Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County
AmeriCorps*VISTA, Speakers Bureau Coordinator
Cheryl DeFlavis of AmericCorps*Vista discusses how her organization is utilizing social media to help recruit volunteers, accept donations and strengthen connections.
Hi, my name is Cheryl DeFlavis, I am an AmeriCorps*VISTA at the Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County (HCHC) working to help educate the community about homelessness and the ‘real face’ of our homeless neighbors. It’s an exciting and fulfilling opportunity to be able to work for an agency that is not only trying to help others, but also branching out to utilize new technology to accomplish its purpose.
The Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County (HCHC) is a membership agency that brings together the various agencies and organizations which serve 
homeless individuals and families; conducts the biennial homeless count to find out what the needs of our homeless neighbors are, and advocates to lawmakers and community leaders about the needs of homeless men, women and children.
The Coalition utilizes Web sites and a weekly newsletter to inform the community and its member agencies of its activities and priorities. The Coalition has also engaged in on-line donation programs offered by Network for Good and maintained an up-to-date profile on Guide Star. Many staff members are engaged with LinkedIn to solidify connections. HCHC is currently making an effort to branch out into the world of social media through Facebook, Brand Tampa, and Twitter, and has started profiles on Change.org and the Tampa Bay Do Good Network. The Coalition also has plans to start a YouTube page and a Flickr account sometime in the near future.
Web sites:
HCHC’s main Web site (“http://www.homelessofhc.org” www.homelessofhc.org) is useful for both people in the community, our member agencies and persons in need of assistance. There is an ‘About Us’ section that explains the purpose of the Coalition and what we do. People in the community can use the site to gain access to our Annual Report, ten year plan to end homelessness, fact sheets about homelessness in Hillsborough County, results of the homeless count, and find out how to get involved with the Coalition and/or volunteer for one of our member agencies. They can also access resources easily and find links to a Resource Guide, the Coalition’s Street Survival Guide, and an Affordable Housing Guide, as well as, sign up for our weekly newsletter, and make donations via Network for Good. There is also a membership section that gives information on how to become a member, shares a list of our member agencies, and includes a member handbook.
HCHC also has a Web site to show the public the “unexpected faces” of homelessness (“http://unexpectedfaces.org” http://unexpectedfaces.org). The site shares stories and pictures of homeless and formerly homeless individuals as part of HCHC’s “Unexpected Faces, Unexpected Places” Public Awareness Campaign to help dispel the myths and misperceptions about homeless people. And to help HCHC gain support for programs and services needed in our community. The site also has detailed information about the campaign, what people can do to help their homeless neighbors, and how to donate to the Coalition.
Weekly E-Newsletter: HCHC uses a weekly publication, The Responder, as another avenue to reach our members and the community; it is packed with useful information concerning homelessness and the issues surrounding it. The Responder reaches more than 640 people each week and shares new facts and statistics about homelessness, commonly used terms, local news, workshop and seminar opportunities, reports and a calendar of HCHC’s events.
LinkedIn: Most staff members at the Coalition use LinkedIn to strengthen relationships with employees of the Coalition’s member agencies and other businesses we work with.
Brand Tampa (a local social network): After attending a community discussion on homelessness hosted by the founder of Brand Tampa the Coalition created a group page on the network. Brand Tampa functions much like a local version of Facebook and we use it to tell the community about our events, share pictures, network with other non profits, and share news about the Coalition. We used Brand Tampa as a ‘jump off’ point into the world of Social media.
In December 2008, HCHC expanded further into social media beginning with an objective to recruit community volunteers and donations for our 2009 homeless count. We developed a fan page on Facebook (created in December), opened an account on Twitter and expanded our Brand Tampa presence. Today we have 12 members in our group on Brand Tampa.
Facebook:
HCHC uses our fan page to post events, share pictures from events and the Unexpected Faces Campaign, and to share news. In the near future we will add the new campaign PSAs to the fan page. At this time we have 29 fans. HCHC’s CEO and some staff members use their personal Facebook accounts to talk about homelessness, the Coalition and how people can help. We look to increase our use of Facebook to continue to educate the public about homelessness, generate more support and donations for the Coalition.
As part of our ongoing Facebook presences we will be publishing a fan page for our Unexpected Faces, Unexpected Places Speakers’ Bureau, which is comprised of homeless and formerly homeless speakers. The page will include pictures from each of the speaking engagements, bios of each of our speakers, comments from engagement hosts, discussion about audience experiences and provide coordinators the ability to share when and where their events are being held. We think the fan page will be incredibly successful at making the bureau more accessible to youth and the overall general public.
Twitter: In January, I started tweeting for the Coalition. As with Facebook, we used Twitter to recruit volunteers and obtain donations for the homeless count. As part of this effort, I attended the Tampa Tweetup to meet other Tweeters in the community and tell them about the homeless count. I continue to build relationships with other people who tweet about homelessness and believe this will help HCHC further their real life network and resources. I have plans to attend a teleconference about generating funding on Twitter and the Coalition has plans to train all staff on Twitter so we can each share about our work at HCHC, the successes we have, and other news. Currently, our CEO has learned Twitter and tweets to his 799 followers primarily about homeless issues. The Coalition has 275 followers on Twitter.
Change.org and Tampa Bay Do Good Network: HCHC started profiles on Change.org in February and the Tampa Bay Do Good Network in April. We plan on using both of these pages to learn more about other non-profits, network with like-minded agencies, and create lasting partnerships.
YouTube: HCHC plans to start an account once we receive the PSAs from the Unexpected Faces, Unexpected Places Campaign. We are also working on developing other ideas for videos to post.
My duties as an AmeriCorps*VISTA are to increase capacity building to further the mission of the Coalition, to help create sustainable programs and educate our community about our homeless neighbors. Sometimes our work goes unnoticed; however, once we have fully implemented social media into our daily work we will have made a significant impact in our community to change the face of our homeless neighbors. This will allow us to do more to help homeless men, women, and children in Hillsborough County.
