Tag: technology

As a purveyor of volunteer management software, you would not be surprised to hear me evangelise about the importance of technology in volunteer management and the potential opportunities for efficiency, scale and reduced operating costs. In this article, I want to explore what technologies we think are important now and will be important in the future, but more importantly than the technology itself. I want to look at how the technology works with the human experience to build stronger more coherent communities.

I don’t need to tell the readers of this blog, that volunteers and volunteer management do not easily fit into any single box. Unlike employees, the relationship between volunteers and the organisations they give their time to is unique and comes with its own set of unique risks and considerations. So what technologies can you leverage to make your volunteer management more effective?

HR Software

Let’s start with the dry and boring, but essential and important stuff. Did you know that only 5% of charities currently have and use HR software? That means 95% of charities are not safeguarding their volunteers. That is a massive number who may be leaving themselves exposed to GDPR and data-breach fines.

Organisations, big and small, must ensure they fulfil their duty of care to their volunteers. They need to keep them safe and ensure they are appropriately trained and inducted. They also need to make sure only people with the appropriate skills and training are allowed to access certain higher-risk roles. Some voluntary opportunities carry significant risks for the volunteer, the service users and the organisation itself, and these risks need to be mitigated.

To ensure an organisation is compliant with employment law, health and safety law and GDPR, HR software provides a methodology to track and report on an ever-changing workforce. From general trends on the demographics of your volunteers, how many men, women etc, to which of my volunteer’s criminal records check is coming up for renewal.

Having all your volunteer records available, searchable and customisable means you can quickly identify training needs, skills gaps and individuals who may pose a potential risk to the organisation or have the ability to do more for the organisation.

Volunteers are not employees! So the data you hold on them is different to that you might have on your paid staff. Under GDPR you must have a valid reason for holding data that might be considered personal or sensitive. Volunteers can be deployed across various business areas and as such certain information will be required to be shared with managers, employees and partners about that volunteer so that they can be deployed safely and appropriately.

Your HR software needs to be flexible enough to deal with the unique nature of volunteers whilst being robust enough to protect the individuals and the organisation.

The question we ask organisations to consider: is your HR system the right place for your volunteer’s data? If not what are your options?

Brokerage

Great! you have a list of potential volunteers, you know a little about them; their demographic information, maybe a little history on their experiences. What do you do next?

Getting the right people into the right roles is the difference between a successful volunteer programme and a failed volunteer programme. How effective your brokerage is, determines how well volunteers are matched. We think the key elements of effective digital brokerage are:

High-quality information so volunteers and organisations can make informed judgements on what suits them and what they want to do.
Effective search and filter tools, that enable users to quickly find what is important to them presented in a way that lets them scan large volumes of information quickly. Time, location, keyword, accessibility are all the types of key data points users want to be able to refine their search criteria by.
Opportunity brokerage that gives the volunteer ownership of their experience but that also allows organisations to check and limit opportunities based on experience, skills, qualifications and available references.
Matching people to opportunities means you need to have what people are looking for. This involves doing two things, having enough opportunities that your volunteers have lots of choices and having real insight into what your volunteers are searching for.
Having enough opportunities to create real choice is a challenge, especially when you first get going, so a system that can pull opportunity data from other sources would be useful.
Being able to share your opportunities across other national brokerage sites via API‘s

Understanding your volunteers and what they are looking for, means you can inform your opportunity providers on what they should be offering, and what keywords they should be used to describe their offer so people can find them.

Do you need brokerage..? Is your brokerage resource-intensive and require your staff to spend too much time data inputting?

Customer Relationship Software (CRM)

I appreciate volunteers are not customers! And they are not Employees! But they do occupy a space in between these two entities. They do have a choice over how they spend their time, they need to be looked after like you would regular customers. So how do you do this?

An effective CRM provides a set of tools that allows you to communicate and measure the effectiveness of those communications with your customers.

Being able to create lists of volunteers based on experience, demographic information or skill and qualification means you can target emails, newsletters or SMS text messages. Tracking the impact of these communications in regards to the performance of your opportunities enables you to understand which of your communications are most effective and perhaps why.

A CRM will provide you with a method for tracking interactions, identifying volunteers who are suited to certain opportunities and will make it easy to use the digital communication tools to reach out to these people.

36% of potential volunteers experienced barriers to volunteering due to potential communication issues, e.g. a lack of response to their application, or lack of clarity and understanding about the role. Could your customer relationship management be limiting the number of volunteers your organisation receives?

Should your volunteers be in your customer relationship software, or is there somewhere else they might be better placed..?

Social

Whatever your view on social media, you can’t ignore it if you are looking to engage an audience.

Social media provides a range of potential benefits for organisations and provides a powerful method of growing your audience via volunteer’s social groups and followers. Sharing opportunities and experiences that you are passionate about with your social media audience will improve your opportunity engagement.

Looking at how you integrate social features into your volunteer’s experience will enhance retention and make your programme more sustainable, help build a feeling of community and allow you to share incentives and future opportunities. Can you use technology that allows you to create groups and communities?

Existing applications such as Facebook, What’s App, Twitter and Linked In all provide tools, but you must also consider that these services have some hidden costs in their use. How exposed are your uses to their data being used by these large organisations, do you as an organisation have the control you need over these external applications to protect your users and your organisation’s reputation, do you want to share all your user’s data with these 3rd party social networks?

It’s important to know your volunteer demographics well enough to be able to target them effectively on social media. The top social media platform used differs by generation – Gen Z (19 and under) use YouTube, Twitter, and Snapchat the most, while the older generations (20 – 70+) spend most of their time on Facebook. (Mintel 2019)

You want to take advantage of the benefits of social media and the potential for your work to become a viral sensation without the inherent risks these platforms pose. You must invest time in developing your organisation’s online persona, growing an engaged audience on the platforms that you identify as appropriate for your volunteers and managing that profile to ensure you stay relevant. To do this requires considerable staff resource and knowledge of the platform to use it effectively.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could find a way to generate social content and link to your accounts.? Would it also be great if your volunteers and providers can share and engage socially as well.?

TeamKinetic

Our ambition at TeamKinetic was to develop a platform that allowed a volunteer manager to take advantage of all the above technology in one place. A platform that was specially designed for working with the unique considerations that arise with volunteers.

TeamKinetic is volunteer-centric – built to make the life of the volunteer as easy as possible. Built to allow volunteers to take ownership of their experiences, to take advantage of their social media and allow them to easily communicate with opportunity providers and other volunteers.

Designed for the entire volunteer life-cycle: from recruitment, through onboarding to deployment, and then with tools that would lead to better volunteer retention. TeamKinetic provides a framework of checks and balances to ensure the volunteers are safe, the wider service users are safe, and the organisation can meet its legal responsibilities and deliver high-quality, insight-driven experiences for its volunteers.

TeamKinetic is built on the principals of open data, with tools that allow the linking and sharing of certain data. This approach means organisations can use TeamKinetic in isolation or as a ‘best in category’ tool or they can link it to other software they use to create a more complete picture of their business. Simple to use features allow data and reporting exports as well as built-in data sharing functions. This allows quick and simple sharing with other brokers and applications.

For most organisations, having multiple applications, software and systems can be too complicated and expensive. TeamKinetic’s ambition is to provide all these services, and the ability to link to more as required, in a specialised volunteer management product. Our hope is that it is both cost-effective and feature-rich. This approach means you can have an ‘available any time’, web-based service that has a free mobile application, powerful data tools, customisable design features, and is built for the express job of managing volunteers. A service that is updated and improved every year at a cost that will not break the bank.

Finally, as a specialist in this sector, TeamKinetic has vast experience in how to use the available technology to get the very best from your volunteers. Our extensive support means volunteer managers can get good advice from both TeamKinetic and other volunteer managers who use the TeamKinetic system, sharing good practice and learning from each other. TeamKinetic’s value does not end with its software. Its true value is in shared best practice and the use of high-quality data that allows all our customers to look at ways in which they can improve their volunteers’ experiences.

If you want to see how TeamKinetic can help you, please feel free to get in touch here. We would love to give you the tour and show you how TeamKinetic could change your world. Just get in touch and we can arrange a 30-minute demo and 30-day free trial, so you can see for yourself how much more you might be able to do.

How to adopt digital technology into your organisation

By Steve Hall

On 25th June 2019

In Community, News & Views, Volunteer Management

Evidently, over the last 10-20 years, technology has made big advancements and has impacted almost everything that we do. The debate still goes on however, there are those that have really embraced it and those that want nothing to do with it at all.

Failure to innovate

Volunteer Management Software, Netflix, Blockbusters, Volunteering, Better Impact, Volunteer software, volunteer managers — ***Netflix Pacman eating a block busters sign***

Innovation is the development of a certain value that meets a new need of your volunteers, staff, supporters. In the early 2000s Blockbusters was one of the biggest DVD rental companies in the world. But they failed to innovate and adapt, which led to their demise. Blockbusters didn’t envision a future for digital, after enormous opportunities to take over Netflix. Now, look at who’s leading the way for streaming services world wide.

Toys R Us is another example of an organisation that wasn’t willing to change due to its dominance in the market, that was until Amazon showed up!

With the browsing experience becoming digitised, most of us can find anything we are looking for on our phone from the comfort of our home. Toys R Us could have shifted to offer a fully integrated online experience but instead was left stranded with no online presence and the near-impossible task of catching up.

The take from this is that the world is changing and the third sector just as much as any private organisation will be affected. But the true lesson is small and large organisations alike need to continue to put time and budget into innovation or prepare to fail!

Why all third-sector organisations need to be using digital technology

Technology is present in everyone’s daily life, from how we get about, shop and communicate. So it’s no surprise that technology is developing the connection between volunteers and non-profit organisations.

As of June 2018, 55.1% of the world’s population had internet access. More than 3 billion people around the world now use social media each month, with 9 in 10 of those users accessing their chosen platforms via mobile devices.

So why do all third-sector organisations need to be using digital technology?

Tell your story to the world

volunteering, world wide web, volunteer management software, charity, volunteer systems, Free volunteer management, — *World Wide Web image*

People can’t support you if they don’t know who you are. So having a strong website is one of the most important resources organisations can have.

A website can also allow visitors to donate, view events and even volunteer for you. Implementing these functions can make it easier to develop relationships with a wider audience and increase support towards your organisation.

Having your own volunteer website allows visitors to interact with your organisation directly. A good website will communicate your mission to the world and showcase your community impact!

Don’t go extinct, get online

Volunteer management software, volunteering, volunteer management system, technology, cloud based, social media, non-profit, charity — *Image of social media icons*

If you’re not online, you’re pretty much non-existent. All non-profit organisations should be active on social media and engaging with hundreds of potential supporters and volunteers.

Social media can have a huge impact on non-profit organisations. Individuals can volunteer from the comfort of their homes with the use of just a mobile. A great example of this one of our international clients Humanity Road.

Humanity Road pioneered the new generation of humanitarian relief through social listening. When disaster strikes, Humanity Road helps to solve critical needs through innovative applications of technology and the power of social media!

Take advantage of cloud based software

volunteer management software, website, cloud based software, volunteering, volunteer systems, volunteer managers, sport — *Cloud based software image*

Often the goal for a non-profit is to achieve organisation milestones whilst keeping operating costs down. Switching to a volunteer management software may seem costly, but the reality is, IT’S NOT!

Cloud-based software can save you hundreds even thousands of pounds in the long-term. Having a SaaS (Software as a server) means you only pay for what you need and most cloud solutions scale on demand to meet changing needs.

Good cloud-based software will allow you to work from anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection. With more people using mobiles than ever, this on-the-go access can transform and increase opportunities amongst your team.

If you’re still unsure try our FREE volunteer management system and give your volunteer program the revamp it needs.

What TeamKinetic is doing to make a better impact

We believe that technology has the capability to change the world for good. TeamKinetic helps to build better volunteer communities by providing great tools for volunteer managers that save time, make a better impact and improve insight. Our goal is to make volunteering easy for everyone no matter what. But don’t take our word for it, why not check out our customer review

For more information on volunteer management software visit our website or contact one of our team members on – 0161 914 5747

Understanding the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the internet for volunteer managers

By Chris Martin

On 30th August 2018

In Community, Policy and Operations, Security and GDPR, Volunteer Management

TeamKinetic believes that the internet has the potential for transformation in our world comparable to the Gutenberg’s printing press , but if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that the internet reflects both the very best and very worst of human nature. What do volunteer managers need to know about the internet to keep their volunteers safe?

I’ll provide some useful resources to give some context and understanding of the darker side of the internet and how we have used this to try and inform our policies and procedures as an organisation and what we think you should consider as an organisation as you become more reliant on digital platforms.

The internet provides almost limitless opportunity for grassroots social action, citizen journalism, voluntary engagement and so many other potentially positive outcomes, but we are naive if we do not recognise and consider the risks.

Jon Ronson, journalist and author recently wrote “So you’ve been publicly shamed” on how the networked effect of the internet can lead to individuals being ostracised. His entertaining and occasionally dark work examined some of the difficult issues around user-generated content and how people’s mistakes are amplified and stored for eternity in the memory of cyber-space. Ronson’s storytelling introduces the reader to the inherent risk for normal people to get caught up in exceptional events and how little control they have over these events once a post goes viral.

Sarah Jeong, now of the New York Times Editorial Board, Vice and The Verge has written extensively on the internet’s inherent problems and her book, “The Internet of Garbage” gives informed insights on the risks and unintended consequences of poor policy and practice and how that can impact organisations and their users. Jeong discusses at length some of the nuanced problems the modern internet has created for itself and how copyright law is being misused as a method of content suppression and removal, due in part to lack of other recourse to individuals who find themselves at the centre of a viral internet storm.

I mention these two texts as they are accessible and informed, and for those who are looking to understand the internet, they will help non-technology people appreciate the inherent risks of a highly networked world, the very real risks that can affect everyday users and voluntry organisations alike.

TeamKinetic is aware that our volunteer management platform has the potential to recruit volunteers in almost any situation. It is effective and easy to use and can be administered remotely with high efficiency to deploy individuals or teams of volunteers at short notice. These characteristics are great if you run a charity, an event or a university internship program, but they are equally great if you are recruiting individuals to partake in less positive endeavours. The creators of any platform which allows users to create content and communicate with each other must be aware of the risks as well as the benefits.

Recent legislation such as GDPR, goes some way to help individuals protect their privacy and increase their control over websites and platforms they engage with. It also gives businesses and organisations the chance to audit exactly what information they collect, why they collect it, and what they are going to do with it. This was a revealing process for us and was very worthwhile. All legislation, however well intentioned, runs the risk of “unintended consequence“. As responsible curators of TeamKinetic we have to embrace some basic values by which to manage our site.

What are our ideals and values?

As an organisation, we have put honesty at the centre of our company values. This is a type of statement that is easy to say, but much harder to live by. We aspire to offer honesty in our pricing, in our customer service and our product.

Our role in supporting the organisations that use TeamKinetic to manage their volunteers goes beyond the provision of software. We want to build a community of volunteers and volunteer managers that can share practice and policy, develop professional connections and work to strengthen the sector as a whole through the development of consistent standards in the wider information technology infrastructure of volunteering.

We want to be able to share expert knowledge and insight based on our user data and experience to help the sector become better at recruiting, deploying and recognising their volunteer’s hard work. We commit to making our data available to researchers, and the resulting insights and findings will be freely available to all who have a valid interest in the voluntary sector.

Finally, we want to create an amazing experience for all our users, that means the best technology, built in a way that is easy to use and importantly every user is protected by good policies and excellent support. Our volunteer-centric approach to development will remain the centre of our business operation.

We hope you will join us on our continued mission to be part of the ‘good’ internet and we look forward to your thoughts on how we can do this.

Why TeamKinetic has gone mobile

By Chris Martin

On 4th May 2017

In News & Views, Policy and Operations, Technical Updates

As TeamKinetic makes it iOS application available to its customers and existing volunteers, we discuss the evidence that has driven this change and our hopes of making volunteering even more accessible.

The march of technology is relentless, and the pressure on organisations in sport and the 3^rd sector to offer multi-channel and multi-platform solutions to better engage with their stakeholders continues to grow as they compete for attention against a sea of other content. These trends mean that making TeamKinetic available on mobile was essential.

mobile usage by country – Comscore

The data shows that the time spent on mobile has surpassed that spent on other web-enabled devices, and this trend is consistent in developed and developing economies. It is not a case of “if mobile is important?”, but to acknowledge its predominance in the decision-making process for future development.

Dominance of multi-platform applications

The evidence is clear; consumers now expect a multi-platform product that allows them to switch between the different versions of the platform, undertaking some tasks on their desktop and others on their phone or tablet. With other data suggesting these browsing choices are time of day dependent.

on-line device usage by time of day

When looking at how to engage with your audience, in our case volunteers. We have to accept these trends and offer a product that can cater to the desires and expectations of the user.

Using the mobile platform, both in its native application format and via the mobile browser, not only have we been able to increase the potential reach and time available to browse, we can also access additional functionality.

The use of GPS and geo-location services, open-auth protocols to make signing in and staying signed in easier and using the camera or address book are all examples of technologies that work particularly well on a phone to improve customer experience. Our founding belief at TeamKinetic is to always keep the volunteer and their experience central to our design philosophy, so the decision to create the app was easy to make.

This is our first step of many as a truly multi-platform company, no doubt we have plenty to learn if we want to recreate our desktop experience on a much smaller device, but working with our customers, that’s our ambition. The rewards for success for our customers, the Sports Clubs, charities and communities are potential too great to ignore.

We must constantly challenge ourselves to look at our organisations and consider how well we provide services and how accessible they are. We must push to deliver to stakeholders the experience they have come to expect.

TeamKinetic products will provide that level of service at a fraction of the cost of in-house development. Please get in touch to see a demo of our system and how it might improve your stakeholder engagement, build your community and change your world.

Not another IT system!!!

By Chris Martin

On 19th May 2016

In News & Views

Many of the organisations we work with offer the same reservations about initiating a new Volunteer Management System.

“Do we really need another IT system? Why can’t we just use our CRM system?”

We are living in a time of rapid technological change and organisations are fighting to keep up with that change whilst battling for attention in an increasingly busy marketplace. Its my aim to try and answer the question above but to also give you some food for thought on how you may future proof your IT infrastructure and grow your organisations ability to effectively communicate with your fans, members, coaches, volunteers, officials and, other stakeholders.

We live in the Post PC world where your various users have choice over how they want to keep in contact with you. This includes phones, tablets, computers, smart TV’s, PC’s and Macs as well as old world technology like magazines and news letters. Netflix has come to dominate the “Video on demand” space through making sure its service is ubiquitous, that is it is available on all platforms. Now I’m not suggesting you are Netflix, but the lesson is clear, know where your users are and prioritize those platforms for development.

Another important lesson from Netflix is to make sure the experience is consistent across those platforms. If people have a bad experience on their phone with your web site or app, their opinion will be diminished across any other digital content you offer.

Not only do we have so many ways to plug in to the digital world, we have an even larger range of software options and channels to communicate through that space; Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Chat Bots, Google. These channels provide vast infrastructure and reach but as more and more options become available the cost of keeping all these relevant and interesting becomes harder and harder, also your audience gets further and further segmented making each option less attractive for total market reach.

How do you create an infrastructure that will be able to continue to cope with the endless developments that are coming down the line? Can you build in a manner that allows you create you own communities? If you build your own community do you know how to track its opinions and trends effectively? Can you extract value from that relationship commercially, operationally and socially?

Let start with CRM and the problems it solve and creates.

There is a clue in the name, Customer Relationship Management. In its self it seems to make sense and you could argue it would solve some of the issues I have pointed out above, but let me explain what the issues are:

“Customers”. If I’m selling widgets this approach makes sense, but in a sporting context who are your customers, is it the clubs, the members, the helpers, the fans?

This “customer” focused approach does not encompass the complexities your organisation faces. You do have examples where there is clearly a customer relationship and taking elements from good customer service is never a bad idea, but there are many other examples where you are stakeholder, signposting service, community leader, advisor, service provider, trainer and manager. Your relationship with your “customers” is vastly more complex than most retail or service organisations. Each user group listed has a very specific set of requirements from you.

CRM also makes the assumption that everything will go through you directly as an organisation. What we have learnt over the last 7 years is that communities really thrive when you, a central governing organisation, give your members, customers and interested parties, the tools they need to be independent and to take ownership of their own destiny.

I am not suggesting that a CRM policy is not important, and you should consider it carefully but not at the expense of the end user. Your CRM should be flexible to allow you to work with other solutions. It should provide a data and insight backbone through which you can track opportunities and direct contact. But as the world becomes more complex it is unreasonable to assume it can undertake every aspect of your business communications strategy.

Our particular area of expertise is Volunteer Management, they are not members often, do not always self-identify as Volunteers and they are defiantly not customers. Their roles vary from helpers to chair of your board. Our system provides specific tools for the specific job. Events management, schedule setting, opportunity brokerage, skills mapping and training to name some headline functions.

Providing high powered tools that do a specific job very well, gives your organisation the opportunity to see exponential performance improvement and the ability to achieve new levels of scale.

Our volunteer platform allows Manchester City Council to provide a service for over 7000 users with only one staff member.

So how do you get your CRM system and other specialist systems working more effectively together to get the best outcomes for your users?

Reduce account duplication and sign up fatigue.

Leveraging open auth ecosystems like sign in with Facebook, Google and so on, reduces friction for your users and also reduces the duplication of accounts. As a bonus it also gives a smooth route to encouraging users to share their experiences.

Don’t force square pegs into round holes.

Membership, CRM, content management, social media management; each have very specific requirements, make sure you have the right tool for the job and that they are as tightly coupled as possible so you can share data and get better insights.

Software as a service (SaaS)

SaaS has led to software solutions that are web based and available across multiple platforms at a lower cost. These solutions normally offer specific tools that you can subscribe to as and when you need them.

Don’t get hung up on what you think you want to know

If you provide an easy user experience that encourages user engagement, they will provide you with more insight and data than you will know what to do with. Try and keep your technology focused but most important useful to the end user. If it feels like its more about what you want to know rather than what the end user gets out of using it, they will very quickly disengage. Look at how you collect your data from the way people engage with your various systems and use that data to continually iterate and improve the end user experience.

The story goes that part of the reason Google won the search engine wars in the early 00’s is because they automatically placed the text cursor in the search bar so you did not have to click into it with your mouse. (There was a little more to it that is also worth a read) It really is the marginal gains that lead to excellent end user experience.

The TeamKinetic platform is created using many of the ideals I have shared above. Our software is always undergoing iterative improvements so we can strive towards the best user experience possible. If you would like to find out more about our Volunteering, Workforce, Coaching and Club management systems please feel free to get in touch or visit us here .

Tag: technology

What essential technology do you need to take care of your volunteers?

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Customer Relationship Software (CRM)

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