Why It’s Time to Move Away From Volunteering Spreadsheets

It Can Be Difficult to Share

It may not be something you’ve thought of, but personal information is in jeopardy every time you share a spreadsheet with someone new. Leaving documents unlocked could put volunteers or employees at risk of a security breach due to the private information collected. And password protecting these can make it difficult for other users to add information or check in regularly. Plus, having many people work on the same spreadsheets can lead to formatting issues and a lot of unnecessary confusion.

Creating and Maintaining Them Can Be Tough

There’s a lot to manage: volunteers, events, even financial information, such as money spent and money raised. This equates to setting up several different spreadsheets from scratch that you’ll need to toggle between. And without a top-notch template, which is a significant challenge to find, adding new information continually and dealing with formatting issues can make them look messy, create frustration for you, and take up a lot of time!

Your Volunteers Should Have Their Own Portal

To make it easier on your volunteers and yourself, everyone should have access to a single volunteer database. Here, everyone can update their information if they need to, log their volunteer time, and even look for and apply for volunteer opportunities. Using only spreadsheets makes this very difficult to do as they may not have access — and will have to contact you every time they need information.

It May Cause Retention Issues

You count on your volunteers to make your events run well. As mentioned above, having a portal for them to check into makes it easy for them to look at and apply for volunteer opportunities. A portal that’s easy for them to navigate will prevent them from looking elsewhere for volunteer opportunities. If they have to make a phone call or email you every time they need something or go to several different websites, they may stop bothering.

It’s not just your volunteers that you need to keep happy. Other team members in your organization may need access to the volunteer information. Without it, they may not be able to do their job properly quickly and easily.

At Timecounts, our aim is to make managing your volunteers a lot easier while ensuring your volunteers and other team members have access to the information they need. Recruit, schedule, build your community, track and report, and access all the information you need instantly. We’ve already helped many nonprofits, social organizations, schools, and other businesses create their volunteer management software and would love to help you. Timecounts is an affordable, all-in-one solution to organize any volunteer program. Sign up today to get started.

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