Comment from Kelly Ziebarth

As an RSVP Director in Southwest Montana I know this new information request will create immense burdens to RSVP projects throughout the country. Furthermore, this proposal has confidentiality concerns, unfunded/unreasonable expenses, and unrealistic expectations for survey returns. The information request has the expected time burden of 395,700 hours. Even running the projects with only volunteers, this time burden is unable of being met with the cost burden of $0. Surveys are not free and the Corporation should realize that volunteers are not even free. Referencing past surveys conducted by our project, a survey of 3,000 individuals (the target population for this proposed information request in my area) it costs over $5,000 for assembly, supplies, postage, project management and other related expenses. This is way above the proposed amount of $0.00. In addition, it is unrealistic, if not impossible to expect a 100% return. I do not know of any survey with these types of results. Even with materials to return a survey and expenses paid, I would only expect a 30% return. Confidentiality is also a major concern for this proposal. It is unethical if not illegal in the state of Montana to demand the names and contact information of clients served by RSVP volunteers. Some of these populations are transient and some want to remain as anonymous as possible. We respect this right of our customers. To gather the information required to even implement this type of survey is impossible. It is my suggestion, that the Corporation utilize the tools already implemented for Programming for Impact to show the tremendous contributions made by RSVP volunteers. It is burdensome and ineffective to request this type of data collection from projects.