CouchSurfing Project Priorities
This is much more than what the participants at the CouchSurfing Collective are working on. This is the snapshot of what the whole CouchSurfing organization is pursuing as we look towards the future.
Improving member experiences
So many of the CouchSurfing teams are working together to make changes to our site that will help members get the most out of their surfing and hosting experiences. We are committed to looking at how we can improve the experiences of members.
Our newly created User Experience Research team will be instrumental in helping us understand our members needs better. You might have already seen the “Quality of Service” survey - this team will be analyzing this data to see where we can make improvements. Our Member Communications team will be working with this team to look at how we organize the information on the site - we want to build a strategy for implementation of changes that is based on information gathered from member feedback. What are the most used functions? How can we better structure the site so members can find the information they want? How do we make is easy for members to do what they need to do?
We are taking the first steps towards implementing features that members have requested, such as a calendar for hosts, birthday reminders for friends, making profile details viewable in different languages, a system for members to share their travel stories and learn what other members are doing, a feature to allow surfers to know for sure when a host has accepted their couch request, and ways to make it easier for members to create and find fun events.
We are supporting member-led projects that will make a difference to our services - CouchSurfing Zones, which will be easily identifiable places for CouchSurfers to hang out and meet other CouchSurfers, and a feature that will help make it simple for members find couches outside major city centers and rural areas.
Other changes we are initiating include adding helpful tips to make our service easier to use and encourage better surfing and hosting, giving members better access to the features they use the most from their home page, enabling verification to be completed through bank transfer and placing useful information about each city on one easy-to-use page.
Improving member safety
We have a dedicated Member Dispute and Safety team that are constantly looking for ways to keep our community a safe one.
The team is currently working on bringing all safety-related information together that will be placed in a central location on the site, to make it easy for members to get all the information they need about keeping safe. Our Member Communications team is looking towards developing a biannual Safety Newsletter for members.
We are investigating ways to help members manage unsolicited emails, along with changes to the referencing system to make it easier for members to use it as a safety tool and additional profile features that show the sleeping arrangement being offered by hosts.
Improving volunteer experiences
As a volunteer-based organization, we rely on the dedication and commitment from members around the world.
We want volunteering for CouchSurfing to be a simple and rewarding process. We are clearly defining the process for all stages of involvement, and will be making changes to our site to help guide a volunteer through the whole process from the time they submit an application to when they start working with a team.
We are continuing to create tools to support our volunteer teams, with online resources that enable them to perform their roles as efficiently as possible, including making the site fully translatable and investigating an automatic translation tool to assist our Translation Team, methods for our Contact Us team to deliver consistent answers to common questions from members, and updating tools for our Locations and Group Management Teams.
A “thank you” system is in the process of being developed so we can remind our volunteers how important they are and how much we appreciate them.
Improving communication between all our working teams, including Ambassadors, is a priority - we want our volunteers to feel supported in their roles and will create clear communication channels so they can get the information they need.
Improving “behind the scenes” functionality
We understand reliability of the CouchSurfing site is critical. It is the site that enables us to connect with each other, and because of that our Technology Team is focused on ensuring the site is stable as the number of members using the site continues to increase.
We are initiating further changes to make our servers more secure and easier to manage, including investigating greater cost-effective solutions to our server management and introducing a server monitoring system.
We will continue to refine our systems and processes for site development, including easier testing of new features and changes before they go live on the site and the capability for us to let members know about upcoming changes.
We are also investigating ways to streamline the processes of tracking, managing, and reporting of website issues.
Improving our communication
We are committed to improving the experience of members through keeping the community updated with all the exciting things going on throughout CouchSurfing.
We will be launching Surfers Making Waves, that showcases CouchSurfer’s who embrace the CouchSurfing spirit and mission and are using CouchSurfing to achieve their mission as they embark on unique journeys in the world.
We will be publishing regular newsletters for members, including Wanderlust, the official CouchSurfing newsletter and an events newsletter, highlighting exciting events organized by CouchSurfers around the globe.
To make it easy for members to keep informed, we are organizing a CouchSurfing news page, with a variety of news feeds and newsletters, so that members can receive the news and information that is of interest to them.
We are exploring options to help support Ambassadors with their communication needs, including avenues for distribution of national newsletters.
Looking into the future
The next chapter of CouchSurfing history will include a new logo, a refined mission and vision for what we want to accomplish as a non-profit organization and wider recognition as a charity as we seek to obtain the United States federally recognized 501c3 status.
We are taking steps to ensure all teams factor our charitable mission into everything they do, by providing them with detailed information on what the CouchSurfing vision, mission and core values and aligning each team’s objectives to the overall mission of the organization.
A project management tool is being developed that will help cross-team collaboration when managing projects and ensure we complete projects in a planned and efficient way.
We will start proactive media, to let the world know who we are and what we are all about.
A new Fundraising team is being established to help look at ways to make CouchSurfing more financially stable through avenues in alignment with our vision and core values, with no additional cost to our members.
We will be defining a longer-term solution to our resourcing needs, which includes examining the best way to organize these resources, whether that is in the form of Collectives, a permanent headquarters location or both.
We are committed to embarking on these projects for the long-term benefit of all members as we look ahead and see the potential for CouchSurfing and its members to effect real change in the world.
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