Open Source COVID-19 Medical Supplies

Local Response Guide

Version 1.0, last updated 3/26/2020
Version 1.1, updated 4/8/2020
● New sections for Culture & Approach, Fundraising,
Purchasing, Documentation & Reporting:
Expanded Resource Links

This is a best-practices guide for local teams and individuals working to produce and
distribute open-source PPE and medical devices. This guide is intended to provide help
and answer common questions, but should not be seen as rigid, prescriptive or
comprehensive. We recognize that the current version is USA-centric; we’re working to
translate and localize this guide for teams in other countries.

If you are interested in joining or creating a local response group, please (1) read this
Guide, then (2) follow the instructions in Section 3 below.

THANK YOU for your efforts! Hundreds of thousands of locally-manufactured items have
already been delivered to institutions in need (see the OSMS weekly survey results). Local
response is evolving daily, and we will be updating this resource guide regularly.

Table of Contents:
1. Need-to-Know Information: Our Shared Mission and Priorities
2. Culture and Approach
3. Getting Started: Finding and Creating Groups
4. OSCMS Branding
5. Functions, Roles and Responsibilities
6. Outreach Guidance
7. Organizing Tools
8. Community Management
9. Information Security
10. Fundraising
11. Purchasing
12. Documentation and Reporting
13. Resource Links
Need-to-Know Information: Our Shared Mission and
Priorities
The novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, has been classified as a pandemic as it continues to
spread globally in an exponential fashion. Significant shortages of necessary medical equipment
and supplies are occurring as the demand for these items increases and interruptions in the
global supply chain increase exponentially.

Fundamental supplies facing shortages include personal protective equipment (PPE; e.g.
gloves, goggles, surgical masks, face shields, respirators, gowns, and disinfectant) as well as
the equipment required to treat critically ill patients, such as ventilators and oxygen
concentrators. The lack of supplies poses a threat to both patients suffering from COVID-19 and
the healthcare workers treating them.

OSMS urges makers and professional fabricators alike to utilize their production capabilities to
produce the supplies and equipment so desperately needed in the global fight against COVID-
19. We are thrilled to have local organizers join us, on the ground, to help fill gaps in the medical
supply chain.

OSMS exists to meet the following needs, which are integral to our mission:

1. Cataloging and portraying the issues around COVID-19 in a robust way while providing
current and accurate information, dispelling misinformation, and maintaining
cybersecurity.
2. Finding and evaluating open source medical supply solutions and amplifying/sharing
them as widely as possible.
3. Connecting with relevant communities (i.e. hospital systems in need, fabrication groups,
design groups, philanthropy, etc.) and bringing them together to coordinate effectively
and resiliently.
4. Understanding the prevalence of COVID-19 in real-time to provide accurate statistical
insights as a complement to raw data.
5. Helping orchestrate local, distributed responses throughout communities around the
globe to respond to outbreaks and shortages of necessary medical equipment and
supplies through relationship building, communications strategy, marketing initiatives,
and the organization of local responders.

This is a global supply chain crisis. The scale of what is needed is massive. Needs range
from hospitals requiring hundreds of thousands of items per day down to vulnerable, individual
community members seeking supplies to help them safely conduct their activities of daily living.

Awareness of these issues varies enormously between different regions, and even different
areas in the same region. Many areas (rural hospitals, nursing homes, homeless shelters, etc.)
are already without vital supplies, and have been for some time. In other areas, valuable
resources continue to be wasted or thrown away due to a lack of awareness around the scale of
this issue. Education is a critical component of your local organizing work.
As regional / local organizers, we need to seek large-scale solutions to the large-scale
problems, while at the same time directing small-scale makers to the small-scale projects where
they can have a meaningful impact.

Culture and Approach

As we all work together to tackle COVID-19, there is a need for an open-minded, thoughtful and
collaborative response. From our experience the best teams function by embracing a culture
where:

● Self care is a priority. A core tenant of our work is rooted in the belief that you must first
care for yourself, then care for your family and loved ones, and then ultimately
everything else. In this critical time, COVID-19 will impact our lives in many different
ways, so it’s key to check for your personal safety so the incredible work you’re doing
can continue.

● There is a bias towards action (do-ocracy). Those who take initiative to do work for
the community can decide how they do that work. If any community members hold
serious concerns, they can start a proposal to halt what someone is doing. Learn more
about a do-ocracy.

● Local insight is respected. To best address the needs of your community, start by
having a conversation with the people on the ground dealing with the realities of COVID-
19. Local needs supercede any high level guidance we can give you.

● Inclusiveness is required. Set a tone for collaboration and increased participation.

Stop and spend a moment to consider how to onboard, orient and empower new
members of your team before it grows too large. See Resource Links for one Local
Response group’s onboarding doc. If you must exclude people, exclude them because
they are actively dangerous to the community, or are impeding efforts to help.

● Resourcefulness is abundant. There are many possible methods to solve for this gap
in supplies. Leverage personal networks. Look to identify paths of least resistance. Look
for allies with passion. Be open to the unorthodox.

Getting Started: Finding and Creating Groups

If you have already created or are starting a local or regional group, please:

1. Use the search function in your locality’s popular social media as well as the internet.
(Facebook Groups, Twitter, Whatsapp, etc., and Google) to see if there are already any
OSCMS or other PPE generation groups organizing. Check local makerspace and fablab social
media feeds for clues. Remember to try a few different location tags, such as major city, county,
state or municipality.

2. If there is no existing group, consider asking friends or contacts to launch the group with you.
Review the “Roles and Responsibilities” section below for who you might recruit.

3. When choosing your geographic area of focus, think regionally. A state or country is likely too
large to service; a small city might not support the level of involvement needed. Also consider
any current travel restrictions that may limit the movement of raw material inputs to production
sites to organizations in need-- such restrictions may create a boundary for your region.

4. If you want to leverage the OSCMS brand when creating a group, please name it "Open
Source COVID-19 Medical Supplies - [Your Geographic Area]"

5. Please help us follow your work and “register” your group with us by completing this
very short registration form.

OSCMS Branding
We’re happy for the OSCMS network to leverage our look and feel. Our linked simple branding
guide can help you get started.

Using the recommended naming conventions and these images can make it easier for others to
find your group in searches. This is intended to help you grow your local group.

Functions, Roles and Responsibilities

This proposed staffing model is not a one-size-fits-all model. Consider this a starting point
for tasks your group will need to consider. In most organizations/regions, people work across
these roles. As your group grows, you can recruit additional people to take on tasks based on
their relevant skills and connections, and roles can become more specialized.

As you build your team, we recommend that critical roles be doubled (2 people per role,
in separate households) in case of illness or other disruptions. We foresee that as this
crisis impacts more and more people personally, individual capacity to volunteer will fluctuate.
Plan for this ahead of time and build in both redundancy and clear channels for communication.

Your team should not meet in person (unless individuals in your group already are
cohabitating) and when exchanging supplies or other items, contactless delivery should be
used. (High risk individuals should not be part of delivery networks.) You want to be distributed
so that if one member of your organization becomes ill, the whole organization is not
compromised.

Again, composition of each organization will be informed by local circumstances as well

as talents available.
Local Response Leadership
Role: Networking, managing and motivating volunteers, and thinking and acting strategically.

● Activate and amplify!

○ Identify and connect with organizations and individuals already running making
and distribution efforts.
○ Look for opportunities to promote their efforts and build capacity. Fill the gaps in
materials supply, volunteers, etc.
○ Instigate making and manufacturing efforts (e.g. surgical mask sewing) where
there is none.
● Build a team.
○ Help to set an inclusive culture and respectful, collaborative environment.
○ Model self-care and help team members set boundaries and curb burnout.
● Provide an active link back to central OSMS.
○ Participate via #local-response-connect Slack channel
○ Participate via Open Source COVID-19 Medical Supplies Facebook Group
○ Participate via Open Source COVID-19 Medical Supplies Local Response
Leadership Facebook Group
○ Share operational successes to share back with central OSMS so that we can
scale functioning models-- for example: financial tools your group may have
leveraged to access raw materials; organizations that you engaged with in lieu of
overwhelmed hospital procurement offices; or legal documents that enabled a
local hospital to accept homemade supplies.

Technical Project Management

Role: Distribute plans and activate makers/professional fabricators.

● Funnel information about approved OSMS Medical Supply Guide (“what to make”) to
manufacturers and makers on the ground.
○ Select items that have already passed OSMS medical team review.
○ Match local needs to available designs and local capacity for producing them.
○ Help source materials that may be in short supply before they run out.
● Frequently review relevant documentation from OSMS for updates.
● Provide feedback about implementation, design iterations, and other information to the
OSMS medical review team for review/incorporation.
● Coordinate production workflows across a distributed workforce. (More on this in
Outreach Guidance - Makers and Manufacturing)
● Source suppliers and donors of materials.

Hospital Relations
Role: Develop and maintain trusted relationships with healthcare facilities. Medical industry
experience helps, but anyone with a talent for cold-calling and internet research can do it.

● Make and document contacts with hospitals and other providers.

 ● Build trust and relationships with administrators, staff, and procurement agents
(procurement staff are professionals that manage all purchasing and vendor
relationships for PPE and devices).
● Be conscious that some hospital workers are experiencing formal reprimands and even
termination for sourcing PPE. Be discreet about your relationships with the medical
community.
● Share OSMS information and design library as appropriate.
● Please refer to Outreach Guidance - Hospitals for detailed information on strategy
and best practices.

Healthcare, Labor, Social Service Relations

Role: Look for service and partnership opportunities with labor unions (healthcare, retail,
nurses, teacher, etc), city and social services.

● Make and document contacts with healthcare, labor unions, social service and non-profit
community service providers.
● Build trust and relationships; cultivate opportunities for collaboration.
● Share OSMS information and design library as appropriate.
● Please refer to Outreach Guidance below for detailed information on types of
possible organizations, strategy and best practices.

Manufacturer Relations
Role: Develop and maintain trusted relationships with local manufacturers. This work is a good
fit for people already working in local product development and manufacturing — but like
medical relations, this work can also be accomplished through sheer persistence.

● Ask for donations in materials and manufacturing capacity (see Outreach Guidance
below).
● Connect manufacturers with raw materials, tooling, engineers and designs.
○ Many small manufacturers are wondering what they can do to help with COVID-
19 response—sometimes simply pointing them towards the OSMS library of
designs can be a huge help!
● Work with “Technical Program Manager” (see above) to advise on available / best
OSMS open source designs.

Community Management
Role: Manage your community of volunteers. Strong customer-service and social media skills
are key to these tasks. Good judgement, positivity, and ability to recognize and communicate
trends is key to helping the other organizers “keep an ear to the ground.”

● Manage public and private forums to drive engagement with and capacity of the
organization (e.g. Google Groups, Slack, WhatsApp). Help filter “signal” from “noise” so
that team members can work together more effectively and not get distracted.
● Develop onboarding protocols to best manage influx of new members.
● Actively recruit partnerships and bring in new volunteers.
 ○ A large local network (personal or professional) is useful for this.
○ Screen incoming members and refers people with high-level connections or
specialized skills to relevant point people within local organization.
● Gather information about people’s skills and backgrounds to determine who is going to
be strategically useful, who is seeking assistance, etc.
○ We recommend setting up a kind of census— e.g., a Google form with some
multiple-choice or checkbox answers that will create a roster profession or skill
set as fast as possible without reviewing individual, typed responses. Do not
share this publicly (see information security section below).

Government Relations
Role: Develop and maintain trusted relationships with local government officials. Folks with
existing relationships and/or a lobbying or community organizing background are useful, as they
often already have access to elected officials and administrators. However, beware of politics -
newcomers without baggage from other interactions or issues can be just as effective.

● Stay informed of public messaging from government officials. In the US (or other
countries as applicable), reach out to offices of city council members, county officials,
state-level representatives (State Senators/Delegates, etc.) and state representatives to
the Federal government (Senators and Representatives).
● Build relationships with city and regional administrators / staff (public health department,
social services, emergency services, etc).
● Ask for introductions to healthcare worker unions, manufacturing networks, and other
resources that only government officials have easy access to,

Promotions & Media Relations

Role: Share a consistent message with local media outlets, and raise awareness of your efforts.
These tasks are usually taken on by Regional Leadership unless your organization is very large
and structured. People doing these tasks ideally have some experience with drafting press
releases; pitching and placing stories; and speaking both by phone and on camera to media.

● Design visual collateral for sharing on social media.

● Produce short videos telling the story for social media and partnership development.
● In terms of Public Relations, focus on local media—blogs, papers—not national outlets.
○ Look for related news stories, reach out to those reporters.
○ Develop calls to action and story pitches.
○ Communicate back with OSMS media team if you need help, or want to
coordinate with the global organization.
○ Prepare for interviews and conversations with the media, have a solid and
concise OSCMS “elevator pitch,” and STAY ON MESSAGE during interviews.
■ It is important not to over-promise fabrication capacity, or to misrepresent
the nature of the group. Do not let them assume you are a company
providing fixed numbers of units.
■ Be mindful that many of the supplies being worked on (particularly
devices such as ventilators) are subject to extensive government
 regulations and that the legal issues surrounding this work are complex.
For example, home-made gowns are not a “replacement” for PPE; rather,
they are “an emergency alternative to PPE when PPE is not available.”
Claiming a ventilator you are working on will go into a hospital that has
not approved of it will damage your reputation.
■ Be aware of standard procedures when interacting with media, including
the technical meanings of speaking “on the record,” “on background,” and
other issues around privacy and attribution. (A quick introduction to these
issues can be found here.)
■ Be conscious that some health care workers are experiencing
formal reprimands and even termination for independently sourcing
PPE. Do not disclose your relationships with the medical community
without explicit permission.

Outreach Guidance
This is an especially gratifying time to be a networker. There is a broad understanding of the
need for PPE and devices to fight COVID-19, and most people (and their businesses) are
motivated and generous if they have an avenue to participate.

In general, identifying the individuals that are empowered to contribute, drive progress, set new
or temporary emergency policies, and extend their network are critical to success. Don’t waste
time on avenues that are resistant; work with active collaborators, even in institutions and
businesses.

HOSPITALS
Hospitals, especially those with ERs and ICUs, are in critical need of PPE and other medical
supplies. Your group can offer help to communicate their needs to (and help mobilize)
local/regional manufacturing capacity for collection drives and production. However,
willingness to accept donations or purchase locally-produced PPE and medical devices
is absolutely unique to each institution or network.

There are two relationship paths towards servicing hospitals:

1. Direct: through contact with hospital administrators (“procurement” or “purchasing”).
2. Indirect: through organizations such as local or statewide nurses’ unions, via individual
healthcare providers who work in a facility.

Hospitals: Direct Outreach

Hospitals may be difficult to work directly with because:
● All hospital equipment and supplies are regulated to ensure standards of quality.
This means that even if their PPE inventory might be low and health care providers may
not have adequate protection, the institution is hard-pressed to publicly accept and
provide PPE and supplies that have not met regulatory requirements (even production
facilities need to be compliant and approved). Read the Safety and Liability section in
the OSMS Medical Supply Guide. Liability is why some health care workers are
 experiencing formal reprimands and even termination for disclosing lack of adequate
PPE. See
● The volume of supplies needed can be very high (hundreds of thousands per week).
These needs are often too great to be met by the efforts of individual makers—but can
be met in part by a very well organized, distributed production model.
● Many hospitals are currently overwhelmed by COVID-19 response, so they may not
have the bandwidth to work with individuals.

Recommended outreach steps:

● Look first on the hospital website to determine what the hospital needs. Many hospitals
are listing what PPE they are accepting.
● Check to see whether the needs of your local hospitals or other medical services are
listed in these (and other) online PPE demand/supply exchanges:
INTERNATIONAL
● Covid19 Masks: international PPE maker-to-hospital database
USA
● Get Us PPE - makers- and manufacturers-to-hospitals
● MakeMasks.org - individuals-to-hospitals direct matching
● Mask Match - individuals-to-hospitals
● Project N95 - medical equipment and supply exchange
● PPELink - research labs-to-hospitals donation
LOCAL USA examples
● New York: https://ppenow.org/ - purchasing and sourcing new PPE
● San Francisco Bay Area: https://thecraftyavenger.com/make-masks/ -
mask instructions and local distribution
● When you call, ask to speak to the Procurement Manager or Supply Manager.
● Make notes in one document (see suggested templates in Resources Links below) with
the following types of fields:
■ Name, phone number, email address, and preferred method of contact.
■ Supplies and quantities needed
■ If they are open to accepting locally-produced PPE
■ What designs they will accept
■ Next steps
■ Amount delivered
● Identify types and quantities of supplies needed. Record this even if they are requesting
supplies you cannot furnish. You can provide this information to other resource-sharing
networks.
● Ask if they are working with any major donation drive campaigns (note who they are for
follow-up collaboration).
■ If no PPE donation drives are happening, consider starting one. Check in
with nurses and medical workers’ unions, as they are known for running
donation drives in other cities.
● Ask if they are open to accepting locally-made supplies.
■ Elicit any information about available supplies and/or patterns that they
would like you to use.
 ■ Share the OSMS Design Guide, and point to designs that other hospitals
or medical practitioners in the area are using / that you have in
production.
■ Offer to deliver a physical prototype or sample for their review.
Check back for feedback and help to iterate design as requested/able.
● Document procedures for notifying the facility that supplies are ready to be dropped off
and/or dropoff or mailing procedures. (Your team may need to consolidate distributed
production at an intermediary location before coordinating drop off at the facility.)
● Tightly limit access to this information as part of information security practices
(see Information Security section).

Hospitals: Indirect Outreach

● Labor unions that represent nurses and medical workers may be interested in
understanding your group’s capacity to provide for their members. Reach out and build
relationships. They may even be able to help with getting designs approved, as well as
distribution.
● Your own personal network—and the collective network of your team— may drive
indirect donation of new and locally manufactured supplies. You may know practitioners
in need personally, or see requests by medical for supplies in social media and in
neighborhood forums. Individual doctors, nurses and staff are personally accepting
donations, and sharing quantities with colleagues.
○ In some communities, volunteer courier services—bicycle messengers and
motorcycle clubs—are acting as point to point distribution networks.

CIVIC, COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS

Providing PPE to vulnerable community members reduces transmission and slows the rate at
which people present to the hospital.

These entities are more willing to accept maker-produced PPE and their needs are generally on
a scale that is manageable for local production. Outreach methods are similar to hospitals
above (internet research, social media, cold calling—and recording contact information and
needs data as you work).
Types of organizations and “essential” workers (those that are working in localities with active
“shelter in place”-type guidelines) that are in need include:
○ Police departments
○ Fire departments
○ Urgent care facilities
○ Ambulance businesses
○ Nursing homes & lifetime care facilities
○ Sub-Acute and Long-Term Rehabilitation Facilities
○ Social services agencies
○ Retail / grocery workers (these have labor unions you can work through)
○ Distribution warehouse workers
○ Garbage and recycling workers
 ○ Homeless advocacy groups & shelters
○ Disability organizations (direct service)
○ Funeral homes
○ Vulnerable community members
■ E.g. people who need “buddies” for wellness checks
■ Domestic violence organizations
■ Prisoners and other detainees (jails, prisons, ICE detention, etc.)
○ Public health departments
○ Transit maintenance workers
○ Airport workers
○ Local donation drives, collecting commercially manufactured PPE and other
supplies to distribute to local organizations in need

MAKER AND CRAFTER COMMUNITY OUTREACH

Local OSCMS groups can help with coordinating efforts, sharing OSMS information, and
identifying suppliers, volunteers, and donation sites.

In many communities, distributed manufacturing is delivering large numbers of supplies by

coordinating making efforts across individual makers and crafters. People work at home, in
garages and workshops independently, but are coordinated by online collaboration tools such
as Facebook Groups, Slack, and custom websites (see Resource Links below).

● Thousands of individuals and crafter groups are mobilizing to sew masks. Check this
U.S. directory of sewing organizations.
○ These groups have their own individual cultures and ways of operating. In
building collaborations with them, it is important to respect the structures they
have established and focus on identifying and communicating the value that you
are able to provide to them, rather than on attempting to change their overall
structures and operational models. (This value could be access to vetted
designs, materials, or supplies such as 3D printed bias tape makers.)
○ For a more accessible entry point, OSMS has created a guide specifically for
sewists/crafters.
○ We have also created a guide for organizing cloth mask donations for additional
guidance regarding masks specifically.
○ Point makers to OSMS face or surgical masks resource document if additional in-
depth information is needed.
● Makerspaces, hackerspaces and FabLabs are operating in many communities to
leverage digital fabrication tools to produce PPE and devices listed in the OSMS design
library.
○ Guidelines for safe workplace guidelines for social distancing and for sterile
working conditions are being developed (see Resources Links).
○ Some helpful indexes for finding these organizations:
○ Makerspaces: https://makerspaces.make.co/
 ○ Nation of Makers member directory:
https://www.nationofmakers.us/member-directory
○ International FabLab Network: https://fabfoundation.org/global-
community/

MANUFACTURER OUTREACH
To address large-scale demands of hospitals, large-scale manufacturing capacity is generally
required.
○ Conduct outreach to determine what manufacturing/machining/fabrication resources
already exist in your area.
■ If you are U.S.-based, connect with your state’s manufacturers.
● NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program has a center in every
state that is knowledgeable about the local manufacturing presence.
Connect with Your Local MEP Center (Or visit the #local-response-
connect slack channel and search for “MEP”)
● Check this Thomas manufacturers database of
“Covid-19 Response Suppliers.”
■ Other ways to locate production facilities:
■ Manufacturers associations
Local Chamber of Commerce
■ City or regional economic development departments
■ Industrial design, prototyping and product development houses
■ Large companies with local production facilities
■ Universities and colleges (engineering, design, business departments are
connected to local industry)
■ Trade unions
■ Machine shops

Organizing Tools
Facebook Groups
As you are likely aware, this organization was founded as a Facebook Group (NOT a page).
Groups are for communicating across a group of interested parties. Members will be alerted to
new posts (page followers are not).

If you are leveraging Facebook, we ask that you operate as a Group. See Online Community
Management section below.

Please customize your group settings so that members need to answer questions in order to
join. This will dramatically reduce the number of bots and trolls that join your group. Use the
slider setting to require that they indicate they have read and agreed to your group rules. Use
the other questions to gather information about the member’s background and interest in the
group. (For information about how to set up questions for the group, visit this help topic on
Facebook.) Use at least one short-answer question to assist in screening out possible bots who
may add nonsensical answers. We also recommend that you require all member profiles to be
at least 2 years old in order to minimize the number of fake accounts.

***If you register as an OSCMS group, we will invite you to join the Local Response Leadership
private group. This channel can be a source for new technical information, peer support, best
practices, and a direct line to the OSMS team.

WhatsApp Groups
We have seen increasing interest in using WhatsApp as an organizing tool. Information about
this will be updated in future versions of this guide. Efforts to gather additional insights from
organizers on the ground are ongoing. WhatsApp also has a service to assist the public in
answering questions about COVID-19.

Slack Channels
OSMS uses Slack to communicate across our teams; we recommend it, and the basic level is
free. Facebook group chats and the like become rapidly unwieldy and hard to join.

***If you register as an OSCMS group, we will invite you to join the Local Organizers channel.
This channel can be a source for new technical information, peer support, best practices, and a
direct line to the OSMS team.

Online Community Management

Social media is like a firehose. It will take effort, strategy, and teamwork to manage it effectively.
Without care, there is a real risk of accidentally doing harm, whether in the form of individuals
testing unsafe ideas, or shooting yourself in the foot because medical facilities lose trust in your
organization.

The OSMS Moderator team has documented their learnings from managing a 60,000+ person
member Facebook Group in this Facebook Guide. Below, an abbreviated version:

● Use the About section.

○ Articulate your mission and explain who you are. This is doubly important if you
are choosing to run a “private” Group (meaning one cannot see the discussion
until one is approved as a member).
○ Your About section is also an opportunity to create “signposts” to share
immediate information on how prospective community members can get involved
and take action. (Example: OSCMS SFBay About)
● Outline clear rules for participation in your group.
○ You are welcome to take these directly from the central OSCMS group. (You can
view the current rules at any time by visiting the “About” page and scrolling
down.)
● Have criteria for member approval to screen bots and bad actors.
○ Require incoming members to agree to group rules.
 ○ Ask questions about why members are joining the group and what kinds of
connections, expertise, or equipment they may have.
○ Watch for recently-created accounts, as these are typically bots.
○ Please also watch for postings that are marketing over priced PPE (see
Information Security section below).
● Minimize the amount of “noise” in your channel.
○ “Pin” essential information to the top in a master post and mark it as an
announcement. Edit the post to add extra links as needed. Refresh the post
every few days to add new info.
○ If your group starts to gain serious momentum and members and posting
increase or lower in quality, consider requiring moderator approval for new posts.
○ Create master threads to discuss particular topics.
■ Suggested topics: introductions thread, threads for individual types of
supplies, thread for people to share needs that they have learned about,
thread for manufacturers and businesses that want to get involved, thread
for smaller-scale makers and makerspaces to share their capacity, etc.
■ Consider posting these topics in advance of inviting others to join your
Facebook group so that there is a structure in place to “catch” people as
they filter in.
● Build a strong team of moderators and work to create multiple “shifts” so that the group
is not left without moderation for extended periods of time.
● Facilitate private communication for moderators outside of the Facebook group.
○ We recommend using Slack for this. If you do this, make sure that you restrict
settings so that individual moderators cannot create private channels.
Transparency is key.
● Be vigilant about scams and intentional bad actors. (See “Information Security”
below.)

Information Security
One of the problems with this group’s size and level of public interest is that malicious
actors are starting to come out of the woodwork. We have seen fake accounts attempting to
sell medical products, people posing as physicians soliciting for donations, and personal
information that was shared by well-intentioned members being scraped from posts and
spammed relentlessly. There are enormous costs to this, as potential for huge monetary losses
also reduces the overall credibility of this movement. Because of these scams, hospital systems
may be increasingly resistant to working with you or to viewing your group’s work as safe.

To help keep you safe, and to protect the integrity of this group, we are adopting a few new
policies:

● Be vigilant about screening incoming membership requests for bots.

● Be skeptical of posts about buy-ins for large quantities of PPE and/or materials. You are
welcome to reach out to the OSMS team (via your the Local Organizing PM’s Slack
channel) for assistance with these questions. See Purchasing section.
 ● If someone says they are connected to (or work for) a particular business, consider
asking them to share links from their public web page. Check this against their email
address to see if their domain (the part that comes after the @ symbol) matches the
public website domain. If there is a mismatch, proceed with caution.
● Be especially wary of anyone who requires a purchase order before verifying the quality
of the product. Be vigilant in your efforts to screen for these kinds of posts or messages
and ban violators quickly. While there may be a person out there who does have this
connection, we cannot verify it and more than likely, this is a scam. For large quantity
buy ins, please see the above policy regarding verification.
● Report any post that is perceived as a scam to Facebook for abusing their policies.
● Do not permit individuals to post personal data - email address, phone number, physical
address, etc - and remove any that you find. This is to keep our members, and those
whose information they may be sharing, safe.
● Any individual who is found to be misrepresenting their affiliation with the OSCMS group
should be immediately banned from the group.

Fundraising
Donations and Grants
Most local PPE production efforts are currently funded generously by donations. Donations can
be in-kind (e.g. free use of an empty warehouse, large donations of materials), and also cash.

In the United States, setting up a method for accepting cash donations is getting very easy.
Here are some platforms and methods that facilitate fundraising campaigns:
● GoFundMe for individuals/groups and for non-profits/NGOs.
● Facebook fundraising, either for non-profits or for individuals.
● Direct contribution to non-profit via web commerce plugin (example)

The last bullet above is a good example of how a non-profit makerspace or other organization
might fund member and community efforts: stand up a COVID-19 Relief Fund. That
organization can run a campaign, collect donations, and then make decisions to distribute
resources to community efforts as desired. Sharing news on award recipients both instills trust
via transparency, and provides deserved praise and attention to worthy efforts.

A few other scenarios we are seeing:

● Reaching out to local community foundations for emergency grants.
○ One OSCMS received a letter of support from the State Department of Health as
well as their local hospitals for a community foundation grant to cover research
and development costs for prototypes for various challenges, plus two months of
operating expenses.
● Major donor solicitation—reaching out to high net worth individuals.
Commerce
It’s not unrealistic as an organization - even a non-profit - to ask for compensation for quality
goods from an institution that has budget (and who would be buying if there was traditional
supply). Many institutions are expediting vendor set-up workflows to get the goods they are
after. Don’t be afraid to enquire, but be prepared with pricing and basic business infrastructure
—and potentially higher expectations around quality, delivery etc.

One U.S. OSCMS group worked out a contract with their State Department of Public Health to
pay for labor, materials, and overhead for all they are making.

Purchasing PPE
Procurement of PPE and medical devices is a profession. Hospitals have staff dedicated to the
vetting of distributors, suppliers, and equipment. Most manufacturing of PPE is in Asia,
compounding the challenges of sourcing supply.

There are many scammers and bad actors trying to take advantage of this current breakdown in
the medical supply chain. (See Information Security section above.) Price gouging and
counterfeit product (e.g. respirators that misrepresent NIOSH certification) are running rampant.

In the United States, OSMS is currently referring those seeking to purchase quantities of PPE to
Project N95. This team will help with verification and certification. Here is their due diligence
process. New York residents also have the option to work with PPENow.

Documentation and Reporting

Tracking your community’s output is a wonderful way to motivate the team and communicate to
community stakeholders, donors, officials etc the impact your organization is having.

OSMS is running “weekly counts” in the OSCMS Facebook Group These posts are only
live for 24 hours. Individuals and groups are encouraged to post pictures and quantities of what
they have produced that week. Each week the totals are tallied, designed into a graphic, and
shared via social media (here is the repository of weekly count graphics).

As coordinators, your help gathering data on production is critical. Some inspiration/tools:

● Blank OSMS Weekly Count Worksheet
● Sample Local Distributed Manufacturing Tracking Dashboard
● Sample Local Count form

Resource Links
OSMS
● www.opensourcemedicalsupplies.org
● OSCMS Facebook Group
● Open Source COVID-19 Medical Supply Guide (aka “Main Doc”)
○ Contains OSMS library of open source designs vetted by the OSMS
Documentation team.
○ We do not recommend downloading resources to use as PDF files, since those
files will not update.
● Open Source COVID-19 Medical Supplies: 3D Printing - Getting Started, Safety, and
Designs
● Suggest PPE Designs to OSMS form

OSMS Local Response Tools

● OSCMS Local Groups Roster
● Local OSCMS Group Registration Form
● OSCMS Branding Guide
● OSCMS Facebook Group Guide
● Weekly “What We Made” Count Totals
● Blank Weekly Count sheet

Misc Organizing Tools from Local Response Orgs

● Sample Local Network and Coordination spreadsheet
● Sample Team Onboarding Welcome Sheet
● Directory of U.S. Sewing and Making Groups

Local Production and Distribution Management Tools/Models

● Model from the field: Baltimore Open Works partnership with Johns Hopkins
● DePaul University Responds: Protective Equipment for Healthcare Workers
● Sample Local Distributed Manufacturing Management spreadsheet
● Sample Local Distributed Manufacturing Tracking Dashboard
● Sample Local Medical Supplies Design catalog
● Sample Indemnity template (liability release)
● Making DIY PPE: Best Practices for a Safer Makerspace Workplace

Local Groups Media Coverage

● Silver City Makerspace Produces Protective Medical Gear to Offset Shortages
● Got a 3D Printer? Here’s how you can help local hospitals
● Richmond student builds, sends face shields to American hospitals