Volunteers are a vital component of any nonprofit organization, offering their time and dedication to support causes they’re passionate about. In fact, the current value of an hour of volunteer time is over $31. However, studies have shown that almost half of nonprofit CEOs feel that volunteer recruitment is a significant challenge for their organization, and many organizations are struggling to retain volunteers.
Volunteer management software can play a major role in streamlining the volunteer recruitment, engagement, and retention processes to provide a better experience for volunteers and nonprofit staff. In this guide, we’ll explore the top volunteer management solutions for nonprofits and frequently asked questions about these tools. Let’s get started!
Volunteer management software is a database and constituent management solution that allows nonprofits to maintain digital records of all active and inactive volunteers, screen volunteer applications, create volunteer schedules, communicate with volunteers, and more.
This type of software streamlines the administrative work of recruiting, training, scheduling, and managing your volunteers. It also allows you to categorize volunteers by availability, age, gender, geographical location, years of service, and other custom categories of your team’s choosing. Doing so will allow you to create personalized outreach that speaks to each group’s unique interests and needs.
Volunteer management software makes registration and volunteer engagement more convenient and efficient for both nonprofit staff members and volunteers in the following ways:
Your staff can access the following benefits from volunteer management software:
The most important benefit of volunteer management software for nonprofit staff members is the time it saves. By streamlining and automating tasks, volunteer management tool allows nonprofit employees to devote more time to strategically growing their volunteer programs.
Volunteer management software offers these advantages for volunteers:
With volunteer management software, volunteers can view all information relevant to their roles in one convenient location. This fosters a much more positive experience for volunteers and allows them to view their cumulative impact over time.
If you’re looking to invest in a new volunteer management platform, there are a few essential features your system should include. These features include:
Ultimately, your software should feel like a supportive tool, not another hassle added to your plate. Request demos from your top options to get a sense of how each platform works and whether you think the tool would fit well with your current strategies and technology.
To determine which volunteer management platform is right for your organization, take some time to browse through the available options. We’ve identified the top platforms to consider—these solutions stand out for their robust features, user-friendliness, and cost-effectiveness.
Bloomerang Volunteer equips nonprofits with the tools they need to manage large amounts of volunteers efficiently. Bloomerang’s software helps volunteer managers spend less time working on routine administrative tasks and more time in the field interacting with volunteers.
This solution stands out for a variety of comprehensive features, including the ability to:
One of Bloomerang Volunteer’s most effective features is the two-way sync between the volunteer management platform and Bloomerang’s donor CRM. This gives nonprofit professionals the ability to view all supporter details in one database. You can use this feature to cultivate volunteers as donors and donors as volunteers!
Nonprofits can encourage volunteers to become donors by identifying their most likely prospects using donor database insights. They can also offer donors a unique way to engage with their mission more deeply by becoming volunteers.
Schedule a volunteer management demo today for more information about Bloomerang Volunteer.
Get Connected by Galaxy Digital is a volunteer management software used by thousands of nonprofits, businesses, universities and government agencies across the U.S. and Canada.
The stand-out features of this volunteer management system include:
Learn more about Get Connected.
Volunteer Local is a simple, user-friendly volunteer management tool for charitable organizations and events.
This solution offers features such as:
Volunteer Local’s pricing plans start at $600 per year.
360MatchPro by Double the Donation isn’t a traditional volunteer management platform like most of the solutions on this list. Instead, it focuses on helping nonprofits earn volunteer grants, allowing them to generate revenue through their volunteer programs.
Volunteer grants are donations businesses make to nonprofits their employees volunteer with. 360MatchPro helps nonprofits claim these funds through its corporate volunteer tools offering, which includes features like:
To use 360MatchPro, volunteers just need to enter their employer’s name into the search tool to get paired with their program information, including the next steps for how to apply for a volunteer grant.
360MatchPro is offered at three price points. Contact their team to request a demo and get a quote.
SignUpGenius offers a free basic event and volunteer registration tool, along with a Premium plan that offers efficient automation tools.
Here are the features you can access as part of the Premium plan:
Premium plans start at $8.99 per month.
Civic Champs provides intuitive volunteer management for a variety of cause-based organizations, including animal welfare, hunger relief, education and housing organizations.
The stand-out features of this volunteer platform include:
Civic Champ’s pricing starts at $588 per year with a one-month free trial option.
VolunteerMark’s volunteer management system includes features that help both volunteers and nonprofit professionals succeed.
With this platform, nonprofits can leverage features like:
Get started now with a 30-day free trial or a free plan. Paid plans start at $34 per month.
Volgistics serves thousands of charitable organizations and helps track millions of volunteers in a fully customizable system.
This volunteer management software offers valuable tools such as:
Use the Volgistics price calculator to determine what your pricing plan would look like.
Rosterfy helps organizations scale up more efficiently, reduce costs and maintain compliance with program requirements.
A few unique features of this platform include:
Contact Rosterfy for pricing details.
Submittable is a social impact platform that reduces manual work, allowing you to get your program up and running quickly. They offer a volunteer management solution for corporations to help improve and expand their corporate philanthropy programs.
Submittable offers employee volunteer features such as:
Learn more about Submittable’s pricing tiers here.
Mobilize is a popular volunteer solution for campaigns, advocacy groups, nonprofits, unions and other mission-driven organizations.
Mobilize offers powerful features for improving volunteer engagement, such as:
Contact Mobilize for pricing information.
BetterImpact’s volunteer management system offers features to optimize every step of the volunteer lifecycle, from onboarding and training to ongoing retention.
Organizations turn to this solution for the following features:
Visit the pricing page for information on payment options.
SignUp.com offers free online registration sheets for nonprofit volunteers.
This platform’s features allow volunteer managers to:
Get started with a free plan or a starter plan for $9.99 per month.
Golden’s robust volunteer management platform equips volunteer coordinators with the ability to manage large volunteer groups, whether multiple chapters or regions. This makes this platform effective for both local and enterprise nonprofits, as well as NGOs, foundations, healthcare organizations and other mission-driven organizations.
Additional features of this volunteer management platform include:
Golden’s pricing starts at $1,200 per year for nonprofits. They also offer a free plan.
FestiVOL is an event volunteer management solution for experiences like festivals and music events.
Event organizers can benefit from features like:
Get started with a free account or explore FestiVOL’s license models.
POINT is another volunteer management software option that’s free to get started with and includes the ability to recruit, manage, engage and report on volunteer activities more effectively.
Stand-out features of this volunteer management platform include:
Start with the free plan or upgrade to the Pro plan for $99 per month.
Plan Hero simplifies signups and scheduling for groups, including nonprofits, schools, clubs, and businesses. Nonprofits turn to this platform to manage volunteer shifts, event registrations, and donation collection.
Features of this volunteer scheduling platform include:
Plan Hero offers a free pricing plan with limited functionality. Their Essentials plan contains more features and is $12 per month.
Helper Helper is a volunteer app and web portal for volunteer coordinators. Companies, nonprofits, schools, and Greek life organizations turn to this solution to coordinate and manage service hours.
Helper Helper offers useful volunteer management features including:
Contact Helper Helper for pricing information.
As you review the top volunteer management software solutions to determine which is right for your organization, consider which platform will work best with your nonprofit’s existing software solutions.
If your volunteer management software can easily integrate with your CRM or email marketing system, it will make cross-platform marketing and outreach much simpler. If you’re ready to invest in volunteer management software that facilitates streamlined volunteer and donor management and helps boost program retention, request a Bloomerang demo today.
Looking for additional volunteer management resources? Start here:
