Welcome to our Virtual Community Risk Reduction (Virtual CRR) Frequently Asked Questions page. We update this page as we receive additional questions. Please check back regularly for updates.
- Can I choose the questions and responses or do I have to use yours? You may choose our questions and responses or make your own. The purpose of Virtual CRR is for your survey to be about you and what you do for your community. Make it yours!
- Can I put my own pictures or videos on my Virtual CRR survey? We want you to use your pictures and videos. Your survey should look like it belongs on your home page.
- How long should my survey be? The purpose of the survey is to get your message out to your community. If a survey is too long, most people will not take the time to participate. A maximum of 10 questions is usually as many questions as you want to ask. There may be some circumstances where there are exceptions. Try not to mix too many subjects into your survey. For example, it is not always a good idea to combine Home Fire Safety questions and Emergency Preparedness questions (earthquake, hurricane, tornado, flooding, etc.) in the same survey. It is often better to have separate surveys for each topic.
- Why don’t you require respondents to input their address? We want to gather as much information as possible for you. If we required everyone to leave their address, many people would never take the survey for fear of “Big Brother.” If we group everyone into geographical areas and only request an address, it is much more likely your community will take the survey.
- Can I choose the geographical areas you survey or are they preprogrammed? You choose your geographical areas. For smaller departments you can choose by fire station response area, political wards or districts, or neighborhoods. Larger departments may want to choose cities, zip codes, or battalion areas. As long as you have a map depicting how you want your community divided, we can create these geographical areas within your Virtual CRR.
- Can I change the questions or responses once my Virtual CRR has been created? The short answer is yes, but be careful. The purpose of the survey is to collect the information you need and to detect trends. If your questions are continuously changing, your statistical information will be difficult to see trends in. We suggest not changing the questions for most surveys for at least a year. The price of your Virtual CRR is fixed for a year. There are minor charges for making changes to your survey with the exception of making changes to grammatical or spelling errors.
- If I make a new video regarding smoke detectors or any other topic, can I add it to my survey report? Of course! This is your survey and we want you to be able to get your valuable information to your community. There will be a minor charge for this addition.
- Why did you create the Virtual CRR program? As a firefighter, I saw that many of the calls we respond to on a daily basis can be prepared for if we could get the proper information in the hands of the citizens. The goal should be for families to be self sufficient and we are their safety net. The heart ache I saw on a daily basis, could have been prevented or minimized in many cases. If we can stop an emergency from happening or lessen its impact, the better we are doing our jobs. Unfortunately, we are all very busy and our budgets are never large enough. This program was designed to get your high quality information into the hands of your community so their risk can be lowered. You are the best organization to give safety information to your community. We simply have a mechanism to get your information into your community’s homes and businesses. From the onset, I wanted to create something of value for every size organization at a price that any Volunteer Fire Department could have a Pancake Breakfast to fund their Virtual CRR program.
- Is Virtual CRR only for homes or can I use it for businesses as well? Virtual CRR can be used for any group you choose.
- How does my community know about my Virtual CRR? You can choose any way you want to get the message out about your Virtual CRR survey. Some examples include social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), place a link on your department home page, email, utility bills, direct mailers, business cards with a QR code at safety fairs, presentations, or home visits. It is up to you on how you want to get the message out.
- Can I have more than one survey about different topics? You can have as many different surveys as you want. Each survey will be charged separately, but there are discounts for each additional survey.
- What if I don’t have any videos specific to my department? There are plenty of high quality videos you can link to from other reputable organizations; NFPA, Red Cross, Vision 20/20, IAFC, etc. The important thing is that you get the message out to your community that you want.
- Why don’t you have a phone number listed for me to call you? While I’d love to talk with you, I’m still a full time firefighter. The last thing I want to do is not be available for your call. I monitor my emails alike a hawk and will get back with you as quickly as possible.