As a comrade in arms, I know first-hand the challenges of working at a nonprofit.
Management in a nonprofit setting, of course, is often a delicate balancing act: first and foremost serving your target population, along with coordinating volunteers and meanwhile seeking the all-important funds to keep the entity afloat. Often there literally are not enough hours in the day, especially when one feels like he or she is at the whim of clients, staff, board members, volunteers, the ringing phone, and your email inbox.
For the overwhelmed leaders of nonprofit organizations everywhere, there is a better path forward. In a word: VolunteerHub.
What is VolunteerHub?
For starters, VolunteerHub is a web-based volunteer management software that allows you to do more with less. It literally does act as the center – or “hub” – of your volunteer operations. It serves as a virtual volunteer coordinator, a contact database for your volunteers, an instant means of communicating via text and email, and more – and VolunteerHub puts you back in the driver’s seat when it comes to planning your day.
Since 1996, VolunteerHub has been used by nonprofits everywhere to manage over 5 billion volunteer hours. Why? Let’s explore what makes VolunteerHub so powerful.
Set It and Forget It
VolunteerHub allows you to take back control of the volunteer schedule and registration process, providing an online portal of all upcoming events. Now, instead of fielding texts, phone calls, and emails from volunteers throughout the day, you can instead point them to your Hub.
Not only does VolunteerHub lighten your administrative load, but it also is more convenient for your volunteers. Once they access your Hub, volunteers can see at a glance a chronological listing of all posted volunteer opportunities. And, since it is online in real-time, they can access your Hub with their planner or calendar app right in front of them. Now volunteers have more control, too; whenever they have time, they can sit down and decide what events interest them and determine which fit into their schedule. They can register with just a couple mouse clicks.
This is great for volunteers, but even better for you. VolunteerHub is simple to use, yet amazingly powerful. When you post an event (literally in less than 60 seconds), you can set a maximum number of volunteers and specify if you would like to allow a wait list. Do you have a group of volunteers from a business planning to attend a volunteer event? You can reserve spots on the list for them in advance.
VolunteerHub even sends out automated confirmation, reminder, and thank you messages to all registrants. And, once an event is over, your Hub is the all-in-one area that tracks volunteer hours, too.
Of course, VolunteerHub also provides a robust set of reports that can help you make sense of all the data your Hub contains, which is great for board reports and grants.
Reduce Risk
Speaking of reporting and legalities, even though we don’t always like to think about it, liability is something of which every nonprofit needs to be cognizant. It’s important to make sure you have a paper trail to cover yourself on the off chance there is an accident, et cetera. These details are often easy to overlook, so instead, turn this over to VolunteerHub as well. It can help you keep track of signed permission slips for minors and/or liability waivers for volunteers so you know the paperwork is complete before they show up at an event.
Don’t Just Manage – Engage
As you can see, VolunteerHub handles the details of things like registration and waivers for you, freeing up valuable time. Since it reduces the administrative workload, volunteer coordinators now have the opportunity to move beyond sweating the small stuff.
VolunteerHub puts you in control, giving you time to talk with your volunteers and cement a meaningful connection between them and your organization. And at that point, you have moved beyond volunteer management to volunteer engagement.
