Running a successful volunteer program requires the right infrastructure to keep operations running smoothly. As your organization grows, having a Volunteer Management System (VMS) that centralizes data, simplifies registration, and amplifies community impact becomes essential. Below we’ve outlined the key features you should prioritize when evaluating a VMS, from streamlined registration workflows to robust reporting tools that help you effectively tell your organization's story. Plus, learn more about how the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma's Community Engagement Manager, Whitney Atteberry, utilizes GivePulse as their core database for volunteer management.
Efficient Reporting & Feedback Tools
GivePulse features comprehensive feedback forms and surveys, allowing users to provide input both before and after events. This functionality allows you to manage, understand, and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data effectively. With the inclusion of visualization tools and the ability to generate custom reports, you can easily interpret feedback trends. All engagement data is directly linked to individual or group profiles, enabling you to track volunteer origins, total service hours, and long-term organizational interaction.
“We have the awesome group reservation form submission that they can do on their end and then my team works to look behind the scenes to see on that group reservation request if they need any special accommodation, so if they have a volunteer in a wheelchair or if they want a hunger education opportunity with that or if they're bringing their corporate partners out for an engagement event then we can really tailor that to their needs so that's a really good communication piece.”
- Whitney Attaberry, RFBO Community Engagement Manager
Integrated Fundraising Solutions
Securing capital is fundamental to achieving any organizational mission, making effective fundraising capabilities a vital component of any VMS. When looking for a VMS that is right for you and your organization, consider platforms with built-in tools that enable you to initiate crowdfunding campaigns or fundraisers to support your initiatives, community partners, or specific philanthropic causes. As a bonus, platforms including peer-to-peer fundraising features are a great way to engage with individuals and groups, giving them the power to advocate for and represent your mission to their personal networks.
“Fundraising as I mentioned, is a built-in feature so you're able to create fundraisers or crowdfunding campaigns in order to support either your organization or nonprofit partners and causes that you work with you can also leverage peer-to-peer functionality and fundraising so if individuals or groups want to actually create fundraisers on your behalf they're able to build those out via GivePulse, have a landing page and then promote those to their networks.”
- GivePulse Community Sales & Outreach Manager
Multi-Departmental and Partnership Support
Organizations are complex. When looking for a VMS, identifying a platform that can support and manage diverse internal and external partnerships is critical. The GivePulse platform offers organizations subgroups, allowing you to create distinct landing pages to manage specific departments, locations, or programs. This structure allows for the categorization of volunteers, employees, and events into organized internal groups. The GivePulse platform facilitates external partnerships through an affiliation feature. This allows your organization to connect with businesses, schools, and other community groups to share and cross-promote impactful opportunities. By leveraging these affiliations, partners can create their own groups and share relevant opportunities directly with their network.
“Affiliations are that key piece on the platform to facilitate partnerships, so that allows you to create connections with community, organizations, with businesses, with schools. Through that affiliation piece you're able to share and cross promote opportunities and this also allows partners to create groups and share opportunities with your network.”
- GivePulse Community Sales & Outreach Manager
Effective Communication Tools
Robust communication features are vital to a successful volunteer program. Tools like integrated SMS messaging provide a direct line to your volunteers and partners, allowing you to send real-time updates, urgent schedule changes, or exciting opportunity announcements. By moving beyond traditional email, these communication channels ensure your messages are seen instantly, fostering a more responsive and connected community.
“I live in Oklahoma and the weather does what it wants to and so one thing that was super beneficial was just being able to send a quick text to our volunteers telling them not to come in because we're having to close our doors or highlighting a new and exciting opportunity that we have going, so it's not just the texting there's all kinds of different ways to communicate with your database.”
- Whitney Attaberry, RFBO Community Engagement Manager
A Dynamic Community Network
A Volunteer Management System (VMS) should offer more than just tools; it should provide access to a thriving community of changemakers from all industries. The GivePulse search page is an ideal resource for anyone interested in forging new partnerships. You can use it to locate active organizations on the platform and review the initiatives they are currently championing. To further streamline organizational management and discovery, the system allows anyone to search for both events happening locally and organizations in their community to get involved with beyond a one-time volunteer opportunity.
Explore GivePulse: The Leading Volunteer Management Solution for Strengthening Community Engagement
GivePulse is a comprehensive community engagement platform for collective impact, serving 650,000+ organizations, including nonprofits, businesses, higher education institutions, K-12, cities, municipalities, and anyone doing community-driven, community-engagement-based work.
We support the tracking and management of all forms of community engagement, including volunteers and events, donations, partnerships, and more. Simultaneously, we support and coordinate across the entire spectrum of community engagement, from co-curricular volunteering and direct service activities to community-based projects and internships to social philanthropy and fundraising.
GivePulse captures all of your data in a manner that enables you to tell a compelling story about the impact your organization is making and your community, as well as the corporate partners that you work with and how they are engaging with one another. Schedule a demo with our team to learn more about the volunteer management tools offered by the GivePulse platform.
“We have about 40,000 volunteers that come in through our doors and we have about 1500 volunteers through our doors on a weekly basis and a variety of shifts, so GivePulse really helps us set that up in a way that makes sense for our volunteers.”
- Whitney Attaberry, RFBO Community Engagement Manager
About GivePulse
GivePulse's mission is to enable everyone in the world to participate and engage in lifting their community to new heights. We do so by providing a platform to list, find, organize, and measure the impact of service-learning, community engagement, philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, and volunteerism.
Founded in 2012 in Austin, Texas, GivePulse works with 650,000+ groups, including colleges and universities, nonprofits, businesses, K-12/school districts, and cities and municipalities. Together, we connect millions of people in an effort to create positive social change.
Ready to see how we can help you achieve your community engagement goals? Schedule a demo with GivePulse today.