eCERT® Program Memberships
A Bit Of Background
In the United States the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) formally adopted a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program in 1997, and ten years after the first CERT program mobilized during the Whittier Narrows earthquake in 1987. A major disaster event in Southern California that the author of the enhanced CERT Program actively worked during his civil engineering internship for the City of Santa Fe Springs.
The fact is decades of disasters have demonstrated there are never enough resources to meet the demand for disaster response services. In response, and years of development the eCERT® Program is the 21tst century enhancement for helping communities mitigate disasters.
The eCERT® Program mission is straightforward, it recruits 1,000 memberships and provides the citizen workforce with all the tools and infrastructure they need to perform as national disaster response resource.
The first step begins once a membership is accepted.
An Exclusive Partnership
When an Invitation Letter is accepted the membership accesses the equipment, supporting services, subject matter experts and a $500,000 operations budget to build sustainable membership around.
The process is streamlined where memberships are activated with a MAVIS Unit within their first 30 days and then supplied with its supporting services within the first quarter. A membership’s autonomy is assured by operating as 501 (c)3 Non-Governmental Organization and on average will spend 45 to 75 days a year that ultimately creates the revenue streams needed for exceeding a first-year operating budget.
The exclusive partnerships developed from the eCERT® Oversight Committee supporting the memberships and the Program Service Centre supplying administrative, financial and customer services are simply bound by the dedicated asset, working through the committee, and the Memorandum of Understanding all the memberships respect.
Environment For Growth
Membership can be created from a grass roots initiative or by an existing CERT program that are willing to 1) operate as an NGO, 2) elect a member to the oversight Committee, 3) partner with the Committee and, 4) occasionally be dispatched as a federal disaster response resource.
Fundamentally, 3 members are needed as officers of the NGO, and operationally the membership needs 6 members capable of dispatching for no longer than 2 weeks at a time. The first step taken is supplying a MAVIS Unit, followed by selecting 2 additional core supporting services that are aligned with a memberships interests.
In relatively short order, the memberships are commissioned, they are electing a member of the committee, and the experience to be autonomously dispatched. The Intake Form gives the Program Manager from the service center a glimpse into providing a sustainable plan.
eCERT Program Directives
1,000 Membership Consortium
In 3 years, create the citizen workforce capable of being dispatched across the country, a dedicated infrastructure, and the support they deserve.
MAVIS Manufacturing
Provide the assembly lines capable of manufacturing a minimum of 25 MAVIS Units a month and meet the programs demands in 3 years.
$500 Million Worth of Assets
Create the added value directly contributing to a $40 billion industry in just 3 years, and without limitations.
Program Service Centre
Service the memberships with the administrative and operational tools they need for building a sustainable organization in 12 months
eCERT Oversight Committee
Provide the tools the committee requires to review, authorize and coordinate program assets across the country.
Task Force and Strike Teams
Anticipate 5 memberships developing into one highly sought after resource for large disaster events.
Easy To Join And Maintain
The acceptance process is effectively streamlined to ease membership into a new disaster service role. It typically takes less than 10 days to process application and the Memorandum Of Understanding with the eCERT® Oversight Committee that all the memberships agree to as part of the program.
The MOU is the final administrative step for committing the wave of equipment and energy for jump-starting an eCERT® Program Membership. They’ll immediately gain the attention from Program Service Centre in the first quarter from commissioning process and at the memberships discretion spends the balance of time supporting their community and managing their organizations.
The annual recertification process provides the memberships an avenue for expanding their program beyond the initial $500,000 operating budget or chose to vacate their position and commentated for their service. The equipment and supporting services the eCERT® Program provide is simply assigned for one of the incoming memberships.
Never Without Support
The eCERT® Oversight Committee is the authorizing quorum that is licensed to manage the eCERT® Program Memberships. They are an independent NGO and its panel is populated by elected members from within the membership pool. It does include non-voting members from the Program Service Centre managing the program and The Advantage Group, LLC, Nw as the program’s service provider, and has an open advisory seat for an Official at Large from FEMA.
The overarching responsibility of the Committee is equally accommodating for assuring the first-year memberships are commissioned, sustainable and given a schedule for growth. They are the first to promote a program refinements and approve using the Retroactive Public Goods Funds from the eCERT® Program Investment Option Plan for expanding the innovations the memberships create.
Servicing disasters is inevitable, a necessity and unique. The Committee exists to serve the membership pool and authorizing the $500,000 operating budget, support, and memberships need they get from the Public Service Centre is its primary focus. When memberships are mobilized the Oversight Committee is logistically managing the program resources, interfacing with government officials and when conditions change in the field are positioned to help.
The orchestration, amalgamation, and mobilization of talent parceled into the eCERT® Program has the tools to effectively deploy a civilian workforce safely deploy across the country.
