Ditching 10+ Excel sheets, Creating a Volunteer Management System

In January of 2020, I spoke on Nicole Smith’s radio show “Room to Read” to discuss my experiences starting a volunteer group. During the interview, Nicole asked me how I kept track of volunteer hours. I told her we used a couple of complex excel spreadsheets to keep track of our hours, event registrations, and pretty much every other aspect of the group. Nicole then asked me if I had ever considered purchasing a volunteer management solution (VMS). My first reaction was why would I need a VMS? My excel spreadsheets, while a little convoluted, worked just fine. She told me that using a VMS would help ensure my group continues past me.

After talking about VMSs with Nicole and thinking it over, I realized she was right. My biggest worry concerning the smooth transition of leadership was making sure the leaders would be able to use all the excel sheets I created. I thought back to the year prior when I had trained the leaders who replaced me. I spent 33% of our leader training meetings teaching them excel and how to use the spreadsheets. Even though I spent well over 50 hours creating and refining these spreadsheets, I realized that it would be challenging for the group to continue with our current setup. I received frequent texts from the leaders telling me something broke, sometimes requiring hours of fixing. So I started looking for a solution.

Here is what a new solution would need to replace:

Basic Features:

o Volunteer Onboarding

o A prospective volunteer fills out our volunteer application.

o A group leader receives an email asking them to approve the volunteer.

o If approved, the volunteer automatically receives a welcome email.

o Automatically add the new volunteer to our excel sheet.

Event Management

o Event creation (previously using Signup Genius)

o Group Communication

o History of previous volunteer events and signups

Volunteer Management

o Split volunteers into three teams

o Hour Tracking

o Volunteer Reports

o Ability for volunteers to check their hours.

Previously this was accomplished using Microsoft Forms, a bunch of excel sheets, Signup Genius, and Microsoft Power Automate.

With these requirements, I went out to look for a volunteer management software that would meet my volunteer group’s needs. After hours of searching, I was able to classify the various platforms I found into four groups:

Too expensive — These VMS were priced way too high considering they were built for volunteer organizations and nonprofits.

Too cheap/missing features — These VMS were free/low cost but missing most of the features necessary in a VMS.

Outdated design — These VMS were decently priced and had most of the features that we were looking for but looked as if they were made in the early 2000s.

Wrong purpose — These VMS were designed for larger nonprofits who want their opportunities available to the public. Think VolunteerMatch.

Finally, I had narrowed down my search to 2 VMSs that fit the majority of my criteria. Before finalizing our decision, a new option had presented itself. I set out to create my own volunteer management software. My coding knowledge was limited, but luckily a new era of web development is starting to become more and more common: no-code/low-code.

I built VolunteerStudio using one of these tools. This gives the platform a unique advantage over other solutions:

· Fast Development — Adding new features can be done in a matter of days vs. months.

· Scalable — Apps scale automatically.

· Low Development Cost — 10 to 50 times cheaper than traditional programming.

About me

My name is Daniel Remishevsky. In 2016, I started a volunteer group called CB Cares Volunteer Teens. I led the group for three years before graduating high school. During that time, we amassed over 400 volunteers who have volunteered over 7000 hours.

I created VolunteerStudio with all the experience I gained running and starting a volunteer organization. If you are looking for a volunteer management solution that is easy to use, low cost and feature-rich, check us out!

Website: https://volunteer.studio/

All Features: https://volunteer.studio/features

Book a Demo: https://go.volunteer.studio/demo