We know some of you are likely concerned about how COVID-19 (coronavirus) may impact your important community work. Although there are still a lot of unknowns, CO.STARTERS is committed to helping you ensure a safe and healthy environment for your entrepreneurs, community volunteers, and staff members.

Given the recent updates in regards to COVID-19 from the Center for Disease Control and recent State of Emergency announcements, we have some recommendations to help you continue to conduct business as usual if social distancing (limiting in-person interactions) is required in your community. 

 

CO.STARTERS Cohorts

Nothing can replace in-person interaction. However, if circumstances require it for a time, please use the following to provide the best experience for your participants.

1. Make sure each participant has their CO.STARTERS binder to use throughout the cohort. They can still do all the activities as normal.
2. Plan to meet at a consistent day and time. The format should still be 3 hours per session.
   
3. Let people join the live session virtually using Zoom. While there are a lot of videoconferencing tools out there, we recommend Zoom because of the breakout room function. You can divide your virtual group into pairs or groups of three to work on activities together in small groups, just as you do in a live cohort. The Pro plan for $14.99 per month has the breakout feature.
4. To make sure your participants join the right video link, share it through a calendar invite. This will also serve a dual purpose of helping them remember when the sessions are scheduled.
5. Use the chat window as your whiteboard. Use it for things like “As you arrive” and other prompts.
6. If multiple people are in the same room, ask them to call in individually (with only one person’s audio on) for the best experience.
7. Instruct everyone to keep their video on but mute their audio unless they are speaking.

 

CO.STARTERS Community Trainings

If you are thinking of holding another community training to get more facilitators equipped to support the program, we’ve got a couple options available while COVID-19 concerns are high. 

Option 1: Normal Process

We’ll send two of our trainers to your community to conduct the in-person day and a half training. This training is tried and true to deliver the results we know work. However, due to virus concerns, we are working with a more limited list of trainers who are available to travel. We ask for some flexibility in scheduling and plenty of notice. 

Option 2: Convene Locally with a Virtual Trainer

In this option, your community will gather locally in person for the day and a half training, but our trainers will join via Zoom. The benefit of this approach over something entirely virtual is your community still gets the opportunity to connect and interact as normal. If you choose this option, we’ll work with you to make sure you have the room and equipment set up for an optimal experience. 

Option 3: All Virtual

This option requires the most adaption, but allows everyone (training participants and the trainers) to connect virtually, if necessary. Based on the high degree of interaction in our trainings, we’ll likely need to adapt some of the experience to work virtually. However, we are committed to helping ensure these unfortunate circumstances do not derail your work. 

 

We’re here for you.

We wish everyone the best during these challenging times. We will be monitoring the situation closely over the next few weeks and will send out additional information via email and our social channels if needed. If you have any questions, you can also contact our Community Success Manager, Molly King, at [email protected] who will get an answer for you.