Programs Reporting

POST PROGRAMS REPORTING

Results by Cat­e­gory for Twelve Months End­ing Dec. 2012

DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THE PROGRAMS REPORTING POWER POINT

REPORT YOUR PROGRAMS
To Report Your Pro­grams You might want to book­mark this URL for an easy return.

LOGIN AND DOCUMENT YOUR POST’S SERVICE TO VETERANS AND THIS NATION’S CITIZENS No spe­cial soft­ware required. When you sub­mit the data it will be saved for your future ref­er­ence and instantly will be trans­mit­ted and avail­able for your depart­ment and national lead­er­ship to access. (ALL MEMBERS MAY ACCESS THE SYSTEM)

Tip: You obvi­ously have a com­puter because you have accessed the AMVETS Web Site and are read­ing this page. Want to pro­vide a ser­vice to vet­er­ans, become more involved with your post and do it from the com­fort of your home? Vol­un­teer to enter your post’s pro­gram data!
Report­ing your post and depart­ment pro­gram data sat­is­fies three crit­i­cal needs of the orga­ni­za­tion and pro­vides your post and depart­ment with an archived pro­gram data base.

• It cap­tures the pro­gram pri­or­i­ties of AMVETS and iden­ti­fies areas that need strength­ened within spe­cific programs.
• It pro­vides essen­tial and cumu­la­tive data for the National Com­man­der and all AMVETS leadership.The data may be incor­po­rated into media briefs and Con­gres­sional tes­ti­mony, thus enabling the orga­ni­za­tion to fac­tu­ally doc­u­ment the pos­i­tive impact of AMVETS.
• It ful­fills an IRS account­abil­ity require­ment as a tax-exempt organization.

For our mem­ber­ship, using com­put­ers, the online report­ing capa­bil­ity is a major step for­ward and is a huge time­saver. Data does not have to be passed from one paper trail to the next within your post or depart­ment. You, your post and your depart­ment lead­er­ship are able to also view the data any­time they wish and even edit if nec­es­sary. At the end of each six-month report­ing period, the National Pro­grams Depart­ment “rolls up” a national report and resets the report­ing period date for the next six-month period. How­ever, the data from the pre­vi­ous period will be retained and can be recalled at any time by enter­ing the pre­vi­ous report­ing period end­ing date in the “ana­lyze reports” screen. A great tool to com­pare progress and also be able to track the indi­vid­u­als asso­ci­ated with mak­ing those reports. The sys­tem pro­vides a dig­i­tal trail, for every­one to see, iden­ti­fy­ing who entered the data.

Reports, includ­ing graph­ics like those dis­played here will also be a avail­able for each respec­tive level of our organization. Moving the data into an Excel spread sheet is also an option enabling fur­ther uti­liza­tion of the data such as adding columns to iden­tify the chair per­sons of spe­cific pro­grams. Shar­ing infor­ma­tion is crit­i­cal to the con­tin­ued suc­cess and expan­sion of AMVETS.

Sam­ple of graphic reports avail­able from the Online Pro­grams Report­ing Sys­tem. (If you enter the data, you can pro­duce these types of reports for your post, depart­ment and national districts.)

The graph below shows a total value of $10,080,818 of Pro­grams reported by all posts for the period, 1 Jan­u­ary through 14 June 2007. It dis­plays the totals by national dis­tricts and shows that National Dis­trict IV accounted for (71.94%) of the total amount reported. The reports may be cre­ated daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, etc., and the data may also be saved into excel sheets for fur­ther manipulation.

The graph below shows a total value of $49,277 of Pro­grams reported by MA Post 32 for the period, 1 Jan­u­ary through 14 June 2007. It dis­plays the totals by pro­gram cat­e­gory and shows that Mil­i­tary Funeral Honor Guards accounted for (15.44%) of the total amount reported.

The Chart on top is an  excel  cre­ation  show­ing the  num­ber  of vol­un­teers
and  hours from 1 Jan –14  June 2007, by  national districts.

Pro­gram Category

• You have a choice of (20) spe­cific pro­gram areas to report on by click­ing on the drop down box.
• An entry in the com­ment field is not required for any ofthese; sim­ply enter the num­ber of vol­un­teers and the total num­ber of hours for those volunteers.
• How­ever, you are encour­aged to use the com­ment field when report­ing on a Pro­gram area that may include multiple/different sub pro­grams. Exam­ple: Amer­i­can­ism – the Post mem­bers and/or honor guard may have marched in a Memo­r­ial Day parade. In the com­ment field you sim­ply enter three words (Memo­r­ial Day parade); four mem­bers may have vis­ited sev­eral schools to pro­mote and imple­ment the Amer­i­can­ism Poster & Essay con­test. In the com­ment field you sim­ply enter (Poster/Essay Con­test (4) schools)
• If you select Blood Drive or Cloth­ing & Food Drive, these are spe­cific and a com­ment is really not nec­es­sary or helpful.
• If you are report­ing on your var­i­ous Fund Rais­ing projects you should briefly make an entry in the com­ment field (Fish Fry, Raised $500 Net)
• The “other” choice is to accom­mo­date pro­grams spe­cific and unique to your post. How­ever, before the pro­gram will sub­mit your report for “other” cat­e­gories you must enter a brief descrip­tion of that pro­gram in the com­ment field.

Activ­ity Cost

• If the post spent money, pur­chased sup­plies, food or awards, etc., in con­duct­ing the Pro­gram those expenses are entered in this field. (DO NOT ENTER THE TOTAL OF YOUR VOLUNTEER HOUR VALUE AND MILES VALUE.) They are counted only once and the pro­gram will cal­cu­late them, as they should be.

Cash Dona­tions

• As an exam­ple, your post may be report­ing on a Spe­cial Olympics pro­gram and in addi­tion to pro­vid­ing man­power the post makes a $500 dona­tion. That amount gets reported here. Any com­mu­nity project that your post pro­vides “finan­cial” assis­tance for would be reported here.

Non-Traditional Pro­gram Reporting

The last four choices in the drop down box are for non-traditional Pro­gram report­ing and they are asso­ci­ated with the other four National Depart­ments. These choices also “require” a com­ment to briefly define the activ­ity before the infor­ma­tion can be submitted.

• Communications/Public Rela­tions Offi­cer Activ­ity: As an exam­ple – Your Post PRO could report a spe­cial effort he/she has made on a par­tic­u­lar program.
• Leg­isla­tive Activ­ity: As an exam­ple – Your Post could report time spent by mem­bers directly involved with state leg­isla­tive work on behalf of vet­er­ans and/or work in sup­port of spe­cific vet­eran leg­isla­tive issues on Capi­tol Hill.
• Mem­ber­ship Activ­ity: As an exam­ple – Your 1st Vice Com­man­der for Mem­ber­ship could report a spe­cific mem­ber­ship drive. (Booth at County Fair, gave out 200 mem­ber­ship applications.)
• Vet­eran Service/Claims Activ­ity: As an exam­ple – Your Post Ser­vice Offi­cer could report any spe­cific facil­ity and/or con­tacts made for refer­rals. Vet­er­ans trans­ported to VA Med­ical Centers.

Pro­gram Cat­e­gory Definitions

These are not all inclu­sive, they are offered only as examples.

Old Glo­ry­ous Cel­e­bra­tion – Spe­cial This Period Only

• Please enter, in the “Com­ment Field,” the name of the Mall where your Post vol­un­teered and any spe­cial assis­tance provided.

AADAA

• AADAA – AMVETS Against Drugs and Alco­hol Abuse, admin­is­ter­ing the AADAA Poster & Essay Con­test and/or sup­port­ing a local com­mu­nity group work­ing with a “recov­ery” program.

Amer­i­can­ism

• Amer­i­can­ism – Poster & Essay Con­test, Parades, Pub­lic Cer­e­monies, etc.

Blood Dri­ves

• Blood Dri­ves – Sponsoring/hosting a com­mu­nity blood drive on behalf of the Amer­i­can Red Cross or pro­vid­ing mem­bers to donate for other com­mu­nity spon­sored dri­ves. PLEASE NOTE: Accord­ing to AABB, as blood is freely donated by vol­un­teers, there is no mon­e­tary value that may be reported. Patients that receive blood do not pay for the actual blood itself, rather the ser­vices applied to pro­cess­ing blood prod­ucts (i.e. infec­tious test­ing, typ­ing, etc.) Please report the “pints” donated in the “com­ment field.” No cash/donation entries. Thank you.

Care Bear

• Care Bears – Rais­ing money and pur­chas­ing Teddy Bears to donate to police agen­cies for dis­tri­b­u­tion to chil­dren in emer­gency situations.

Cloth­ing & Food

• Cloth­ing & Food Dri­ves – Pretty straight for­ward, con­duct­ing your own or pro­vid­ing man­power to assist other organizations.

Fund Rais­ing

• Fund Rais­ing – DO NOT REPORT DONATIONS YOU GIVE TO OTHERS HERE. (Dona­tions given to your Post by other groups/individuals could be reported here. The amount would not go in the Dona­tion Col­umn, you would put the amount received and from who, in the Com­ment Field.) This cat­e­gory should be used to report what fund rais­ing projects you are doing. How your post raises money to be used for your var­i­ous vet­eran and com­mu­nity projects. Any­thing from Bingo to Steak Frys, etc. In the com­ment field enter both the name of your fund raiser and the amount you raise. Other columns reflect the vol­un­teers, fund rais­ing costs, etc. DONATIONS YOUR POST MAKES TO OTHER GROUPS may be reported on the spe­cific cat­e­gory line, e.g., Spe­cial Olympics, Home­less Vet­er­ans OR if it is a Dona­tion to an orga­ni­za­tion not asso­ci­ated with a spe­cific report­ing cat­e­gory, then use the “Other” (Com­mu­nity Ser­vice) Cat­e­gory. Iden­tify the cause/organization in the (com­ment field) and put the $$ amount in the Dona­tion col­umn on that line.

Home­less Veterans

• Home­less Vet­er­ans – Con­duct­ing or sup­port­ing Stand Downs, coun­sel­ing, dona­tions to agen­cies work­ing on behalf of Home­less Vet­er­ans, par­tic­i­pat­ing in a com­mu­nity Con­tin­uum of Care.

Mil Funeral Honor Guard

• Mil­i­tary Funeral Hon­ors – For Posts with vol­un­teers and/or for­mal Honor Guards that par­tic­i­pate in con­duct­ing MFH for our vet­er­ans at any cemetery.

Organ & Bone Mar­row Donors

• Organ & Bone Mar­row Donor Pro­gram – Coop­er­at­ing with local com­mu­nity groups or doing stand-alone edu­ca­tional pro­grams using our lit­er­a­ture. Solic­it­ing mem­bers to serve as Bone Mar­row Donors.

POW/MIA

• Pris­oner Of War/Missing In Action – Pro­vide sup­port to fam­i­lies, con­duct POW/MIA cer­e­monies at com­mu­nity mil­i­tary and vet­er­ans gatherings.

ROTC

• Reserve Offi­cer Train­ing Corp – Donat­ing, pre­sent­ing the AMVETS ROTC awards and/or con­duct­ing JROTC drill competitions.

Safe Dri­ver

• Safe Dri­ver – Con­duct­ing a safe dri­ver rodeo for high school stu­dents involv­ing both edu­ca­tion and competition.

Scout­ing

• Scout­ing – Char­ter­ing Boy Scout and/or Girl Scout units, serv­ing as merit badge coun­selors, facil­i­tat­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of AMVETS Eagle Scout Certificates.

Sick & Hos­pi­tal­ized Veterans

• Sick or Hos­pi­tal­ized Vet­er­ans – Visiting/Helping home bound vets and/or Hos­pi­tal­ized Vets. Not to be con­fused with VAVS hours that should only be reported through the VA Med­ical Cen­ters. (We do not want to dou­ble count the hours.) VAVS stands for “Vet­er­ans Affairs Vol­un­tary Ser­vice.” VAVS only rep­re­sents ser­vice at VA Med­ical Cen­ters. With the excep­tion of a few State Vet­eran Hos­pi­tals that have a for­mal­ized agree­ment with a VAMC, all other State Vet Hos­pi­tals and any and all other “hos­pi­tal” Vol­un­teer ser­vice hours and dona­tions should be reported here. If you are a Rep or Dep, you know the drill. If you are not a “reg­u­lar” VAVS vol­un­teer, your hours pro­vided for spe­cial occas­sions, could be reported by your Rep or the VAMC Chief as “occas­sional” hours, how­ever, you need to ask if that is being done. If not, these hours should also be reported here and iden­tify in the com­ment field, what VAMC you assisted.

Spe­cial Olympics

• Spe­cial Olympics – Serv­ing as vol­un­teer train­ers, judges and sup­port staff for local com­pe­ti­tions. Pro­vid­ing finan­cial assistance.

Sup­port for National Guard Troops

• Since sign­ing a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing in late March 2005, AMVETS spe­cific sup­port for the Guard has really expanded. For the pur­pose of this spe­cial focus, we have deter­mined the need to track this data sep­a­rate from all other mil­i­tary sup­port. If the sup­port relates directly to a Fam­ily Assis­tance Cen­ter, please note this in the com­ment field.

Sup­port Our Troops (Not Guard Specific)

• Sup­port Our Troops – Con­duct­ing deploy­ment farewells and return­ing cel­e­bra­tions, pro­vid­ing assis­tance to fam­i­lies by help­ing with chil­dren, doing repairs, etc. Pro­vid­ing finan­cial assis­tance for phone cards, voices from home, and time/money directly to base fam­ily sup­port units. Mail­ing care pack­ages. (National Guard Spe­cific Sup­port should NOT be reported on this line. It has its own category.)

Vet His­tory Project (Lib of Cong)

• Vet­er­ans His­tory Project – Facil­i­tat­ing the gath­er­ing of Vet­er­ans sto­ries in an orga­nized man­ner and within the para­me­ters estab­lished by the Library of Congress.

White Clover

• White Clover – There are vari­a­tions on this pro­gram, but the clas­sic is the sale of the AMVETS White Clovers for the spe­cific pur­pose of rais­ing funds to assist our hos­pi­tal­ized veterans.

* Other (Com. Ser. – Be specific)

• Other (Com­mu­nity Ser­vice – Be spe­cific)- This cat­e­gory should only be used if one of the other (18) spe­cific cat­e­gories do not match the pro­gram you are con­duct­ing. In the com­ment field, briefly include: “what” com­mu­nity ser­vice, for “who” or “what” agency?

* AMVETS Riders

• Com­mu­nity Pro­grams spe­cific to our AMVETS Rid­ers. You must enter a brief com­ment explain­ing the nature of the com­mu­nity service.

* Ohio “only” Career Centers

• For Posts in the Depart­ment of Ohio, only! For report­ing dona­tions made to the Depart­ment of Ohio Career Center.

* Dept/Nat Use Only – Serv Fdns’

For Department/National level users only in report­ing dona­tions made by their respec­tive Ser­vice Foun­da­tions. Enter the numeral “0″ in the Post field. The “0″ cap­tures non-post level report­ing. You must enter a brief comment/description or the data will not submit.

REPORT YOUR PROGRAMS

Please Note:
Sub­mit­ting paper reports has not been elim­i­nated for those that do not have access to a com­puter. Con­tinue send­ing your reports reg­u­larly to your depart­ment head­quar­ters. Or bet­ter yet, visit your local library and enter the data online.

Depart­ments are respon­si­ble to enter the data online for posts pro­vid­ing paper reports. This depart­ment action is required a min­i­mum of two times each year. For the report­ing peri­ods end­ing June and December.

Posts from unor­ga­nized depart­ments, with­out access to a com­puter, may send their paper reports directly to the National Pro­grams Department.

Spe­cial Note for Depart­ment Offi­cers:
If you have not logged onto the “Online Pro­grams” sys­tem in order to track what your Posts are doing in the Pro­grams area, ….please do so today and give us a call so we can set your user priv­i­lege at the depart­ment level. You can view the entire depart­ment online and deter­mine exactly what posts have or have not reported.

How does your depart­ment com­pare with other depart­ments in terms of the num­ber of posts reporting?