Working with volunteers

help_outline Heads up! This is a guide for admins. If you're not an admin yet, ask your Beacon admin to promote you so you can start managing fields.

Important causes can always use a little help from volunteers, and Beacon helps to manage volunteers easily from outreach and application to onboarding and ongoing coordination.

As with many things in Beacon, there's several ways to store and work with data, and how you do it depends a little on your complexity and requirements. We'll cover the main use-cases below, but do feel free to reach out to us if you'd like a little personal advice too.

help_outline Lots of the options below use custom record types. These are available on the Professional and Premium plans.

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link Contents:

1. Storing volunteer information
2. Storing volunteer applications
3. Application forms
4. Tracking hours or shifts
5. Running a recruitment campaign
6. Frequently Asked Questions

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link Storing volunteer information

We would class 'volunteer information' as the main details that are relevant to someone's volunteering. Some common information would be:

• Date joined
• Current status (Pending / Active / Paused / Resigned)
• Roles covered (Office / Fundraising / Race marshal / etc)
• Availability
• Emergency contacts
• Notes relevant to their volunteering
• Equal opportunities monitoring (Race / Ethnicity / Disabilities / etc)*

error_outline *Sensitive information should be stored privately to ensure only the relevant people have access to that information. Use the roles and permissions feature to manage the visibility and access to fields or record types.

There's two main options for where to store your volunteer information

1. Option 1: Store on People records (recommended)
2. Option 2: Store in a new record type

link Option 1: Store on People

For most volunteering, we recommend this is stored on the People records. To keep it tidy, create a new 'List of fields' card for these fields.

You can also set the card's visibility so that you only see this card on people who are actually volunteers. Try setting the visibility filter to 'Type is Volunteer'.

link Option 2: Store in a new record type

If you want to track different information about different aspects of someone's volunteering, you'll need to store the details in separate record type. For example:

Giulia volunteers for both gardening and front of house. You want to store different start dates and different availability for each role that she does, or she has different emergency contacts for each role.

Moritz volunteered for a few months 2 years ago, and is starting again this year. You want to keep each 'set' of volunteering separate, so you can see what he is volunteering for this year and 2 years ago, and you want to easily report on how many hours he has worked in each set.

link Let's get the record type set up...

1. Create a new 'Volunteering' custom record type
2. Add a blank record, and create a new field to point to the Person record of the volunteering
3. Create new fields for the information you want to store (such as those listed above)

link Now let's make it more useful!

• So you know at a glance what this record is, we recommend creating a 'Summary' smart field that can show the person and the role... ...and setting it as this record type's primary field in Settings > Record types (you could then delete the default 'Name' field).

• You can create an 'All volunteering' related record card on this Volunteering record to show you what other volunteering records this person has. Click here to see how.

• You could also create the same card on the Person record, and set it to only be visible when the person is a volunteer. Click here to see how.

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link Storing volunteer applications

Looking after your existing volunteers is one thing, but let's make sure you're set to enlist some new volunteers too!

There's two main options for where to store your volunteer applications

1. Option 1: Store applications in a new record type (recommended)
2. Option 2: Store applications on People

link Option 1: Store applications in a new record type

Applications are most useful as a new record type that we point to the Person who's applying. This means that people can submit multiple applications over time, such as for different roles, and we can independently track their application progression and approval status.

link Let's get the record type set up...

1. Create a new 'Volunteer applications' custom record type
2. Add a blank record, and create a new field to point to the Person record of the applicant
3. Create new fields for the information you want to get from potential volunteers. Some suggestions are below!

Possible fields for your application record:

• Stage/Status (recommended)
• Role(s) interested in (set as single role if you'd like people to apply for one role at a time)
• Previous experience
• References
• Possible start date
• Attachments (ID, original paper form, etc)
• Anything else relevant to your work!

link Now let's make it more useful!

• So you know at a glance what this record is, we recommend creating a 'Summary' smart field that can show the person and the role... ...and setting it as this record type's primary field in Settings > Record types (you could then delete the default 'Name' field).

• When you're moving applications through a process (New, In review, Approved, Declined, etc) it is great to be able to see them in a pipeline view.

• It's also useful to add a 'Volunteering applications' related record card to People so that you can easily see the applications that someone has made. Click here to see how.

link Option 2: Store applications on People

If you want to only store a single application per person (new applications would overwrite old ones), and all information they apply with will be the same across all roles (such as availability), you can store the application details on People records.

link Let's get the fields set up...

1. To keep it tidy, create a new 'List of fields' card for your new information.

You can also set the card's visibility so that you only see this card on people who are actually volunteers. Try setting the visibility filter to 'Type is Volunteer'.

2. Create new fields for the information you want to get from potential volunteers. Some suggestions are below!

Possible fields to add to People:

• Stage/Status (recommended)
• Roles interested in
• Previous experience
• References
• Possible start date
• Attachments (ID, original paper form, etc)
• Anything else relevant to your work!

link Now let's make it more useful!

• When you're moving applications through a process (New, In review, Approved, Declined, etc) it is great to be able to see them in a pipeline view.

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link Application forms

Rather than painstakingly entering the information from paper or other online forms, using a Beacon form will mean the data flows straight into your new record and saves you lots of time!

To receive an application, we're going to use a signup form. Follow the steps in our main signup form guide to set up your form.

When adding sections and fields/questions, some will reference fields that might be on your People or Volunteering record (such as availability, emergency contacts, equal opprtunities info) and some will reference fields from your new Volunteer applications record if you created it.

To collect any information for fields that exist on your Volunteering or Volunteer applications record, you can create a new section with that as the record type.

Some suggested fixed data for your form might be:

• People > Type is 'Volunteer' or 'Potential volunteer'
• Volunteer applications (or People) > Stage/Status is 'New'

check_circle_outline Want to see a finished example? Check out this volunteer application form from our friends at Gunnersbury Park & Museum.

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link Tracking hours or shifts

Beacon is a super flexible CRM - you can store all sorts of information in your account! In this particular case you can log the hours that your volunteers are working, enabling you to report on monthly hours, see who your most dedicated volunteers are, and keep a ledger of all the work completed.

Different organisations will track their volunteers' work in different ways. The two most common are either logging an individual's hours(Ekon volunteered 4 hours on Saturday), or logging a shift and who worked it(the Saturday front of house shift was completed by Maha and Kofi).

For example:

Logging an individual's hours

Ekon volunteered on Saturday for 4 hours. He was volunteering as a race marshal.

check_circle_outline Logging a volunteer's hours are great if they self-submit hours, or if you have a small volunteering team.

Logging a shift

The Saturday front of house shift started at 10am and finished at 2pm, and was worked by Maha and Kofi.

check_circle_outline Logging a shift is better if you personally track their hours, or have a large volunteering team.

Much like applications, volunteer logs are most useful as a new record type that we point to the People who are completing the work. This means that people can complete many shifts over time, in different roles, and we can keep a full history of their contributions.

link Let's get the record type set up...

1. Create a new 'Volunteer hours' or 'Volunteer shifts' custom record type
2. Add a blank record, and create a new field to point to the Person record of the volunteer. If creating 'Volunteer shifts', set this to 'Allow multiple records to be selected'
3. Create new fields for the information you want to log for the volunteering work:

If logging 'Volunteer hours':

• Role/Position (drop-down list)
• Date (date field)
• Hours worked (number field, 2 decimal places; store 2hrs 45mins as 2.75)

If logging 'Volunteer shifts'

• Role/Position (drop-down list)
• Shift start (date AND time field)
• Shift end (date AND time field)
• Shift hours (number field, 2 decimal places, set as a smart field)

check_circle_outline 'Shift hours' formula: Let's calculate the number of hours in this shift!

This formula will calculate the number of hours between the shift's start and end times, whilst also accounting for different days (e.g. it starts at 10PM on Friday but ends 7AM on Saturday). Be sure to use your own field references, as they may be slightly different:

=(DAY({{{c_shift_end}}})-DAY({{{c_shift_start}}}))*24+(HOUR({{{c_shift_end}}})-HOUR({{{c_shift_start}}}))+(MINUTE({{{c_shift_end}}})-MINUTE({{{c_shift_start}}}))/60

link Now let's make it more useful!

• So you know at a glance what this record is, we recommend creating a 'Summary' smart field that can show the important info...
  • A Volunteer hours summary:
  • A Volunteer shift summary:

check_circle_outline The formula we've used for the Volunteer shift summary is:
=CONCATENATE({{{c_role}}},", ",TEXTJOIN("-",TRUE,DAY({{{c_shift_start}}}),MONTH({{{c_shift_start}}}),YEAR({{{c_shift_start}}}))," ",HOUR({{{c_shift_start}}}),":",RIGHT("0"&MINUTE({{{c_shift_start}}}),2))

...and setting it as this record type's primary field in Settings > Record types (you could then delete the default 'Name' field).

• It's also useful to add a 'Volunteer hours' related record card to People so that you can see the times that someone has volunteered, and easily create a new entry for them. For Volunteer hours, click here to see how. For Volunteer shifts, click here to see how.
• Lastly, a 'Hours volunteered' sumary metric card can show you a total of all the hours volunteered by this person. Sum up your 'Hours worked' or 'Shift hours' field.

link Self-submit volunteer hours

If you're using the 'Logging an individual's hours' method, you can also set up a form to have volunteers self-submit their hours (or volunteer leaders can use it to submit hours on their behalf without needing access to Beacon!).

1. We'll create a new 'Signup' form.

2. Let's keep the form nice and simple, with just the 'Personal details' section, and a new section for our Volunteer hours fields.

You likely only need a few fields here:

• Date
• Role

• Hours worked

• Set the 'After success' option to 'Show submit again button'. This makes it easy for volunteers to log several days one after the other.

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link Running a recruitment campaign

Campaigns aren't just for fundraising, they can also be useful for tracking your success with recruiting new volunteers!

1. Create a new Campaign called something like 'Volunteer recruitment Jan 2021'
2. Add a field to your Volunteer applications to be able to indicate the campaign they applied through.
3. Copy your application form, and add Campaign = 'Volunteer recruitment Jan 2021' to the Volunteer application fixed data of this new application form.
4. Use the link to this form in your recruitment emails/marketing, and anyone's application that comes via that link will have the campaign set.

link Filtering examples using this campaign

• Volunteer applications from the campaign:
  Campaign = 'Volunteer recruitment Jan 2021'

• People who have applications from the campaign:
  Related Volunteer application > 0, where the Campaign = 'Volunteer recruitment Jan 2021'

• Volunteer hours/shifts completed by people who have an application from the campaign:
  Volunteer(s) meets criteria, Related Volunteer application > 0, where the Campaign = 'Volunteer recruitment Jan 2021'

link Charts examples using this campaign

• Number of applications from this campaign over time:
  • Record type = Volunteer applications
  • Metric = Number of Volunteer applications
  • Grouping = Created date
  • Filters: Campaign = Volunteer recruitment Jan 2021'

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link Frequently Asked Questions

link My volunteering requirements are a bit different, or more complex. Can I still use Beacon?

Absolutely! We've listed the most common approaches but if you have a different process for volunteer management, need greater visibility or detail in any area, or even want to import information from volunteer scheduling software, do get in touch. We can give you some advice, or even set it all up for you.