Federal Civil Rights Compliance is a requirement of all UC ANR programs to ensure diversity in our membership and our clientele. Contact reporting provides data that helps us work towards and achieve parity. Contact reporting is a required county programmatic activity.
Have a question? Connect with Us!
Jocelyn Mobley
Statewide Evaluation Coordinator
jmmobley@ucanr.edu
What is contact reporting?
Contact reporting is the collection of race, ethnicity, and gender (REG) information of clientele. If the reported clientele (“contacts”) are within a predetermined objective, the program has hit parity and is compliant with federal civil rights requirements. If parity is not achieved, then All Reasonable Effort (ARE) is the alternative route to being federally compliant.
Collecting race, ethnicity & gender information
A person’s REG information must be self-reported. This information is collected separately from a person’s name and contact information, it must be collected anonymously. See ‘Resources’ below for in-person and virtual event REG tools.
Clientele may opt out of providing REG information. Always collect headcount to understand a workshop or project’s reach. Use headcount to identify how many "unknown" REG reports there are for a given workshop or project.
Example: 100 people attend a public workshop (this is headcount data or reach.) 75 REG forms are filled out and collected. Therefore, 25 individuals are "unknown" and should be reported as "unknown."
How to report contacts
Contacts are reported in the Volunteer Management System (VMS). The VMS user guide provides Specific instructions for entering contact data. To prevent double counting, we suggest assigning a volunteer to input contacts into VMS following each educational event.
- Online: Have a poll displayed to collect the data at the beginning of the webinar. Do not share the results.
- In-person Workshops:
- QR Codes can be used to collect REG data during in-person workshops. Print and display at the registration desk and include in a PowerPoint slide at the start of the presentation.
- Pre-registration is a good way to collect REG data. While this may over-report due to no-shows we often experience walk-in participants as well and believe the difference is not significant. Both of the above techniques require surveys to be developed prior to the public education event. The following software can be used to create surveys:
- Qualtrics (example Qualtrics Survey)
- Google Forms (email for access to your county's Google Form)
- Survey Tool
- The REG form half sheet is a hard-copy tool to collect REG. Hand out the half sheet at the beginning of the workshop and collect them at the exit after the workshop concludes.