During a crisis situation, groups looking to use Ushahidi often need additional support beyond the software itself e.g. paying for hosting, supporting volunteers etc. The fund would help such groups.
Ushahidi needs a rapid response fund for Ushahidi deployments in response to major crises. The ability of groups (often volunteers) to respond quickly is considerably slowed as a result . While the technology itself is free, funds are needed for the non-tech side for instance, to do media outreach,to disseminate information by SMS, to set up a free short-code, to pay for a hosted server, and provide a space and some food for volunteers to work.
The project would facilitate more efficient and more effective rapid response deployments of Ushahidi, because groups can focus on the work rather than the need to gather resources.
It would take less time before an effective Ushahidi deployment being set up by an independent group is up and running in a crisis situation i.e. both the site itself and what's needed to make the site useful in crisis situations.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
