By
Jyoti Tejpal
Saves time for organizing volunteers Great for nonprofits organisations Premium plans available Online SignUps & coordination solutions Coordinate groups big & small Create volunteer calendars Organize activities in minutes Planning wizard Custom themes Collect contribution Send alerts & updates Track service hours Post waivers
Enables non-profits associations build web presence Improve membership collaboration Automate administration Boost PR Award-winning membership management Communication platform Better organize Improve communication Empower & connect together Communicate online Software in multiple languages
Companies universities Athletic departments NPOs Greek organizations Track service hours members Remarkably efficient software platform Mobile apps Easily coordinate Track service hours Implement solution Well provide custom training team Always available for support Easy to increase Community impact Track community engagement
Volunteer management software is a software solution helping primarily nonprofits organizations in finding, recruiting, and training volunteers. This software assists users in maintaining records of volunteers’ contact information, participation history, profiles, and availability to facilitate in coordination and management.
Volunteer management is a the process of creating systems for recruitment, engagement, training, and coordination of volunteers. It helps to manage the volunteers in a non-profit organization and the work which they do. Putting a proper volunteer management plan helps an organization in speeding up the progress of the operations and assists in achieving its objectives.
With planning, recruiting and training of volunteers, an organization also requires to promote supervising strategies for the work to be performed by the volunteers with the motivation to continue performing the tasks and duties. The strategies put may vary from one organization to another due to the diversity of non-profits. While devising to manage all the volunteers, it should be focused to be able to concentrate on the best strategies helping volunteers do the work, while helping to accomplish the overall aims and objectives of the organization.
Volunteer Management Strategies
There are so many strategies which an organization utilizes to manage volunteers and tap into the skill and talent aspect. These strategies are :
Recruitment : An organization requires to put systems in place to find the right volunteers with specific skills and talents that would benefit the organization. Creating predetermined preferences for the type of volunteers that the organization is interested in can help speed up the recruitment process and get people with specific skills and experiences. When recruiting volunteers, the organization should collect volunteer data like educational qualifications, hobbies, skills, and languages that they speak, which can assist the organization undertake duties according to what the volunteers are passionate about or most comfortable working on. Matching duties with the skill set can help increase productivity and unity among the volunteer teams.
Engagement : After recruiting and welcoming volunteers to the company, volunteers engage in a way to feel appreciated and useful to the organization. The big mistake that companies make is assigning volunteers tasks which they have no skills in, leading to decreased productivity and high volunteer turnover. An organization can keep the volunteers engaged by recognizing the volunteer’s skills and creating opportunities that keep them involved in productive activities. Permitting the volunteers to stay idle as usual can make them feel underutilized and encourage them to look for avenues where their skills can be utilized in a better way.
Retention : Retaining volunteers is often difficult for most non-profits, due to the complexity of managing large volunteer teams with different skills and abilities unless there is a proper volunteer management system in place. An organization can enhance retention is to keep volunteers connected to managers. The volunteers should be able to present the questions, recommendations, and findings to the volunteer managers with ease, and receive a response promptly.
Tracking : Tracking is a strategy to assist with volunteer management. It automates the work process to provide volunteers know the number of programs they have supported during a specific period and the number of hours they have contributed to each program.
Communication : A necessary tool in managing volunteers is putting an effective communication channel in place which volunteers and management can utilize to communicate information with each other. An organization needs an efficient communication channel that it can utilize to upgrade upcoming volunteer activities, offer volunteer information to participants, inform volunteers on important events, and interact and follow up with volunteers to get the feedback from their side on the volunteer activities.
Better accountability: The software provides centralized storage facility of volunteer participation and their records. This permits for quick access to records for tracing back operational details like who, what and when of all the tasks and the time spent to assist in establishing accountability for all the actions performed by volunteers.
Increased efficiency: The software helps in automating workflows for volunteering the management, like tracking participation time and scheduling. The free up time for organization staff to focus on various other tasks.
Improved participation: Tracking participation details and feedback can offer organizations insights into volunteer behavior and provides for identifying the interests of various volunteers which can assist to develop new opportunities in determining what attracts prospects, and capturing best referrals.
Membership management: Identifying prospects, capturing participation requests, and maintaining a database of enrolled volunteers.
Scheduling: Determining volunteer availability and assigning them tasks and time slots accordingly.
Event management: Scheduling and handling activities, like logistics, related to events.
Self-service portal: Providing volunteers a gateway to get into the system.
Calendar management: Creating and managing long-term plans (weekly, monthly, or yearly) for events involving volunteers.
Member directory: Creating an online or printable list and directory of all volunteers.
Most products in this market are priced on a per user per month basis and can be divided into the following three pricing tiers based on their starting price. A premium product is priced higher and has additional features like task management and client management.
Number of volunteers: All the available tools to manage volunteers structure pricing tiers which is based on the number of volunteers enrolled. As volunteer requirements grow to scale to operational requirements, the cost of the tool enhances. Check with vendors about pricing to be able to estimate of how much you are likely to pay when the requirements expand.
Data protection and privacy: The volunteers might be non-commercial resources, but the data is still classified as personal information which can be leveraged/misused for commercial profits. There could be regulatory implications in the event of data breach. Check with sellers for the security measures taken and compliance of the software solutions.
Blockchain helps in improving volunteer management: The distributed architecture of blockchain technology and immutable characteristics can assist in improving the credibility of volunteer management and processes related to it. By registering volunteer activity details like time and tasks on distributed ledgers, the technology assist in driving transparency into operations. Smart contracts can provide for ensuring that recorded details are not influenced by human interference.
