A New Way for Nonprofits to Expand
Their Volunteer Program.

Years ago, we described ourselves as providing online tools to help nonprofits manage volunteers. That’s how most of the volunteer management systems out there think of themselves too. But that didn’t adequately communicate what was in our hearts. It didn’t describe why we had such a burning passion for volunteerism. We set out to better explain our true value to our customers. We knew our goal wasn’t to “manage” volunteers - it was to inspire them. We help people to find organizations that serve the causes they feel passionate about. We make it super easy for volunteers to start making an impact. We empower volunteers by giving them control over their volunteer experience. We make things easier for staff by automating tedious tasks so that they can elevate their work to be more mission oriented. We provide extra resources beyond just how to use our software. We provide learning and training resources to arm volunteer coordinators and C-Level executives with a proven approach to convert their volunteer programs into goldmines of opportunity. We provide real-time service and support. We make sure volunteers feel appreciated because we greatly respect the gift of their time. We create feedback loops so volunteers help our organizations to continuously improve. And we help our partners measure their results so they know where they are and where they aspire to be. So, we stopped saying “We have volunteer management software” and started saying “We build extraordinary volunteer programs!” And do you know what happened? We got so much better at it as a result.

We have gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure our service is easy to use on any device (phone, tablet, laptop, desktop) for individuals or groups, for different types of volunteerism (in-person versus virtual), for different types of assignments (shifts, positions, tasks, or items) and for all age groups.  For example, many customers convert to our service after using a competing technology.  Prior to the switch, some say, “Our volunteers are resistant to technology.” But their "resistant" volunteers welcomed VolunteerMatters with open arms.  It turns out that they weren't resistant to 'technology', they were resistant to bad technology.

We would like to understand what your goals are for growth.  Is it to attract more volunteers?  Increase participation by the volunteers you already have?  Make the volunteers you already have much more effective?  Free up time for your staff?  We’ll work with you to help define and achieve your goals for growth.  I can tell you that if your goal is to grow your volunteer base, you can assume an improvement of at least 20% in the first year.  We’ve had many organizations who have doubled or even tripled their participation over 12 months.  It’s all about the recipe!

Here’s a secret…But you can’t tell anyone…We didn’t invent the recipe for extraordinary volunteerism.  We actually learned what it meant to be really awesome at volunteerism from listening to our customers over the last two decades.  We noticed those things that almost all extraordinary programs had in common and took copious notes.  So there you have it, we stole it!  It’s important to have a recipe because if you were baking a cake for the first time, you wouldn’t want to open your pantry and start throwing random things into the bowl until you figured out what tastes good, right?  Learn from the best of the best on how to promote volunteerism, eliminate barriers to engagement, empower your people, show gratitude, get feedback, and measure impact.

We’re so good at group volunteering, it’s ridiculous!  We have a process that has proven to account for all types of group volunteering because it’s super flexible.  You can have a group leader sign up and designate a headcount and simply credit the group leader for all of the hours associated with their group. You can also have a group leader who signs up in advance, designates the headcount they are bringing, invite others to pre-register or register on-site via a kiosk (which you can run on any device).  Sound like option overload?  It really isn’t.  We provide a simple workflow diagram to determine which option is best for you.  After that, it’s just selecting the right group mode for your volunteer project.

We have many ways to track time and you can customize this from project to project.  They include self-reported timesheets, assigning a default number of hours for working a particular job, and checking in/out of shifts via the volunteer’s mobile phone or the organization’s kiosk.  Awesome, right?  The coolest thing is that this is all automated or volunteer-driven so it’s super easy on your staff to track time.  There’s little to do but run a one-click report to measure the impact.