Tag: volunteer management system uk Page 2 of 3

Should you still be working with online volunteers post-covid?

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On 13th October 2021

In COVID-19, Volunteer Management

Now we’re heading back to ‘normal’, should you still be working with online volunteers? YES! By recruiting online volunteers from quite literally anywhere you’re expanding your reach. When it comes to volunteering: the bigger your reach, the better! Virtual volunteering slots here perfectly. 

In today’s blog post, we’re outlining the ways you can make sure your virtual opportunities stand out from the rest. 

Making Your Opportunity Stand Out

Your Opportunity Title. When creating your opportunity, make sure your title is compelling and attractive. A volunteer is more likely to join an opportunity that instantly excites them, so having a strong title is key. It’s also worth mentioning somewhere in the title that the opportunity is remote. 

Opportunity Description. Simply, don’t post the full list of details. Searching volunteers are likely to be leading with emotion – and a long description of there duties isn’t going to entice them. We suggest giving snippets of their duties but focus on explaining the impact they’ll be making.

Jargon. For a number of volunteers, this is their first time volunteering. Any specific language or acronyms should be left out. It’s most likely going to confuse potential volunteers, so keeping it as simple as possible will get more interest from new volunteers.

Calls To Action. Give potential volunteers the ‘next steps’ for joining an opportunity. Your opportunity should always have contact details too, for any other questions or support they might require. 

Image Use.  The use of imagery taps into volunteers’ emotions. Using the right image can trigger mirror neurons in the brain, so the volunteer feels the emotions portrayed in an image. Your images can also show that your organisation is inclusive to all. It’s important that your imagery is right, and sends the right signals to those browsing. 

Checking Your Posting. Once your post is complete, make sure to double check it. Go through and check that all the information is correct as well as looking out for any spelling/grammatical errors. It’s also worth, once posted, looking at the opportunity through a potential volunteer’s eyes – do they have everything they need to join? 

Are You Screening Your Volunteers?

Now that you’ve perfected your opportunity listing, and you have a set of virtual volunteers, the screening process can begin! What should you be considering when it comes to your volunteering screening process? 

At the outset, you need to find out where your volunteer will be working. Are they going to be in a pace that’s quiet and private, or will they be in a busy environment? The key thing is that they are able to volunteer effectively in the place they’ve set up. 

To ensure your volunteer is working effectively, are their any supplies or training required? Ensure that your volunteer has completed their training steps, and can access everything they need to start volunteering; this check makes sure there can be a smooth process into the opportunity, because there’s no stop/starting as a volunteer doesn’t have access to something important. 

Volunteers will be interacting with a number of different people – let them know the basic information on how they should interact. This can help build up a volunteer’s confidence, so they interact with the organisation and those it helps more. 

Make sure that you’re frequently staying in touch with those who virtually volunteer, over email, chat or video call. You can touch base weekly or monthly, building up a relationship that keeps them returning to volunteer. Establishing this relationship is important, volunteers want to feel seen and heard, like they aren’t just on the outskirts of the organisation. 

Volunteer Motivations

You can also match volunteers with other opportunities you think they might be interested in. One way you can do this is through understanding your volunteers motives. VolunteerPro teaches a lot about a set of motivations a volunteer is likely to have, and how they can be applied by volunteer managers. Their motivations are: 

  • Values: Where in which volunteers take something meaningful from the hours they spend volunteering. 
  • Careers: Opportunities open doors for volunteers to advance in their careers or network with likeminded people from their industry. 
  • Social: Volunteers can find themselves in emotional and supportive environments which they can also benefit from. 
  • Enhancement: Volunteering gives leadership development to volunteers and changes their perception of power to some extent. 

Volunteers that are open and motivated are most likely to have more than one goal in mind, rather than running on one single purpose. For some, they might not yet realise what those goals or motivations are, but they want to help in any capacity. 

Think it’s time to invest in volunteer management software?

You can start a free trial of TeamKinetic on our website. This will let you check out all our features for 30 days. If you like what you see, contact us to book a demo and see how we can help your organisation manage your volunteers!

How to get young people volunteering at heritage sites…

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On 6th October 2021

In Community, Volunteer Management

The HistoricScot Youth Forum was established to understand how to get young people volunteering and involved in the heritage sector. Historic Environment Scotland (HES) have been involved with Young Scot, in a 24 month partnership to help expand the engagement, participation and involvement of younger generations from different backgrounds to influence their activity and decision-making processes.

In previous conversations, there has been a multi-generational issue, especially regarding younger generations. Over the past 18 months, Young Scot have been tackling this problem of the lack of young generation involvement. Their results are presented in this report and contribute towards the Historic Environment Scotland 2019-22 corporate plan.

The report is spilt into three key themes: Community and Schools, Volunteering and Work, and HES sites all with a focus on future engagement of young people within the heritage sector. These recommendations are based off results from surveys.

Community and Schools Responses

For many, school is the first time people will engage with the historic environment. It’s highly likely that those who engage with historic environments as an adult have had experiences as a child, so ensuring sites are engaged with schools is crucial. 

The majority of young people nowadays find their information through online social media platforms, so if they aren’t connected to HES platforms, they aren’t going to be engaged with it. For 32% of respondents, they didn’t have a connection to historical places around Scotland, despite 47% expressing interest. 

Through their research, Young Scot have created these recommendations for the future: 

  • Start discussions with marginalised communities about how their heritage can be represented. 
  • Create history resources that are widely accessible for young people to learn and connect with. 
  • Develop relationships with schools and spread awareness of HES in classroom settings. 
  • Facilitate and engage with schools who have decided to visit sites and keep them engaged afterwards. 

Volunteering and Work Responses

Volunteering can be an important factor for individuals entering employment into the sector. Survey results show that 3/4 of respondents hadn’t considered a career in the historic environment but 60% of people wanted to know the ways work opportunities can engage them. Currently, the heritage sector attracts volunteers that are male around the age of 35 (according to Young Scot research). 

Lack of awareness towards employment, partnered with minimal advertisements are just two of the barriers which stopped people volunteering. If no one can see the opportunities, your pool of volunteers are significantly reduced.

In regards to young people, offering roles in areas they’re passionate about provides them with purpose and will help younger generations gain interpersonal skills they need. It’s especially vital now that these generations have lost time for social encounters due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

For Volunteering and Work, Young Scot had the following recommendations:

  • Create an online space for young people to showcase who they are and their skills for quicker sign up or applying opportunities. 
  • It’s imperative that those with or without the internet have equal access to opportunities. 
  • Start promoting your volunteering opportunities on the platforms where young people are, such as Instagram and Twitter.
  • For new volunteering roles, tailor the opportunity’s advertisement to a diverse group of young people through language, tone and imagery.

HES Site Responses

Currently, heritage sites host a number of opportunities for specific demographics and it’s mainly families. Due to this, there is still work to be done in engaging young people. For many heritage sites, this age range is forgotten, when they should be included.

In Young Scots’ survey, they found that if sites became more technology based, or held more events, then visits would be more enjoyable for younger generations. In a separate matter, over a quarter of respondents cannot access all parts of heritage sites due to the lack of accessibility provided.

Based on the information from the survey, Young Scot highlighted gamification as a way to engage young people within heritage sites. Gamification is applying elements of games to other activities, normally completed as an online technique to keep people engaged. Heritage sites can use this as a technique to interest young people into engaging with their content.

The report created a number of recommendations for heritage sites: 

  • Make sure that all facilities are accessible to everyone, without this, there is a barrier against those with disabilities from accessing the heritage environment. 
  • Design new events, exhibitions and educate young people of the cultural changes within society.
  • Host events to celebrate minority groups and their heritage in Scotland’s history. 
  • Make improvements to the website and the types of content it provides: specifically where people can go to learn more. One way to do this is to create hubs for different age groups. This, along with the introduction of gamification, creates an online community where young people can meet other, like-minded people.

Conclusions…

From Young Scot’s experience with engaging in the sector, there is a disproportionate underrepresentation of those from a variety of backgrounds. Heritage sites don’t reflect the diversity of the sector, the organisation, or Scotland as a whole. This barrier in particular needs to be overcome to make HES as accessible as possible for all young people.

The introduction of the latest technology can engage audiences at a younger age; paired with a strong relationship with schools, the historic environment can recharge younger generations of their love for Scotland’s culture, past and present.

Young Scot is hoping the recommendations made throughout the report can start conversations within HES on the future of younger generations in the sector. They encourage HES to continue involving young people in future plans to make a real impact. 

Want to start engaging with your volunteers more? 

Calling all heritage sites! We’ve worked with Volunteer Organisers Network and Historic Environment Scotland to create the Make Your Mark Portal, which can promote your heritage opportunities to new audiences and helps you with your volunteer management. You can find out more about Make Your Mark here. 

If you’d like to know more about us here at TeamKinetic, and how we can help you manage your volunteers, you can access our website here.

Volunteer Passports: Is this the future?

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On 8th September 2021

In COVID-19, News & Views

The following round-up blog post comes from a research report commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), on Volunteer Passports that TeamKinetic helped to support. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we were reminded of just how important volunteering is to communities. It’s suggested that around 12.4 million adults volunteered during the pandemic, 4.6 million of those for the first time! The pandemic has made waves within volunteering and with more and more organisations coming together to find a collaborative approach to recruitment and onboarding; there have been movements to introduce volunteer passports into organisations. 

What is a Volunteer Passport?

If you aren’t familiar, a volunteer passport can hold all the verified credentials a volunteer might need in order to volunteer, which can serve as credentials to a pool of organisations. This can be called volunteer portability; this concept refers to the easing of movement across different organisations and roles. Volunteer passports can be a quicker way to apply as a volunteer as any references or training needed has already been completed and verified! 

Passporting Aims…

The initiative aims to address key issues regarding volunteer recruitment, management and development…

In certain contexts, such as emergency response volunteering, volunteer passports can be a mechanism to recruit and onboard large numbers of volunteers to opportunities locally and at speed. With passporting, the aim is also to improve the effectiveness of matching volunteers to opportunities tailored to what they’re interested in, or want to take part in. It also means that volunteers can be ‘re-deployed’ onto different tasks where they may be needed. This also ensures that micro, ad hoc and event-based volunteering opportunities are supported, also known as volunteer portability. 

Reducing volunteer vetting can save time and money for all parties, through the standardisation of volunteer training and management. In the past, there have been previous initiatives that have explored this locally or within a particular sector, improving the consistency of trained volunteers. 

What about alternative practices?

Here’s a quick run-through of the practices that could be integrated into volunteer passports: 

A number of volunteering organisations already match volunteers with volunteering opportunities they find may be a good fit, based on previous opportunities or through a skill-based match. Many volunteers started volunteering through word of mouth therefore, online volunteer passports may be deemed unnecessary. Any passporting system would have to consider how the offline side could be integrated successfully. 

Volunteer profiles have also been in previous initiatives, numerous management platforms have offered volunteers a facility where they can develop and build their ‘profile.’ This can be used as an alternative to CVs or LinkedIn, which volunteers involved in the report have emphasised. Volunteer passporting could mean it addresses an aim that has already been met.  

Other related schemes have been surrounding rewarding volunteers. Just like within the TeamKinetic system, schemes can provide rewards through ‘time banks’ or ‘time credits’, where a volunteer’s time is recorded, which they can then use to redeem a reward of some sort. The reward would depend on the organisation they are working with. We know how important recognising and rewarding volunteers are, so volunteer passporting has to include this, or something similar. 

Key Areas of Demand

In order for volunteering-involved organisations to support volunteer passports there are some key areas of demand. The report consistently highlights that portable IDs, and DBS checks are deemed to be a core element of potential volunteer passports. This is because they benefit volunteers, organisations and stakeholders from different voluntary sectors. The introduction of portable IDs and DBS checks is welcomed by organisations as a way to reduce the admin burden that comes with mass onboarding. For volunteers, it reduces the barriers they may find when wanting to volunteer in a different sector. 

Allowing organisations to have a shared pool of volunteers would help particular types of volunteering such as emergency, event-based, and micro-volunteering. This element is a way of always having volunteers on hand to offer opportunities to.

From the suggestion for portable IDs, the standardisation of volunteer training is also of interest. Standardising training will be beneficial through local volunteer portability and regarding specialist skills with individual sectors. Not only can volunteers help across different organisations in their local area, those volunteers with specialist skills, are enabled to complete certain tasks for a number of organisations within the sector. 

Another element was found that there needs to be some sort of validation of volunteers’ experiences and skills. For some volunteer groups, this would be incredibly beneficial, where volunteering could become a potential route to employment, the validation of skills can be added to a CV etc. This aspect was also thought to offer benefits in terms of supporting social integration and the well-being of different marginalised groups. 

What Does Each Sector Think?

The research for the report presented some experiences and views from each sector regarding the introduction of volunteer passports and how they might be used. 

The health sector has seen a rise in volunteer passporting over the past couple of months, and the expectation is for the demand to grow. The sector has found that passporting ensures agile and efficient emergency responses along with the integration of statutory and non-statutory services. The demand has also increased in the community action sector; portability at local level of training and skills has already been introduced, so there is potential to build on existing initiatives to deliver a comprehensive passporting system in local areas.  

Regarding the culture sector, museums and heritage sites perceived passporting as beneficial. Specifically highlighting the portability.

Portability allows for volunteer learning and skill exchange, reducing administrative burden. There has been interest in developing a shared volunteer training standard within the sector.

In some areas, the sector has found they have been oversubscribed with volunteers. Therefore, standardising training and easy portability means volunteers can be moved into new routes while staying in the sector they’re interested in. 

While there is strong demand in certain sectors, the sporting sector has seen very little demand for a passporting system, with the exception of portable DBS checks. The report shows that demand is low as volunteer recruitment is mostly organic, so there’s little interest in the digital brokerage of volunteer passports. Along with this, for individual sports, qualifications are already there in terms of training, and therefore the standardisation of training has been met and recognised. 

So How Will it Work?

How might volunteer passports work moving forward?

  • Commonality: Volunteer portability is more likely to work when there is a common denominator between organisations whether this be locally or sector-based. This commonality between organisations may be essential to building a ‘federation of trust’ aligning volunteer standards and processes. 
  • Sustainable? Stakeholders have concerns that passport initiatives may not be sustainable. This is due to the temporary nature of funding, and a lack of resources. To overcome these issues, volunteer-involved organisations have stressed the need for passporting initiatives to be developed in a realistic way, building this into a long-term strategy for volunteering. 
  • Credibility: The Credibility of passport schemes is incredibly important for volunteer engagement and organisations. Some examples of the ways individual volunteer passporting schemes have been credible have included: endorsements from national councils of volunteer organisations and local authority and government institutions. 
  • Data Standards: This is a strong requirement from digital platform providers and organisations who explain that any volunteer passport system would only work if it was developed with open data standards. 
  • Control? Various organisations have emphasised how important it is for volunteers to be the ones controlling their data. For example, in previous initiatives, there have been options for volunteers to pause notifications at times when they were busy or wanted to stop volunteering for the moment.
  • Access: There is an element of exclusion and barriers for small organisations due to a lack of digital infrastructure and skills to join in on volunteer passporting for those who work for their organisation. Where are smaller organisations going to find and retain their volunteers? 

Expectations of Government Support…

There are areas where central and local governments can support volunteering in the context of volunteer passporting, including: 

  • Raising awareness of current possibilities to make DBS checks portable and improving their portability. 
  • Providing legal clarity over certain issues curtailing volunteer portability or any other elements of passporting. 
  • Working with the voluntary sector to support greater standardisation where appropriate through funding for resources and infrastructure. 
  • Encouraging volunteering by making sure other government policies do not pose barriers to volunteering. 

Where Does TeamKinetic Fit In? 

As mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, TeamKinetic helped support this report we’d like to thank the DMCS for inviting us to help! We’re intrigued to see how volunteer passports and passporting develop in the next couple of years. We’re currently looking at ways we could introduce volunteer passporting, or elements of passporting, into our system. 

If you’d like to know more about us here at TeamKinetic, you can start a free trial of TeamKinetic on our website. This will let you check out all our features for 30 days. If you like what you see, contact us to book a demo and see how we can help your organisation manage your volunteers!

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

Twitter       Facebook       LinkedIn       YouTube       Instagram       Podcast

 

Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

Will Volunteering Come Out Stronger After Covid?

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On 2nd September 2021

In COVID-19, News & Views

Coronavirus has introduced so many new challenges for communities over the past 18 months, but it’s also presented foundations to build a stronger community. Moving out of the pandemic means the focus is now on building the relationships between volunteers and organisations; along with renewing that drive to volunteer in the first place. This could mean we have to rethink the roles within volunteering moving forward.

Remote Volunteering? 

The use of remote volunteering over the pandemic has been phenomenal in helping those who’ve really needed it. Due to this, there is a larger market for this kind of volunteering, as so many people have volunteered in this way lately. In order for virtual volunteering to continue, volunteers must be attracted to your organisation’s missions as the social aspect towards volunteering has been stripped back. Communicating that their small contribution will make a difference will keep them involved and feeling positive for helping the community.

The pandemic has also increased the amount of online recruitment. So how have organisations found and kept in touch with their volunteers? It feels inevitable that recruiting volunteers online is something that will carry on far into the future. For organisations, their next steps may be to solidify their presence online. This is where a volunteer management system would come in handy; with TeamKinetic you can recruit more volunteers than ever before, and have constant contact to keep them informed. 

Flexibility…

To create a more accessible volunteering route, there needs to be flexibility. For those who cannot commit to certain dates and times: flexibility allows for no obligation to return. It also means that volunteers can now access the risks beforehand (because they haven’t committed to a continuous role). Despite saying we’re coming out of the pandemic, people still have to assess the risks before going out (coronavirus included)! While it becomes more of a challenge for organisations to be flexible, breaking down roles into smaller opportunities is a way to include more flexibility.

Looking towards the future

There is a feeling that volunteering has taken a strong leap forward over the past 18 months. There is a renewed purpose to help those who really need it: we’re more aware of our communities’ vulnerabilities. Volunteering has increased massively over the pandemic and as a result we have to focus on preserving the positive changes that we have seen.

Interested in TeamKinetic? 

Why not come and try our system for free! You can start a free trial of TeamKinetic on our website. This will let you check out all our features for 30 days. If you like what you see, contact us to book a demo and see how we can help your organisation manage your volunteers.

You can also follow our social media pages: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Volunteering made safe with TeamKinetic

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On 25th August 2021

In TeamKinetic Features

TeamKinetic are always here to make sure their clients and any volunteers are protected. We ensure the highest security as we know many organisations may work with young and vulnerable people. TeamKinetic have created a system which allows for safe volunteering and volunteer management. Take a look for yourself below.

Criminal Checks

TeamKinetic understand that many organisations work with young and vulnerable people, so we know that criminal checks need to be completed before volunteers are accepted. With our system you can fully customise volunteer registrations by allowing criminal checks before they can be accepted. 

If you only have specific opportunities which need these criminal checks you can customise the opportunity to do these checks when a volunteer joins. This makes the process easier for you when criminal checks need to be done on your volunteers. 

Roles

Roles have been created to allow organisations to enable a prescribed on-boarding process for volunteers. Roles are a great feature for organisations that have regular opportunities that are undertaken under the same set of compliance, training, or on-boarding rules.

Community Tasks

Community tasks were set up in response to the COVID-19 crisis. They are small tasks designed to provide community support to people who are unable to leave their homes. These tasks differ from the usual volunteer opportunities where the opportunities might have set hours etc… With community tasks it is usually one volunteer helping someone in the community who cannot go shopping, or pick up their medication and so on.

These tasks are secure that whenever a volunteer signs up for a task they must be full approved before they can get any personal details of the task. Any personal information will be hidden and only available to the task manager until a volunteer is approved for the task.

Community tasks have been able to help many during the pandemic and have allowed communities to provide support for one another in a safe environment. Don’t believe us, read our case study from COVID-19 Kenilworth Support who have been using our community tasks since the beginning of the pandemic. 

Accreditation System

TeamKinetic created an accreditation system for the Rugby Super League Grand Final in 2019 and more recently have set up the same system again for the Rugby League this year.

Mainly this is used for major events and sporting events and will allow for the safe management of any person at the venue on the day. The system records the identity and health checks of every personnel. They can then be given badges which include the zones they can and cannot enter to ensure security in each zone. 

It is a great piece of software which helps to keep venues secure and personnel who arrive will have to show there ID to ensure entry. 

Want to Try for FREE?

Why not come and try our system for free! You can try out all of the above and so much more which will help safely organise and manage volunteers. You can also get in touch with us via our website or call on 0161 914 5757. 

Visit our social media pages to find out more information about TeamKinetic and some tips on how to use the software. You can find us on: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. 

How to get your volunteers to log hours

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On 19th July 2021

In News & Views, TeamKinetic Features, Volunteer Management

Volunteering at its core is an entirely selfless activity completed by people with no expectation of acknowledgement. Despite this, we believe volunteers deserve to be rewarded for their hard work. But how do you do this without them logging hours? 

Why is logging hours so important?

In short, data. This data is key to your organisation to:

  • Measure success. Logged hours can represent the amount of work your volunteers are doing for their community or particular cause. 
  • Track your audience. Knowing which volunteers are continually volunteering and which ones aren’t could be incredibly insightful. Is there a particular demographic volunteering more than others? Is there a demographic that is hard to retain? This data could uncover aspects that need to change, leading onto our next point…
  • Make improvements. No volunteering programmes are perfect, but the best ones regularly review and make changes to improve. If there’s a particular demographic that isn’t returning, why?

So how do I persuade volunteers to log their hours?

  • Show them how easy it is. Showing volunteers how quickly they can log hours might help them 
  • Incentivise! Offering rewards can be a great way to get volunteers logging their hours. However, the best way to do this is to offer low-value rewards as often as possible. 
  • Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. Imagine this: you offer one big prize (e.g. a hoodie), after a volunteer has logged 100 hours. They log hours as a way of reaching that prize, but once they reach those 100 hours they lose motivation to log future hours – or worse, return at all. (Extrinsic motivation)
    However, if you offer small rewards such as thank you messages they will be consistently motivated by the positive way the act makes them feel. (Intrinsic motivation)

Intrinsic motivation is all about making your volunteers continually feel good about the work they’re doing and the difference they’re making, rather than working towards one particular reward. 

So how do you keep up this motivation? Giving them nice feedback is a great place to start! This will show how much you value them and will mean more to them than you may think. 

Utilising TeamKinetic to Incentivise Volunteers

Leaving Feedback

TeamKinetic allows you to leave feedback when logging a volunteer’s hours. If you forget or don’t have time to personally thank your volunteer at the end of their session, this section gives you the chance to do so. It also lets the volunteer log their own hours and leave feedback about the opportunity they joined.

Ask anyone who has volunteered – receiving feedback is a great feeling and can push volunteers to return and continue volunteering for you.

Achievement Badges

This incentive is a great way to push your volunteers to log more hours. Once a volunteer logs their hours, they will add together to create their total volunteer hours. A small way to help increase volunteers’ hours is to have achievement badges when they reach certain hour milestones.

TeamKinetic has achievement badges automatically built into the system. The achievement badge pictures and names can be customised. These badges are a great way to incentivise volunteers and get them to keep on volunteering so they can reach the next milestone.

Custom Badges

Have you ever thought about starting a ‘volunteer of the month’ award? To give your volunteers an extra incentive to volunteer more or make them feel appreciated? Yes? Keep reading, you may like what you see…

TeamKinetic allows you to create custom award badges for your volunteers. These could be ‘volunteer of the month’ or ‘volunteer of the year’. They can be absolutely anything you want and look however you want, with the fully customisable option! Once you have assigned the award to a volunteer, they will receive an email with the award in it to congratulate them. Again, this recognises the efforts your volunteers put in, helping you to retain more volunteers and hopefully gain more.

Logging hours with TeamKinetic

Logging hours with TeamKinetic is easy – as it should be on any volunteer management system. See below for the full process laid out in less than 25 seconds!

And if that’s not clear enough you can check out our full tutorial videos on logging hours as an opportunity provider and logging hours as a volunteer! 

Think it’s time to invest in volunteer management software?

You can start a free trial of TeamKinetic on our website. This will let you check out all our features for 30 days. If you like what you see, contact us to book a demo and see how we can help your organisation manage your volunteers!

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

Twitter       Facebook       LinkedIn       YouTube       Instagram       Podcast

 

Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

TeamKinetic v2 – Roles

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On 29th June 2021

In Application Features and Tutorials, TeamKinetic Features, Technical Updates

Roles are a brand new feature for version 2, they sit above opportunities and enable a prescribed on-boarding process for volunteers. Roles are a great feature for organisations that have regular opportunities that are undertaken under the same set of compliance, training, or on-boarding rules.

An opportunity can belong to one or no role and once a volunteer has successfully completed the steps for a role, they can subsequently join any opportunity that belongs to that role; the role authorisation is valid across any opportunity in that role.

Creating Roles

Creating role is only possible for super admins and is accessible via the super admin menu in the SETUP section.

Click the add button to create a new role. You’ll be presented with a split screen form with the role name and description on the left, and the default four stages on the right.

Start by filling in the role name and its description to help volunteers decide if they want to apply for the role.

When you are ready to start adding tasks to your stages click the add button. This will open up a sheet with the task name and notes for that task. Additionally you will see a checkbox labelled ‘Volunteer can complete’. If this box is checked then the applying volunteer will be able to mark this task as complete without any admin oversight. This is great if you just want to check a volunteer has read a document or get an auditable confirmation that some step has been carried out.

You do not have to add tasks to every stage, the tasks do not need to be completed in order, and a stage can have no tasks at all if you prefer to put all the tasks in one stage.

Once created you can edit, archive or restore a role and the setup page shows you a brief summary of the role and its current status. When editing a role you can add or remove tasks and update the role name and description. Be aware that adding tasks will not affect those volunteers that have already been accepted on the role.

Managing Role Applications

All admins can manage volunteer role applications and outstanding role applications will appear on the admin dashboard for attention.

Just hit the manage button and the full status and history of the application will be shown. This is a pretty comprehensive screen but super easy to use.

You can move the status of any task forwards or backwards, from pending to started and finally complete. You can add notes that other administrators can read and update the overall status of the role application to approve or deny.

We have the intermediate status of STARTED for a task so that if a task takes time to process for an admin, another admin doesn’t repeat any work whilst the first admin is completing the task.

Importantly all steps taken are logged and viewable in the application log window. You can see here when tasks were started, completed or reverted back a stage, when people left notes, or when a volunteer has completed a task.

A volunteer will see their role applications on their dashboard. By clicking the more details link they will get a full breakdown of the current role and from here will be able to complete any suitable tasks.

 

Adding a Role to an Opportunity

It’s a simple task to add a role to an opportunity. If any active roles exist, they will appear in a drop down when creating a new opportunity.

If you update an existing opportunity and add a role requirement it will only affect volunteers that join after that point; existing volunteers will not be affected.

(Re)Introducing TeamKinetic: Alex Evans – Another Chapter

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On 28th June 2021

In News & Views

If you read my goodbye blog last year, you’ll have to pretend you didn’t. I just can’t stay away!

I’m back again and excited to get (re)started – this time as TeamKinetic’s Marketing Manager. It’s a role that I’m excited to get stuck into and continue to grow in. 

My Journey

Back in 2017 I started university with no idea where it would take me. My biggest concerns were making friends, exploring Manchester (aka finding the best cheapest pubs), playing football, and whether I’d enjoy my course or not. 

In my second year it was time to start looking for a work placement – as someone who lacked confidence, this was a daunting task! One day the Social Media and Marketing intern role at TeamKinetic popped up and the rest is history. 

My placement year was full of personal and professional development. It gave me good quality real-world experience of marketing and helped me build confidence amongst other important life skills. 

I went into my final year of university ready to finish those assignments and get back into the world of work. What I didn’t expect was to be offered a full-time position at TeamKinetic. But what I was certain of was that I had to grab the opportunity with both hands.

From passing my responsibilities over to Sammy and Chloe in 2020 to taking over from them in 2021 – the circle of Marketing!

So who am I?

In short:

Hi, I’m Alex, I’m 22 and I’m from Sheffield!

But if you want something deeper I could tell you that Taylor Swift has been my Spotify top artist for three years in a row. Or that I’ve been a Sheffield United season ticket holder for as long as I can remember. But if that isn’t enough, you can read my original introductory blog here.

All you really need to know is that I’m incredibly happy to work for TeamKinetic, a team full of good people doing great work. It’s time to put all the things I learned at university into practice and help this company grow! 

New Faces and Farewells

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Chloe and Sammy for all their hard work over the past year. They’ve done some great stuff and have been a real asset to the team.

However, now it’s time to welcome the newest member of the TeamKinetic family – Katie. She’ll be completing her placement year with us and I hope she gets as much out of it as I did. You join us in welcoming her by reading her introductory blog here.

You Can Join The Family Too

If your organisation is in need of a quick, easy, and reliable way to manage your volunteers look no further! No matter how big or small, we can help you. We’ll work around your budget to get you building better volunteer communities with our volunteer management software. 

Best of all, you can go to our website to set up your very own demo site free of cost to see how our system can work for you!

TeamKinetic 2 Release Notes

By

On 27th May 2021

In Press Releases, TeamKinetic Features, Technical Updates

The 2021 Q2 major release for TeamKinetic is now approaching our beta test phase where we invite and encourage all our users to have a poke around!

It’s a full jump to Version 2 as we have totally updated the volunteer application with the latest .NET platform (admin and provider to come), have introduced some new features and done some major work to align the design and feel across the whole application. We’ve also got some brand new native apps for android and iOS that will be out a few weeks after the desktop release.

Here are some of the highlights for this major release milestone.

Volunteer Roles

Many of our larger customers, and those with greater governance requirements will get alot from this new feature. It’s a bit like super charged APPLY FIRST feature!

A role is a set of steps that must be completed before a volunteer is approved on an opportunity.  Super admins define the role, which is organised around four steps, each with as many (or no) tasks as you require. Each role has its own name, description, and a spot to add some information that is emailed to the volunteer when they first apply for a role.

Roles are applied to one or more opportunities, and once a volunteer has completed all steps on a role they can join any opportunity which requires that matching role, once they have satisfied any other pre-requisites to joining.

For example; if a volunteer joins a litter picking opportunity which has a role called ‘basic role’ then they will be required to jump through a number of onboarding steps as defined by the ROLE.  But once they have done this they can go onto join any other opportunity which is also linked to the ‘basic role steps’ and it will not require them to go through the steps again (as they have already completed those role steps).

Each task can be flagged as actionable by the volunteer or administrator, they can complete that task from their dashboard when they have satisfied the requirements.

Administrators are alerted when a volunteer joins an opportunity requiring a ROLE, they are alerted via the actions tab on their main landing page. 

The administrator can then monitor and record the volunteers progress through each of the steps within the ROLE, through to completion. 

Each role task can be started by an admin, then completed and a full history log is maintained and visible at all times.

An application can be approved once all the tasks have been completed, but there is no enforced order to task completion.

When a volunteer is approved on the ROLE they are emailed (custom emails available of course) and shown a list of corresponding opportunities that they are now eligible to join.

Additionally, if a opportunity has its own APPLY FIRST status and a role requirement, then once the volunteer is approved for the role they are automatically placed in the applicants queue for that opportunity, they wont have to do anything else.

New Scheduling Features

We’ve added a brand new feature for adding volunteers to sessions. You can now select any number of volunteers and add or remove them from any number of sessions in one hit!

You can select from the current joined volunteer list, or search for new volunteers.

It’s super simple but much quicker than moving them individually (still available).

We’ve also re-designed our day schedule report so it’s much easier to see what is going on day by day.

You can still view any period and restrict it to certain opportunities or events, but now you’ll see every day in that period in a calendar like display.

You get the day, all the opps that have sessions on that day, how full the session is (full sessions are highlighted) and can click  through to view a list of volunteers on that session.

You’ll be able to see empty days and poorly subscribed sessions really easily, then click through and start adding volunteers using the new multi-add feature we just introduced!

Re-Designed Applicants Dashboard

Applicants are now clearly divided into new, successful, and denied. You can instantly approve or deny a new applicant and then revert that decision and mark them as newly approved. This was something that proved popular in the roadmap voting.

The on-screen messaging and alerts have been improved and standardised so you’ll always know what’s happening.

Modern Front Page

Although our existing front page allows for a lot of customisation, many of our customers have been asking for a simpler cleaner look to their front page.

So we’ve have added a new modern layout that will be the default for all new customers. It’s got much simpler settings, just a single image and a message box, to worry about, looks great on all screen sizes, and gets right to the point so volunteers can login and register quickly.

Multiple Provider Accounts

This is a useful little feature for when there are multiple individuals at an organisation that all need to login as providers as manage their opportunities, but dont want to share login details.

Providers can now create and manage their own user list without any intervention required from the admins or super admins. Just add a name, email address and password and they can go ahead and login.

Multiple Meetings and New Meeting Features

Previously a volunteer could only have one active meeting at a time, now you can book and manage as many meetings as you like for volunteers.

 

Additionally we have added the ability to specify if the meeting is to be virtual, and if so, to add the link to the virtual meeting, or if not the location of a face to face meeting. You can also add a custom message which gets sent along with the normal custom email for new meetings, so you can let them know any extra information they need.

We’ve also tidied up the induction section of a volunteer manage dashboard and added the meeting details there. From here you get a link back to manage meetings and can also add a new meeting for the volunteer right from their dashboard.

Opportunity Badges

These are linked to opportunities showing that the opportunity is linked to a specific award scheme.

Example:  If logged hours on the opportunity can go towards a volunteers Duke of Edinburgh Award, then they might attach it to the ‘DofE Opportunity Badge’. 

Just add a name, description, and a badge image to create your opportunity badges. These can then be added to your opportunities, filtered on in the search and are displayed to the volunteers.

Great for quickly indicating to your volunteers what sort of opportunity its likely to be.

Gender List Editable in Alt Language

For those of you that take advantage of our alt language feature and translations (and if you don’t..why not?!) you can now view and edit your gender lists in your chosen alt language.

These are instantly reflected on the registration pages..which brings us to…

New Volunteer Registration

Volunteers begin their registration either by providing an email address, or by registering with Google or Facebook.

If they use and email address they will receive an email with a special link to confirm their email address and continue with their registration.

This will cut down drastically the number of bogus registrations and also reduces the initial inertia for registration. This first step of registration is recorded and we’ll be able to get some great insight into what is preventing volunteers from completing their registration.

We have also worked on the registration page itself; made it shorter, improved the location section, and added more on-screen help.

 

We think it’s a definite improvement and will hopefully lead to a higher rate of successful registrations.

New Search Page

The public search page is now more compact and the events have been moved to the right so they don’t obscure the results.

When viewed on smaller screens the layout adjusts accordingly so events are still visible.

Opportunity Images

You might have noticed in the screenshot for the search page that we now support adding images to opportunities!

We know from our experience that this has to be quick and painless or providers just don’t bother. So we’ve put in place a number of features to try to make this easy for providers.

  1. Images are mandatory for opportunities, you cant add your first opportunity without uploading at least one image
  2. You can select from your previous images, so once you have one you don’t have to keep uploading
  3. When creating an opp, it will default to your last used image

 

ABOVE: Admin/Providers view when creating opportunity
ABOVE: Volunteer view of opportunity with image

It really couldn’t be easier! These images are responsive and will adjust in height and width to cope with any sized screen.

Everything Else

  • Multiple groups are selectable from the bulk email screens
  • Can add files to the private notes section
  • Course management improved
  • More admin options available
  • More opportunity sharing data available along with suggestions of other organisations you might want to join forces with
  • Volunteers can see how many slots are available in each session before they join
  • Induction questions are now sortable
  • New report showing the ethnicity breakdown of active volunteers
  • New opportunity search filters
  • The usual 100’s of small fixes and improvements

Should I Be Using SMS Text Messages?

By

On 18th March 2021

In TeamKinetic Features, Volunteer Management

Yes, yes and yes. That is the first thing you see when you Google ‘Should I be using SMS text messages when managing volunteers?’. And the research isn’t wrong, using texts as a form of communication to your volunteers is incredibly beneficial. Not only does it improve communication, but it can also increase engagement and volunteer return rates. And let’s not forget the speedy responses that come from sending text messages, perfect for those time-sensitive situations.
However, the one thing you don’t really see when you Google this question is how beneficial SMS texts are from someone who is currently using them.

This is where we come in. If you are considering using SMS text messages but are still a bit unsure, hear from Claire at Halton and St Helens Volunteer Centre about her personal experiences using them.

Halton and St Helen’s Volunteer Centre

First, a little bit of background. Halton and St Helens is an organisation that provides advice, information and development support to voluntary, community, non-for-profit, faith organisations and volunteers in the Boroughs of St Helens and Halton. Here, Claire spoke to us about her experiences using SMS text messages in her TeamKinetic system.

1) When did you start using the SMS text message feature?

So, we started to use the text message feature fairly early on into the first lockdown of the pandemic. It was also around the same time that we first launched our TeamKinetic portal. 

In addition to this, it was around March/April that we had quite a substantial funding grant come through, which allowed us to buy a great big text bundle. And I already knew of the texts and how they worked from the work we have done with TeamKinetic before.

2) How do you use your text messages?

Initially, we used text messages for our volunteers who were supporting local residents during the pandemic with the community tasks. We would use the function to send a text to show they are a verified volunteer for us, this was pre the ID cards. It was a quick and easy way for us to give them something that was mobile that they could show the person they were working for that they were a verified volunteer. 

When the ID cards came into play on the community task dashboard, we started to use the texts to message our ‘Street Champions’ about ongoing tasks that hadn’t been picked up that needed to be done. I’d say that is the main way we used them now.

3) Do you find the SMS text messaging feature helpful in communicating to and engaging volunteers?

Yes, definitely. Between that and emails, we can have more of an impact in terms of communicating straight away with volunteers. And it’s that instant impact that is important for us particularly when there is an urgency in terms of volunteer support.

Recently we have also used them with our vaccination volunteers. For example,  when volunteers have dropped shifts and we have then asked other volunteers to quickly log in and see if they can pick up a shift. So, that’s been really helpful as we’ve now had full commitment and maximum volunteers throughout our vaccination programme which is great.

4) How have you benefited from the SMS text message feature compared to a time when you didn’t use them?

For me, it’s just an added bonus in terms of being able to communicate quite directly with that we’re not always in connection with and we don’t see physically. It wouldn’t even matter that much when we’re back into the ‘new normal’ after COVID-19 and we do see people on a regular basis. This is because the text messages would still be a massive benefit in terms of that quick turn around and communication with volunteer around shift patterns etc.

For example, we have worked with the TeamKinetic portal for years at Warrington Hospital, and we have never used the text message feature with them. This is mainly because we have never had the funding to be able to do that. But, again with some added funds, we have been able to out a little bit of a bundle on there too. So, we have now used it for when we have needed to contact our away finders, when there’s been an urgent need for people to support the vaccination centre, or when we’ve needed a quick turnaround on support. I think we could probably do that again going forwards, even when we start to bring our volunteers back, it will be a great tool.

We also use them differently in the Hospital in terms of the communication that we do in Halton and St Helens through the Volunteer Centre. So, with the Hospital it’s linked directly to a phone number which helps that two-way communication. With the Volunteer Centre, we actually just link it to a name so they understand it’s just from us and there’s no response from that.

5) What would you say to another organisation that is considering using the SMS text message feature but is still unsure?

For me, it’s a great way of quickly communicating and getting action from volunteers very quickly too. Particularly if you have got an event on for example or you are providing urgent response support;  it’s a great way of supporting that quick action of volunteers to get engaged, get involved, and get moving.

Thinking About Buying SMS Texts

If after reading this, you realise SMS texts would benefit your organisation and your volunteers, then check out this video explaining how to take up the offer!

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