Looking for a Way to Track Volunteer Groups

Len Gutman
Len Gutman
Participant First Anniversary
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions

Hi.

We don't have many individual volunteers, so we really don't need a big volunteer management system. But we do have regular groups come in and cook/serve for our families, and I'd love to include the details in their record in RE NXT. For example, say XYZ Company served dinner on July 12. Where could I put that information in RE NXT so that I could use it – at least be able to pull a list of which groups volunteered during certain time periods.

Any suggestions on what existing feature I could use for this in NXT?

Len
Chief Development & Marketing Officer
Ronald McDonald House Charities® of Central and Northern Arizona

Comments

  • Lee Grisham
    Lee Grisham
    Kudos 5 Third Anniversary Name Dropper Participant

    @Len Gutman none of the volunteer features are enabled in NXT, much less able to build lists from. This is “on the roadmap” for the next 1.5+ years.

    Your best bet is to use Actions or custom fields, but if you are tracking long periods of time and need to keep historical records, Actions are your best bet. They have List availability and can run based off dates.

  • Brenda Gutierrez
    Brenda Gutierrez
    Third Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    @Len Gutman I agree with using actions! You can create an Action Type of “Volunteer” in tables, that way you can easily pull an Action List in NXT and filter by type if you ever want to pull a list with historical data.

  • Jaclyn Whitelock
    Jaclyn Whitelock
    Fourth Anniversary Kudos 2 PowerUp Challenge: Product Update Briefing Feedback Task 3 First Reply

    @Len Gutman good to see another RMHC person on here! We have struggled with getting volunteer info recorded for a number of reasons, most notably getting the info from our external volunteer database (wherein groups will often name themselves in different ways then you would find in RE). That being said, if you have clean data and know who did what, there are certainly ways to record this. I would reccomend against using the volunteer section, for the reasons others have stated- it's simply not able to be used in webview. Additionally, because we don't know quite yet how things will filter into webview with the development of the total webview solution, I would not reccomend developing a new, database view specific process at this point.

    Actions for the details of an interaction are always good, and if they are an established volunteer/volunteer group, the constituent code of volunteer may also be something you want to consider for other pieces of tracking (e.g. including in newsletters and mailings).

    This all being said, to pull a list of a specific participants in a specific activity (e.g. “Home for Dinner Groups between Jan-July 2024”) you will need to ensure things are tracked very carefully and consistently- an action type could work. Always happy to brainstorm with a fellow RMHC person, feel free to reach out to me anytime!

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