Hi All,
We have been using volunteerlocal.com to organize our volunteer shifts and they are finally phasing out the free option we have been using. Does anyone have recommendations for a good free site for taking volunteer bookings? We have not been using much of the other pieces of that site, beyond booking shifts by date.
Thanks for any insights, I picked up the volunteer coordination into my role only a few months ago and am still finding my feet.
Hi Rachel,
Thanks so much for reaching out to the group! I have used both Volgistics and Better Impact in my work experience. Unfortunately they are both paid sites.
I did find this article that may be of assistance to you - The Best 8 Free Volunteer Management Software Solutions (goodfirms.co) It lists Volgistics as a free option. If that is the case, I am not sure what is included in the version.
I've also noticed in some of the discussion that some individuals are using Tessitura to manage their volunteers. I'm hoping they might be able to weigh in here to give you some additional advice. I'd suggest also looking back through discussion posts as you might find some additional advice
How many volunteers do you manage?.
Our volunteer program is still suspended, but we had a custom screen built just before shutdown in 2020 to track volunteers. There is an associated report that totals all of the options as well. This is more for tracking after the fact. But Resource Scheduling and workers could be used to schedule volunteers. They can be set up as resources and their schedules entered on the Resource booking calendar. Happy to chat about either with anyone who is interested.
Anne Robichaux
The Historic New Orleans Collection
Hi Anne,
I'm so glad that you shared this because it is exactly what we've been looking to do as far as tracking volunteer hours and activity in Tessitura. Would you mind sharing an example of the associated report?
Thank you!
Cassandra Tant
Des Moines Art Center
Sure thing! Here's what the parameters look like:
And here's what the report output looks like:
We haven't actually used it with volunteers, which is why you are only seeing me on there (which was done for testing).
Hope that helps. I got the idea from a general session at TLCC 2018.
Anne
Thank you for your quick response! I will be sharing this with our team.
-Cassandra