Community Connect: Logistics

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ALA staff will activate each Wi-Fi hotspot with the basic set up and ship each library five hotspots and a copy of Rainy Day Ready by the end of November 2020. Please see the Hotspots page for more details on managing your hotspots. The $2,000 stipends will be sent to the contact indicated in your Letter of Agreement in December 2020.

Training Webinars

Your two required training webinars are available to view on YouTube. Please view before lending hotspots and getting too far down the road planning programs, and share with any library staff who will be involved with this project.

The Hotspot webinar is at Community Connect: Digital Access at Home Hotspot Webinar
The Programming and Evaluation webinar is at Community Connect: Digital Access at Home Programming and Evaluation Webinar
When you finish viewing both webinars, please take a moment to fill out our library staff survey.

Program Evaluation

ALA is working with PIE: Plan, Implement, Evaluate to study how Community Connect impacts internet access, use, and financial capability. The evaluation team’s goal is to collect data to understand the patron experience and learning outcomes throughout the grant period and provide feedback to help ALA, Capital One, and libraries advance their goals. We greatly appreciate your commitment to this work.

The Community Connect program will include a formal evaluation of the implementation and impact of this program. Libraries who receive this grant award will be required to work collaboratively with our third-party evaluation partners to do the following:

Track program attendance and hotspot distribution
Implement pre- and post-surveys for both library staff and program participants
Track circulation of personal finance collections within the library
Take part in interviews with the third-party evaluation team, if needed
Identify program participants for potential interviews by the third-party evaluation team

Attendance, surveys, and interviews will help ALA learn about its impact and improve this program in the future. Key questions that will guide this evaluation are the following:

How was the program implemented?
What was the impact of this program? How did hotspots and/or financial capability programs support participants to use online banking resources? Other important online resources?
How can this program be improved?

ALA and the third-party evaluation team will work in partnership with selected libraries and support them throughout the evaluation process.

For any questions during the program about any of the evaluation work, including and specific supports needed by libraries, please reach out to Dr. Amber Mason, PIE’s Director of Evaluation, at amber@pieorg.org.

Webinar Survey

This is a survey for library staff. After you finish viewing both training webinars, please complete the staff survey. All library staff who view both webinars should complete the online survey.

Hotspot Lending Survey

This is a survey for library patrons who check out a hotspot. Please ask all patrons to fill it out upon returning the hotspot to you. There are three formats you can use to gain their responses, please feel free to use any or all that you feel will best ensure a robust response from your hotspot users:

Paper survey that you provide to patrons with the hotspot, for them to return with the hotspot can be downloaded and printed out as needed. On a regular basis, perhaps monthly, please scan and email the surveys to Amber Mason at amber@pieorg.org.
An online survey you can email to hotspot users (the answers go directly to PIEorg), or
A QR code you can offer, which will take people who scan it to the online survey.

Ready, Set, Bank Program Series Survey

When you complete a program from the RSB curriculum, please ask your program participants to fill out a survey. Paper copies of the survey can be found within the specific course toolkit you wish to use on the Ready, Set, Bank website at https://www.readysetbank.org/en/nonprofit-resources. Please print out as many copies as you need to use in each class, then scan and email back to Amber Mason at amber@pieorg.org. We have also created online versions of the survey, if that’s more convenient for you. The answers go directly to PIEorg. They can be found at:

Pre-Program Form

The pre-programs form needs to be completed at least 45 days prior to the start of your programs. The form should be filled out online using the same online portal where you submitted your application. If you have a problem accessing the online report form, please contact publicprograms@ala.org.

You can download a copy of the Community Connect pre-programs form for a reference as you prepare your answers. The report must be submitted via the online report form.

Final Report Form

The final report should be completed online using the same online portal where you submitted your application. If you have a problem accessing the online report form, please contact publicprograms@ala.org.

You can download a copy of the final report form for reference as you prepare your answers. The report must be submitted via the online report form.

Next page: Hotspots