There’s nothing that shows volunteers more appreciation than providing them with a well-organized volunteer experience and the tools they need to succeed.
Here are four ways the right technology can help you deliver a great volunteer experience year-round.
As we approach the end of National Volunteer Week, it’s a perfect time to think about volunteer appreciation. There are many ways to thank your association’s volunteers – from emails and handwritten notes to phone calls and public shout-outs. But here’s one you might not have thought about: having the right tools in place to provide a great volunteer experience year-round.
There’s nothing that shows volunteers more appreciation than providing them with a well-organized volunteer experience and the tools they need to succeed. The right association management software (AMS) can help you provide the kind of volunteer experience that encourages members to volunteer and keeps them coming back for more.
For example, NetForum Cloud helps you provide a stellar volunteer experience in multiple ways, including:
- Helping your volunteer chapter leaders succeed
- Providing a more connected committee volunteer experience
- Making events easier for volunteers to help manage
- Encouraging more members to volunteer
Let’s take a look at each of these areas in more detail.
1. Helping your volunteer chapter leaders succeed
Your volunteer chapter leaders can always use a hand. Maybe their chapter is just starting out. Perhaps they have a chapter with a small membership that needs to grow. Or maybe they have their hands full with a large membership base. With the right tools, you can better serve them all.
For example, NetForum’s chapter portal functionality for associations allows you to give your chapters easy-to-use tools to help them manage:
- Memberships and member rosters
- Events
- Committees
- Documents
- Membership reports
By giving them the tools they need to increase and manage their memberships, you can reduce the administrative burden for your volunteer chapter leaders and staff, thereby giving them a more satisfying volunteer experience.
2. Providing a more connected committee volunteer experience
Committee volunteers are more likely to feel appreciated and volunteer again if they have a smooth experience from start to finish. NetForum includes committee management functionality that allows you to:
- Manage and track committees, sub-committees, and task forces
- Track individual committee member participation, including the history of previous committee members and the dates they served
- Publish and distributing committee minutes and documents to keep committee members connected and informed
By providing committee volunteers with a well-managed experience, you can help to ensure your committee members can work efficiently and effectively – ultimately showing them that you appreciate their time and their talents.
3. Making events easier for volunteers to help manage
Many of your volunteer opportunities likely involve helping out at your association’s events. And nothing can be more frustrating to volunteers than not having the tools they need to do their jobs well.
NetForum includes event and exhibit management tools to help you and your volunteers more easily manage event details. For example, you and your volunteers can:
- Easily track registration payments, cancellations, and refunds
- View room setup reports that include meeting times, room names, attendance numbers, and other details
- Create and track exhibitors’ booth locations, checklists, contract details, and special requests
4. Encouraging more members to volunteer
Here’s something interesting: A study by ASAE Research Foundation found that 88 percent of members who had volunteered reported that they were somewhat (31 percent) or very (57 percent) satisfied with their volunteer experience. They liked the opportunity to contribute and to create networks through volunteering. However, 31 percent of non-volunteers hadn’t volunteered simply because no one had asked them.
This points to an opportunity to deliver more of what members want by getting more members to volunteer. And with the right tools, you can.
For example, NetForum includes A-Score membership engagement scoring functionality that helps you identify trends so you can engage more effectively with specific groups of members. For instance, it can help you watch for patterns of engagement among groups of members and then send them targeted and personalized communications to get them involved with specific volunteer opportunities that align with their interests and preferences.
Your members will appreciate being given opportunity to serve in ways that interest them most.
Learn more
NetForum includes extensive functionality to help your association manage your entire organization – including a great volunteer experience. Find out more: Explore NetForum.
