Does your Not for Profit have a Volunteer Management System? My bet is NO!
Volunteers can play a massive part in delivering services and supporting the mission of a Not for Profit. Whether it’s an all-volunteer organisation or one that uses volunteers to supplement paid staff, most Not for Profits couldn’t survive without them.
While it may be easy enough to keep track of a few volunteers, managing them via email and spreadsheets becomes quite difficult as the numbers grow and their roles become more complex.
Yet, regardless of how large or small your organisation is, you still may benefit from a Volunteer Management System.
What is a Volunteer Management System?
A Volunteer Management System is basically an HR system for volunteers rather than staff. And just like a HRIS, it may support the following functions:
- Recruitment & Selection
- Onboarding
- General HR Administration like record keeping and compliance
- Document Storage
- Rostering
- Time & Attendance
- Skills Assessment
- Performance Management
- Learning & Development
- Rewards & Recognition
- Exit Management
- Reporting
- Others
Your organisation likely performs many of these functions manually today, but a Volunteer Management system may help you in many ways.
5 Reasons you need a Volunteer Management System
1) Saves time
How long does it take to process volunteer applications at your organisation after a recruitment drive? For some organisations, making the first contact with the applicant can take weeks.
Now imagine a system that can take all the applications online and automatically ask them to submit supporting documents like a First Aid Certificate or a Working with Vulnerable People’s card.
Once they complete this task, wouldn’t it be great if the applications could be automatically redistributed to the relevant evaluators based on the role?
This is just one example of how a Volunteer Management System could possibly save you time.
2) Reduces manual processes
How do you fill volunteer roles on a roster? It could be for an event or a weekly task. What happens when that person is suddenly no longer available? How do you find another volunteer?
Most organisations do all of this manually, but some Volunteer Management Systems have rostering capabilities. This allows approved volunteers to pick their own times based on their availability. And you can often set up recurring rosters for specific volunteers (i.e. Sam always volunteers from 9am to 11am on Wednesdays), too.
3) Builds relationships
How often do you communicate with your volunteers? Do you only email them when you need something?
With some Volunteer Management Systems, there are digital notice boards that operate much like an intranet. Here, you can provide the latest organisational updates, share volunteer information and publicly celebrate birthdays and milestones.
Some Volunteer Management Systems also have integrated email and SMS functions built in. This means all communications can be tracked in their contact file if a staff member needs to look at the correspondence later. Therefore, the volunteer no longer needs to give multiple people the same information.
4) Provides data insights
“What is the average age and tenure of our volunteers? How long has Volunteer Jane been with the organisation? How many volunteers did we recruit and retain from the recruitment drive we ran last year?”
These were questions an executive had for their Not for Profit’s volunteer program recently. However, no one could answer them because that information wasn’t stored anywhere.
Now imagine a system that automatically captures that data and has out-of-the-box reports (eliminating the need to manipulate info in spreadsheets). That’s what you can usually get from a Volunteer Management System.
5) Reduces risks
Not for Profits have almost the same legal obligations to volunteers as they do to paid staff members.
So, while a Volunteer Management system can help manage requirements like compliance and possibly WHS, there are other risk management benefits, too.
I remember working with a charity that had a long-serving volunteer coordinator. She had an incredible memory and knew all the volunteers well.
The problem was that she only worked part-time and was frequently sick. When she was away, no one else in the organisation had access to her volunteer contact list, which consisted of various emails and spreadsheets.
It was a significant business continuity risk as the organisation was very dependent on volunteers. Had there even been a medical incident with one of them, the charity would have struggled to find their emergency contact information.
This is just another example of how a Volunteer Management System can help mitigate risks.
Summary:
Regardless of how big or small your Not for Profit is, if you are dependent on volunteers, there are at least 5 reasons to have a Volunteer Management System.
So, do some research on what’s available on the market. You might even find some vendors who offer free versions for smaller orgs.
I regularly help Not for Profits select a Volunteer Management System and other systems. Let me know if you need some help.
P.S. If you found this article helpful, you might want to read this one too:
Tammy Ven Dange is a former charity CEO, Association President, Not for Profit Board Member and IT Executive. Today, she helps NFPs with strategic IT decisions, especially around investments.