the caller for their name and how many children they take care of. They are provided the option to be added to a contact list at the same time. The chatbot replies with a text that has the location of the Diaper Bank and a mobile coupon. The caller simply presents the coupon on their phone bank and presses REDEEM to get diapers.
More about chatbots
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Diaper need
Diaper need is the lack of a sufficient supply of diapers to keep an infant or child clean, dry, and healthy.
Nearly half the infants and toddlers in the US living in poor and low-wage families struggle to access material basic necessities like diapers. Almost 30% of mothers reported diaper need.
More than 60% of families receiving diapers earn less than $20,000 per year; Providing diapers to families helps eliminate $4.3 million in medical costs; and Providing diapers, today, increases state tax revenues. – National Diaper Bank Network
National list of diaper banks. DONATE TO NATIONAL DIAPER BANK NETWORK#enddiaperneedNational list of Diaper banks
TakeAway: Use chatbots to collect information on the people you’re helping so you can organize them later for collective action.
Deepak
DemLabs
Image credit: Huggies® whose #HelpingHugs program provides a 5 million diaper donation to The National Diaper Bank Network and $1 million to United Way to support community social services. As the impact of the COVID-19 crisis deepens, many more families are unable to pay for essentials and are turning to local diaper banks for help.
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Reposted from Democracy Labs with permission.
