The following are hypothetical examples that demonstrate the potential uses of the CollaborAid Community:
Medical Aid Group
A medical aid group plans to provide meningitis immunization coverage to several villages in rural India. The vaccinations are ready to go, but due to understaffing, the group lacks the manpower to reach a few of the villages.
With CollaborAid:
A member of the group logs in to the CollaborAid Community. She posts a request for a certified medic with immunization experience and the dates of the campaign. A Peace Corps volunteer living in a nearby village and a local nurse in a neighboring city learn about the volunteer opportunity from their CollaborAid news feed. Both sign up to help during their spare time and they contribute to the campaign's success.
Local Stakeholder in Maasailand, Kenya
Joseph is the chief of a large nomadic community in a very isolated part of rural Maasailand, Kenya. The region is experiencing a devastating drought and the community wanders in search of new pastureland for their cattle with very limited success.
With CollaborAid:
Joseph makes the day trip to a distant town with a cyber cafe. He logs into his CollaborAid account to relay updates of how the drought is affecting his people. An employee of the United Nations World Food Program messages him to inform him that another Maasai community has settled on a grassy meadow a few miles south. Food aid is going to be delivered to that location over the next few weeks and there will be sufficient supplies to accommodate Joseph's community.
An International Volunteer
John, a proactive university student, is spending his summer volunteering in rural Uganda. He wants to make a positive impact in his village, but he is uninformed about active aid work in the area. He sets out to make a difference by himself and makes a poor investment with the donations he raised prior to his trip. Out of funds, John becomes frustrated with his failure to make a difference and spends much of his spare time idle.
With CollaborAid:
John learns about several aid organizations operating in his village and the surrounding area. He connects with a local NGO that hosts soccer tournaments at schools to promote HIV/AIDs awareness. He reaches out to other members of his volunteer program and the group decides to referee games on weekends. John uses his donation money to purchase new balls and jerseys for the kids. Even though he is out of funds, he finds out about additional volunteer opportunities on CollaborAid and begins teaching free computer classes at a nearby primary school in his spare time.
Development NGO
The staff of a development non-governmental organization (NGO) are looking into options to provide safe drinking water to a very arid region in Mali. They hire a hydrologist to survey the region and he reports that the water table is several hundred feet deep. The only feasible option is a deep well that requires hiring a large drill rig, truck, and crew. Only one well company has the capacity to take on the project, but due to their distance, their estimate far exceeds the organization's budget. The well is never dug.
With CollaborAid:
The staff posts the planning stages of their project on the CollaborAid network. A staff member from a government aid agency contacts them about a well they plan to install in a neighboring village. They have already hired a hydrologist and they share his surveys so that the development organization can avoid this redundant expense. An employee from a religious organization in the area joins the dialogue as they were also considering a well installation. Because the well company can make all three installations in one trip, the group is able to negotiate a much more affordable price. All three wells are completed and the three organizations follow up with each other with questions regarding water distribution and maintenance.
A University Group
A university-based, engineering group visits a village in rural Peru over Spring Break. They recognize that limited access to drinking water is the community's most pressing need, so they return to campus and spend the semester developing a clay water purification system. They have several questions during the planning and design phase, but their contact in the village never responds as she rarely has access to the Internet or a cell phone. The group ends up developing a prototype from materials and tools they assume will be there. The students return to the village at the end of the semester to find that this is not the case. They have to subsitute more expensive materials and they end up going over budget. At the end of the project, the students return home and graduate. They never have a chance to find out about their project's impact.
With CollaborAid:
Before even traveling to Peru, the group learns about the village's needs from the CollaborAid Community profile page. It is clear that water is an issue, so the group prepares by researching the topic and networking with organizations on the ground. When they visit the community, their time and resources are used productively as they have a focus and contacts in several local water organizations. After returning to campus, a question arises about the cost and availability of a certain supply. The group posts an "Active Question" and a Peace Corps volunteer in the area responds with the answer. On the group's second visit at the end of the semester, they invite several local organizations to learn about their prototype and how to manufacture it. This capacity building allows for future replication throughout the region. When the students return home and graduate, they monitor their project's success by receiving updates from community members and visitors to the region.
A Church Group
A church group goes on a service trip to Kenya. Upon returning to the United States, they decide they want to send donated books to several schools in the communities they visited. After several months of collecting, they have enough books to fill a 20ft container. They negotiate a deal with an international shipper and notify their contacts in Kenya that the shipment is on the way. Because the group failed to properly fill out a certain document in the extensiver requirements for international shipping, their container was stuck in Kenyan customs for a few weeks. The costs and fees required to get the container out cost the group twice as much as they had budgeted.
With CollaborAid:
One of the group members, Susan, does some research on CollaborAid and finds out that several organizations from her state have sent donated goods to Kenya in shipping containers. A staff member from Books for Africa, a group that has been making shipments for 20 years, reaches out to Susan and shares what the ideal box size is for packaging books and where she can find them at a discounted bulk rate. A staff member from another organization, World Computer Exchange, notifies Susan that they are also planning on sending a 20ft shipping container to Kenya. The two groups realize that it is much cheaper to split the cost of a 40ft container and ship the computers and books together. World Computer Exchange has experience in international shipping and they make sure the shipment gets through customs without incident. The books arrive in the Kenyan libraries for a fraction of the price the group thought they would have to pay.
