We have discussed this topic before: volunteering groups are constantly adapting to the challenges brought by the covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has indeed caused an increasing interest of society in societal and social actions. Now, volunteering project management goes along with KPIs, strategies, and coordination.
It is a new challenge and struggles for many volunteer coordinators as they are still used to the methods implemented a long time ago. With more and more volunteering projects and the extensive filing system, they need a more advanced solution than a spreadsheet. The best idea would be to turn to software to manage all the steps of a volunteering management project.
However, many are still unaware of how their job could become more manageable with such software, probably because its benefits are still somewhat blurry. The fear is apparent: the cost of such a system is enormous. Many organizations believe that manual solutions, such as spreadsheets, are perfectly capable of managing volunteers. Right. But then again, the primary benefit would be that it would help save on later costs and will keep data centralized.
Although we understand that a spreadsheet is a realistic solution, this can be very limiting and time-consuming in the long run.
We preach for the use of software for various reasons:
- Using a software solution reduces the workload for volunteer coordination and spreads workload across users,
- It also improves communication,
- It creates more accessible reports,
- It provides more opportunities to recognize volunteers' efforts
It also enables a much more detailed understanding of the volunteers interacting with an organization. Building volunteer profiles means tailoring your volunteer outreach, understanding what they prefer, what their skills are, and which kind of engagement activities suit them best. It will allow you to identify what events that person wants to donate their time to, how many hours someone volunteered, and their involvement with your corporation. It can look big-brotherly, but it helps you provide more personalized communication and content to your audience of volunteers. And nowadays, personalization is a must-do.
For many organizations, the idea of introducing a new system seems a strange concept, especially when the method they are using is coping. Nevertheless, with good support and tips and practices, it can be relatively easy to set up.
A Volunteering Platform that does it all
Surprise! Optimy developed a volunteering add-on for organizations that rely on volunteers. With modular features and a platform that exists because we thought about your needs and your reality, the Volunteering Add-on is meant to make your life easier and increase the efficiency of your volunteering activities.
The average volunteer donates 52 hours annually to support a case each year. Multiply this with xx people volunteering each year. That's a lot of responsibility! It shouldn't make you sweat to plan and manage them.
How a corporation reaches and manages its volunteer hour share can make a big difference in mission achievement.
Plus, we discussed with you that the new generation is engaging more and more in volunteering. It would help if you made the process easy and convenient to see an increase in engagement.
We do know that before implementing the technology, you need an overview of processes and people. So you can always reach out to get more information on this topic. We're here to guide, help, and provide you with the all-on-one employee volunteering platform you need to do even more good. Don't believe it? Discover a success story, they experience says it all.
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