What is Volunteer Tracking?
Volunteer tracking refers to closely monitoring all elements relating to a volunteer program, such as no. of volunteers, dates, timings, progress, etc. By tracking them, organizations can work on improving their programs, provide better facilities, make their programs accessible, and more.
Key Measures for Businesses to Reimagine Their Volunteer Programs
- Contact details: Being able to communicate with your volunteers as and when necessary is necessary for a successful volunteer program. It helps you inform them about any urgent information, updates, changes, etc. To do this, you can ask potential volunteers for their contact details and make a note about what is the best way to reach them. Tracking these details will improve communication and help you solve any urgent volunteer requirements.
- No. of working hours: Keeping track of the no of hours a volunteer has put in will help you understand their progress and efficiency. You can make online logs on management software to keep a daily or weekly track of all working hours of your volunteers.
- Availability: If you have a database of potential volunteers, you can track their availability. With an organization stressing on new volunteer programs, it will be easier to contact and call on board volunteers who will be available for a particular slot.
- Performance: With each volunteer program that is held, you can track a volunteer’s performance for the program. You can track how long they take to complete a task, how they communicate with other volunteers, their team-building spirit, etc.
- Attendance: You can track volunteer attendance for each program conducted. It helps you understand how often a volunteer has been present, if they are reliable and efficient, if they need the motivation to increase participation, etc.
Image credit: Ismael Paramo via Unsplash
10 Successful Strategies for Businesses to Track Volunteer Skills & Progress
- Set your goals: For each volunteer program held, make sure to establish a clear target. If the program is for fundraising, set a fund limit you want to reach. If the program is for raising awareness, fix a number for how many people you want to talk to about your mission. When clear goals are identified, you can conveniently track how volunteers are progressing. You can also onboard volunteers with the necessary skill set to achieve these targets.
- Have an accurate job description: When volunteers sign up for your program, make sure that you can provide them with a clear explanation of their work. When each volunteer understands what they’re supposed to do, they are more likely to work with higher efficiency. It also makes tracking their progress easier as you are able to see how each task is being carried out.
- Create a digital database: Making a digital database of your volunteers makes tracking their progress more convenient. You can use volunteer management software to keep track of daily work, the number of hours, targets reached, skill progress, and much more.
Image credit: John Schnobrich via Unsplash
- Training programs: When setting up a new volunteer project, you can put in place a volunteer program to train volunteers for the work. These programs help you track and understand a volunteer’s learning abilities, their intentions to work, and how they can best progress. You can also track their skill levels and understand how a volunteer will perform.
- Set up communication networks: In order to track volunteers’ team-building spirit or motivation, you can set up communication channels to enable volunteer communication. With this, you can monitor and understand how volunteers may cooperate with one another and if it will increase or reduce efficiency.
- Work hand-in-hand with volunteers: For each volunteer program, try working directly in the field with your volunteers. Through this, you can first-hand track how they are progressing, if there are any hindrances, volunteer efficiency, etc.
- Define volunteer roles: When a volunteer joins your program, let them know their roles for the program and what falls under it. When you categorize volunteers under specific titles, you’ll be able to track their progress, efficiency, and skillset more easily.
- Create clear assignments: For each volunteer program, make a number of projects and group volunteers under each. By doing this, you can track volunteers by each project and monitor their work, number of hours, progress, and much more.
- Appoint supervisors: When making volunteer groups for your program, appoint a supervisor along with each group who can monitor how each volunteer works. They can keep track of how volunteers work, time taken for a task, etc.
- Create feedback channels: When you take feedback from volunteers, you can make note of their grievances and track various progress hurdles. Feedback allows you to understand how volunteers are working, their work process, and how they are responding to the program.
Achieving Successful Volunteer Tracking
Successful volunteer tracking helps you understand the progress of a volunteer program. When you track volunteers, you can take measures to help them refine their work, motivate them, appreciate their hard work, and create better-structured volunteer programs going ahead.
