Volunteer management varies based on the types of volunteer roles, size of an organization’s volunteer base, future events, required skills, and more. Because of the various needs of different nonprofit teams and their volunteers, Salesforce has multiple ways to support nonprofits when it comes to managing constituents. We’re going to focus on two for this post: Volunteers for Salesforce and Volunteer Management via Experience Cloud for Nonprofits.
Want the short answer?
If your team is managing a smaller base of volunteers and is at a point where more manual process are sufficient because for now what you really need is a way to organize simple volunteer processes like job creation, shift assignments, volunteer record management, and event creation, you’re going to get a lot of benefit from Volunteers for Salesforce.
Experience Cloud will do the trick if you have a larger number of volunteers and providing self service capabilities would really help your team decrease manual processes and focus on engagement and program expansion..
Go ahead and continue reading for a little more detail on Volunteer Management options!
Volunteers for Salesforce (V4S)
V4S is available in the AppExchange as a native app free to qualifying 501(c)(3) organizations. This package will track and organize information on volunteers and potential volunteers, shifts, volunteer opportunities,
communication, and events. Out the gate nonprofits will see the following added to their existing Salesforce org:
- Volunteer resource tab
- Quick option to add jobs and shifts
- Job management tab
- Shift calendar
- Volunteer search tab
- 10+ fields tailored to volunteer information
- 5+ Campaign fields tailored to events
It’s important to note that the volunteer user experience for V4S is no longer being developed so what you see is what you get in terms of branding and customization. However, a Partner like Elevation Solutions can provide enhancements like adjusting certain fields and adding customizations to V4S visualforce pages.
In our opinion, V4S user experience side (shift calendar, applications, etc.) is a solid option for teams with less than 100 volunteers that don’t have complex volunteer requirements and onboarding processes. A full demo of V4S can be found here.
Volunteer Management using Experience Cloud for Nonprofits
Experience Cloud for Nonprofits takes volunteer programs and management to the next level by supporting constituent engagement and allowing for tailored volunteer, partner and client experiences. Experience
Cloud for Nonprofits may be a consideration if an organization looking to:
- Provide a mobile experience for volunteers
- Deliver custom training opportunities or a knowledge base of resources
- Allow self service for things like onboarding and shift management
- Create a space for volunteer, partner and/or client communication
- Make it possible for volunteers to work on multiple projects and have different levels of access
Self portals allow for the people who interact with a nonprofit’s processes and constituents to do so on their own time. Bottlenecks and silos of information are drastically reduced.
We’re Here to Help
We’re here to help provide the information you need to make the best decision for your volunteer management requirements. Booking@elevation.solutions puts you in contact with our Account Director, Elise Hastings.
