Capturing Volunteer Hours with Event Hours

We don't always have a schedule to use to record volunteer hours. Sometimes it is just a list of the hours they have contributed such as committee hours or board hours.

Capturing hours without a schedule is easy to do and it lets the charity track volunteer hours for grant submissions where hours are requested. Tracking board hours is also useful to know what the commitment to volunteer will be.

Here are a few Campaign Event entries we added to the Lookup Tables.

In our example, we have created a campaign for 2021 GO VOL or Golf Volunteers. Some of the volunteers may require a schedule to handle all the activities on tournament day. There are several volunteers, however, that served on the committee and their hours will be added as Activity Hours based on the time they contributed by month or by week, whatever the group decides.

We will add hours for our committee. It is important to note that once a record is Saved the data remains for a further entry for the existing volunteer.  

Duplicate dates and events are not allowed for the same volunteer.

Add New Record

Upon clicking the Save button the note at the top of the window will change from Add New Record to 

Update Existing Record.

Note that the same volunteer is still present. 

To add a record for a brand new volunteer use the Binoculars icon to select the next volunteer to be entered.

This is an important distinction to ensure volunteer hours are entered correctly.

A periodic check on Volunteer Reports can be used to check hours entry is correct.

The report output is the following listing all volunteers entered for the date shown.

Modifying Volunteer Hours

Volunteer Hours can be modified using the Volunteer Activity Hours window.

Using the Find button select from one of the Options: Fundraising Number, Campaign, Event or Date.

Updates are not allowed where the volunteer's hours have been U2M (updated to master).

The only option available if the hours have been U2M is to Delete them in which case the hours will be deducted from the volunteer's Volunteer Summary.

Saying Thank You

We addressed the ease with which charity staff can thank its volunteers. Saying thank you is easy and should be done on a timely basis. Volunteers are an organizations most important VIPs!