VolunteerMatters: yes they do! But how best to manage them?

One of the areas we’re working on is to provide more insight into the products in our donations program, so you can make a more informed choice. Starting this month, we’ll be trying out our new products and blogging about our experience. Today you’ll hear from Fanny Martin, one of our new Accounts Managers here at TechSoup Canada. Enjoy! - Tierney

Before starting at TechSoup Canada, I was a festival manager in the UK, and one of my favourite roles was to manage volunteers. Ah, the joy of meeting new people, from all walks of life, who help you to fulfill your mission, and whom you see growing and developing over the course of an event or sometimes year after year... Although right now, I mainly remember sweating over the schedule into the wee hours and hoping that most people would actually turn up. I was using a spreadsheet to store all names and contact details, which was simple enough, but hugely limited in scope and functionalities, and somehow I just knew there had to be a better way...

Which is why I was really interested in the new product we’re launching this month: VolunteerMatters, an online volunteer management system. Having watched their video demonstration and pored over the product features, I can say that it does a pretty good job of helping you manage large groups of volunteers. From a single online platform, you can store your volunteers’ contact details, skills and interests; you can filter data to find the perfect match for a task or identify the most active volunteers; you can send them individual or bulk emails, fully customizable; you can create different types of shifts and activities and either assign your volunteers to specific tasks or let them sign up themselves.   

My favourite features:

- No more back-and-forth emails: volunteers can search and sign up for shifts themselves, and the administrator can send emails straight from the platform to a selection or to the whole database.
- Keep track of your volunteers’ level of commitment and personal goals.
- Generate reports based on a variety of criteria, which can be a great tool to report to your board or funding body about your volunteer strategy.

Who this is for:

If you work with a lot of volunteers and require advanced volunteer management features, it makes sense to use a specialized volunteer management system like VolunteerMatters. This might be you if you often have scheduling or communications issues, or if you wish that you could keep better track of volunteers’ personal commitment to your cause.

Please note:

This special edition of VolunteerMatters, offered to eligible organisations qualified with TechSoup Canada, is a Starter version, customised for a single administrator and limited to 1,000 records. After your one-year donated subscription you must upgrade to a full version (Standard or Pro) in order to keep your data - consider the donation as a low-cost one-year trial. Click here for a Feature Comparison table between the three versions and see the details below for more information on your options at the end of the year.  

Additional resources on Volunteer Management Systems:

Here are a few links to learn more about VolunteerMatters and other products out there that can help you take further your volunteer strategy.

• Online demonstration of VolunteerMatters: a 23-minute video available on their website that gives you a full product tour (please be aware that not all features showcased in this product tour are available with the TechSoup Canada special edition).
• Consumers' Guide to Software for Volunteer Management published by TechSoup Global and Idealware: comprehensive product reviews, and even more importantly, lots of tips to help you decide what’s right for you.
• Comparative table of volunteer management systems put together by Jayne Cravens, a non-for-profit consultant, which you can access on her website.

 

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After your one-year TechSoup Edition subscription, you will have three options:

1. Upgrade to a full subscription:

VolunteerMatters will take care of the data transfer and you can choose between two levels of features:

• The Standard edition (from $55/month) has great additional features, such as multiple administrators, fully customisable fields and the possibility for volunteers to manage their profile themselves.

• The Pro edition (from $65/month) is fully integrated with QuickBooks and allows you to create and send invoices in bulk - handy for tracking membership fees.

Pricing levels are based on the number of active contacts in your database. To give you an idea, here’s what the monthly subscription fee would be for the Standard edition:

VolunteerMatters Standard
500 Active Contacts (1,500 Total), $55/mo
1,000 Active Contacts (3,000 Total), $95/mo
2,500 Active Contacts (7,500 Total), $170/mo
5,000 Active Contacts (15,000 Total), $305/mo
10,000 Active Contacts (30,000 Total), $550/mo

This can seem pretty pricey, but would be worth it if volunteers are at the heart of your activities, and also if you’re planning to generate revenue through membership fees or donations.

2. Renew your Special Edition subscription through TechSoup Canada:

You can renew your free subscription through TechSoup Canada at the same low admin fee ($69), but you will be provided with a new product with no data transfer. You could consider this option if you’re willing to export your data after one year then import it into your newly donated VolunteerMatters. If this is your plan, make sure you test the export/import feature before going to the effort of fully populating the system.  

3. Transfer your data to another management system:

Because there are a lot of options out there! Have a look at the Consumers' Guide to Software for Volunteer Management published by TechSoup Global and Idealware and at Jayne Cravens’ comparative table of volunteer management systems; and don’t forget that TechSoup Canada also offers access to Sumac, a database with several specialised modules available, including volunteer management, fundraising, communications, ticketing and more.