FOR THE LOVE OF VOLUNTEERS! How do you choose the right technology to manage them?

Session: #17NTCvolunteerlove Notes: http://po.st/17NTCvolunteerlove

LOREN DRUMMOND DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGERwta.org

KAREN UFFELMAN PRINCIPAL & SENIOR STRATEGISTpercolatorconsulting.com

SALLY KLEINFELDTDIRECTOR OF CONSULTING SERVICESjazkarta.com

What we’re covering in this session

• What do you need?• Off-the-shelf options• Custom systems• Case study• Q&A

What do you need?

What do you have now?

Who needs/gets access?

Who are your stakeholders?

What questions should you ask them?

Customize or streamline your processes?

Budget and timeline?

Remember!

1. What do you have now? 2. Who will need to use it? 3. Who are the stakeholders to bring into the discussion?4. What questions should you ask them?5. Customize the system or streamline your internal processes?6. Budget & timeline?

Off-the-shelf systems

Pros

No technical debtSomeone else owns the code and it’s their responsibility, not yours

Low upfront investment (sometimes)Your initial costs are likely to be much less

Grab & GoBecause you’re not building anything, off-the-shelf solutions mean you don’t have to wait

Access to training and documentationGood volunteer management apps should include user documentation and many will also provide training. You may also have access to user communities which can be great for support.

Cons

You have to match your process to their featuresThere will always be compromise between your workflow and an off-the-shelf feature set

Ongoing costs may be higherDepending on the platform you select, your ongoing license fees may constitute significant expense

You aren’t in controlIf your needs change, your option is to change to a new platform (however, some app providers are responsive to market requests:)

Integration?Your off-the-shelf solution may offer no integration with your database/CRM (Constituent Relationship Management system).

Hidden costs of no integration

Some off-the-shelf examples

Volunteers for Salesforce $

Cervis $$Volunteer Hub $$

Hands on Connect $$$Samaritan eRecruiter $$$

How much does it cost? It’s Free!

Will it integrate with my CRM? If you use Salesforce (comes with NPSP)

Who uses it? 9,000+ organizations

What do you get?• Customizable site.com calendaring that can be managed by volunteers

• Volunteer dashboards of historical and upcoming activities

• Volunteers can search by jobs, locations, times, and registration

• Language localization

How much does it cost? $300 - $1,800 annually

Will it integrate with my CRM? API, and also advertises integrations with common nonprofit database platforms

Who uses it? Salvation Army, Feeding America, NPR radio stations

What do you get?• Volunteer Application/Registration that integrates with your website• Create Unlimited Events & Post Events Online• Track Volunteer Interest Areas and Service Hours• Customizable Event Sign-In Rosters• Text/email messaging to volunteers

How much does it cost? $600 setup, $800 - $3,000 annually

Will it integrate with my CRM? One time setup fee for Blackbaud integration

Who uses it? Humane Society, PAWS, St. Judes, Shriners

What do you get?• Event-specific Entry Pages• Virtual kiosk for volunteer self check-in• Mobile-ready (ish)

• Text messaging to volunteers

How much does it cost? $2,500 - 10,000 annually

Will it integrate with my CRM? Salesforce

Who uses it? Habitat for Humanity, LA Works, Chicago Cares

What do you get?• Customizable calendaring with jobs and activities

• Tiered privacy for volunteer opportunities and team management

• Social media integration

• Integrated with HandsOn Network

How much does it cost? 1st Year: $2,500 - $15,000Ongoing: $2,000 - $3,000 annually Addt’l $$ for more users and add-on features

Will it integrate with my CRM? API, Custom integrations

Who uses it? USO, Smithsonian Institution, State and Local Gov’ts

What do you get? A LOT: Designed to be an all in one CRM solutionFront End: Volunteer portal, Surveys, Self-scheduling, Background checksBack End: Reporting, Emailing, Scheduling, AutomationSupport: Tiered customer support, Tiered discovery and customization

Are they all starting to blur together?

START WITH THESE QUESTIONS

REQUIREMENTS/BUDGET/FLEXIBILITY/INTEGRATION?

What are your requirements?

Are you flexible and

can you adjust the way you do things?

How important is it that your

system integrates with

your CRM?

What’s your budget?

(short-term and ongoing)?

Remember!

Ready to go shopping?• Watch demos • Ask to talk to references• Try out the systems

yourself: do a volunteer stint with an organization that uses the system you’re interested in

Custom systems

Pros

Complete controlFocus on what matters to your organization

The power of integrationWith a CRM, member portal, or another system

No ongoing license costsYou built it, you own it

Lower staff costsTailoring to your process increases efficiency

Cons

Significant upfront investmentCustom solutions can be expensive on the front-end

Mistakes can be expensiveBeware of bad decisions

Maintenance costsA custom system needs to be supported, tweaked, improved as you learn from using it - BUT continuous improvement of your system, your processes, your engagement strategy is a good thing

When do you need a custom system?

Unusual work

When do you need a custom system?

Need for integration

When do you need a custom system?

Existing custom system

What does expensive mean?

Low end: $0 - $10,000

Midrange: $10,000 - $100,000

High end: $100,000 - $500,000 or more

Factors that increase expense

Polished visual design

Ability to compromise

Multi-team coordination or buy-in

Communications

ITBoard

Director?Membership

Data migration

Photo by Alan Bauer

How to control expenses

Thorough discovery

Flexible implementation process

Remember!

Custom systems have many advantages

Custom systems can be expensive

Control costs with:

• Good discovery

• Flexible implementation process

Case study

Our community

In 2016: + 4,700 volunteers

+ 150,000 hours

+ 240 trails

= $ 3.9 million donated labor to public lands

Leadership levels

• Green hat

• Orange hat

• Blue hats

Our community

What we had (in 1999)

Insert photo or graph (or screenshot)

How it grew

Insert photo or graph

Why we needed something custom

● We needed to create some efficiencies (online and off)

● Our data culture matured

● We wanted to improve the volunteer experience (in really specific ways)

● We wanted to empower our volunteer leadership

Budget

Pre-Discovery

Discovery

10 - 25% of project budget should go to discovery (WTA spent 16% of their total phase 1 budget on Discovery)

What you should expect to cover during discovery:

• User requirements

• Architecture

• UX and visual design

UX Design

Importance of UX designAn expert should define how things work - for this project we worked with Ethical UX

Importance of designer-developer communication Avoid surprises - have developers review wireframes and designers review user stories.

Flow diagramsChart complex functionality that goes from page to page.

Wireframes Define blocks of content and functionality on a given page, without styling.

Platform choices

Too complicated, too messy

Too lightweight or complicated or expensive

Just right

One Size Fits All

Let’s build it!

Implementation

• 12 months, 22 iterations, 177 user stories, 903.5 story points

• 1 WTA project owner

• 2-5 person WTA testing team

• 1 strategist

• 1 project manager

• 2-4 Salesforce developers

• 3-5 Python developers

• 1 UX designer

• 1 graphic designer

Timeline

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

January 13, 2015

January 18, 2016

Launch!

22 Development iterations

UX Design Visual Design & Theming

Data Migr

TestingDiscovery

wta.org/volunteer

Your turn