Managing volunteers with CiviVolunteer

CiviVolunteer is one of several tools within CiviCRM that you can use to manage and cultivate volunteers for your nonprofit. Our team of experts at AGH Strategies knows CiviVolunteer inside and out, from helping you decide whether and how to use the extension to enhancing it with custom code to meet your needs.

Organizations that schedule volunteers in shifts particularly benefit from CiviVolunteer. Whether a standalone volunteer work day or an event requiring volunteer slots, all you have to do is create an event within CiviCRM, enable CiviVolunteer, and define some volunteer roles. You can set up a form on your site for volunteers to register, and it’s independent from the regular registration form so you can keep things organized while recruiting both volunteers and attendees.

Once you collect volunteers, CiviVolunteer allows you to drag and drop them into slots, record the time spent, and schedule automated email or SMS messages to remind or thank them. Their volunteer activities are searchable and visible from the contact record, so you can identify active volunteers among your other supporters.

Now, not every organization using CiviCRM needs CiviVolunteer, even if they have active volunteers. If your volunteer program is more oriented to regularly-scheduled shifts or open-ended roles, you’re better off using other tools within CiviCRM. CiviVolunteer assumes that your volunteer opportunities are tied to events.

If you’re tracking ongoing volunteers, a simple way is custom fields on the contact record. A tab with sets of custom fields that allows multiple records is a great tool. Each record is a volunteer role or capability, and additional fields in the set can detail their experience, specific interests, or volunteer title(s).

There are practically infinite ways to customize CiviCRM, and nonprofits often turn to CiviCRM partners like AGH Strategies for help navigating the choices. We can help you make design decisions, coach you through configuring it yourself, or set everything up for you. If you need custom features built in, we can build them to your specifications and ensure they can be supported over the long run. With our nonprofit experience, knowledgeable developers, and unmatched slate of training programs, you can have all the support you need for growing your volunteer base.