Volunteer set up

Annette Rurka
Annette Rurka
Ninth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions
We are starting to set up Volunteer in Raiser's Edge.   Is there anyone who uses it willing to share their setup and table information along with procedures with us?   Even if you only use a basic setup we would be most grateful to get it so we can implement it and then tweak it once we start using it.

Thanks, Annette

 

Comments

  • Elizabeth Johnson
    Elizabeth Johnson Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply All-Star Challenge: End of Year Fundraising Toolkit
    We are relatively new to the Volunteer module as well. We gained it when we moved to NXT and it hasn't been a huge priority for us. We don't log volunteer hours but I'd like to move our volunteer info currently tracked in attributes to this tab so the attributes are less cluttered and work better in NXT. I would also like it to be useful in NXT (I know this is not the NXT forum) so I have nothing to offer and am curious to know Annette Rurka‍ did anyone reply directly to you? Are you still looking for answers? Did you search the community before posting this?
  • Annette Rurka
    Annette Rurka
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant
    Elizabeth, 


    I searched the forum before I posted this inquiry on it.  I found volunteer postings but nothing about setup.  I didn't receive any direct replies regarding this.  I'm taking Raiser's Edge: Volunteer training this afternoon so I'm hopeful that I'll find it helpful.  I did find a Facebook group and a user that was helpful but I haven't tested anything yet.


    Thanks, Annette

     
  • Elizabeth Johnson
    Elizabeth Johnson Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply All-Star Challenge: End of Year Fundraising Toolkit
    Annette Rurka‍ Thanks so much for letting me know you searched the forums and that it saved you time. I'm sure you got a lot out of the BBU training. I always do. Love the instructors and it is helpful that they engage the participants so much - so much to learn from everyone :)


    Do you or Shaun Grace‍ also have NXT? I'd love to know how that will weigh into your decision on how you use it.


    Healthy thoughts,

    Elizabeth
  • Annette Rurka
    Annette Rurka
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant
    Shaun,  Thank you for passing along your table values from your set up. We hope to start using Volunteer in the near future so any table values will help.  I'll be doing set up and jobs creation in RE but the staff who use volunteers  at our organization who utilize RE and RE NXT, hope to use RE NXT to track their volunteers.  Have a good day everyone.       Annette
  • Shaun Grace
    Shaun Grace
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant
    Elizabeth Johnson‍ we do have NXT. We can view the volunteer job assignments there, but currently are not able to edit or add new ones. I'm sure that will come.


    We also use the start and end dates. If someone is on a board, for example, and leaves and returns later, we enter a new job assignment for the same thing with new dates. That way we can keep a record of their activity and also query based on date.


    Shaun
  • Dan Snyder
    Dan Snyder Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 March 2026 Challenge: Answered Questions Commented in Discussion
    Shaun Grace,‍ I like the categories you have set up and for the back end reporting, I think they could be quite helpful. However, I found the NXT display of volunteer information to be not helpful for tracking these types of volunteers for a few reasons.


    1. It only lists the first and last assignment based on start date, regardless of whether they are still active volunteers

    2. It only lists two assignments and there is no indication that there is more information.

    3. You can't select what fields to show in the volunteer tile so you would be missing that category information for example.


    I've included a screen shot below showing the two views side by side as a better illustration, but I am curious what feedback you have received from front line fundraisers or others who may only use the information in NXT?

    203cd713e4ace93ce16814286078d5eb-huge-vo

     
  • Shaun Grace
    Shaun Grace
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant
    Dan Snyder‍, I definitely agree with you, the NXT view does leave a lot to be desired. We are still doing all our reporting for volunteer activity out of RE, so it isn't a big issue yet. As we have only recently started to really use this module the fundraisers still look to RE for this data.


    Shaun

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