Volunteer Tab in Raiser's Edge

Zandra Henderson

Good morning, Does anyone use the volunteer tab in Raiser's Edge? I am scheduled to take the training next week, but wanted some insight on it and any best practices.

JoAnn Strommen

@Zandra Henderson welcome to the BB community forums.

We purchased the volunteer module several years ago. Demo looked so promising and we needed a tracking system. We knew the issue would be having time for data entry.

Now several years later, there is only data on a handful of records enter by alumni staff and experimenting by myself. I found it awkward the way job assignments and the general window are used and displayed. New alumni staff hired after getting it decided not to use it for alumni volunteering at all as they do not like it. So, we will be dropping when contract expires. I did fight to keep it as new staff person did not really try it and got caught up in the medical needs and checklist and other parts that are not as relevant to us.

At the product update session or one of the town halls question was asked about this module and response seemed to be that BB recognized they could not do some processes as well as other partner vendors and all but recommended that option.

For what it's worth, that's our experience.

Joe Moretti

@Zandra Henderson I have used the volunteer module over a decade ago and unless it has improved immensely, save your money. I thought it was not a very good module at all, convoluted and complicated to use.

Zandra Henderson

@Joe Moretti Thank you for your insight. Very helpful.

Zandra Henderson

@JoAnn Strommen Thank you for your insight.

Jennifer Kluh

@Zandra Henderson

Nicole Holt

@Zandra Henderson We have the volunteer tab, but could not use it for volunteer management. We had to go with a 3rd party (we're using VolunteerHub) that synchs info back to the vol tab and is a reasonable way to manage scheduling. We are a volunteer-heavy organization (more so before covid, but still), with multiple volunteer shift opportunities per day, so your mileage may vary.