A Volunteer Supervisor’s Guide to Volunteer Connection

a modern, online volunteer management solution

Access Volunteer Connection

• Visit http://volunteerconnection.redcross.org

• Enter your username and password. Forgot your username? Contact the volunteer resources department at your chapter or station

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Access Volunteer Connection

• Need to get more familiar with the site in general? Check out these introductory materials:

– Volunteer Video

– Volunteer Connection Overview Video for Staff

– GroupShare Overview Video for Staff

– A Volunteer’s Guide to Volunteer Connection

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Understand: Referral Process

Volunteer supervisor identifies a volunteer need and submits a

request to fill the position

Volunteer Resources advertises the position

and finds potential matches

Interested volunteers complete the

application that best matches their desired

volunteer role

Volunteer Resources refers potential

volunteers to the Volunteer Supervisor

Volunteer Supervisor accepts the referred

volunteer, adding the volunteer to their team

Volunteer begins within their selected role

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Understand: Opportunities

Want your opportunity to be open to volunteers? Work with Volunteer Resources to create a position description.

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Understand: Referrals

Manage your prospective volunteers- Open the system-generated email and follow the link within to

take action for a specific volunteer- Click Manage Opportunity Queue to view or take action on all

pending referrals

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Understand: Referrals

Click Update Status to track a prospective volunteer’s progress through the referral process

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Understand: Referrals

Refer to: Paid staff supervisorAssigned to: Feel free to delegate follow-up to a coworker or volunteer leadCC Email to: If you like, copy the department director, a volunteer lead, etc.

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Understand: Referrals

Save to keep the volunteer as a recruit Approve to add the volunteer to your roster

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Understand: Referrals

Approval: select the volunteer’s position and they will be added automatically to your GroupShare and roster. They are now considered an active volunteer. Recommended: Email them a “welcome to the team!” message.

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Communicate efficiently and effectively. Use GroupShare sites to enhance communication with your volunteers and other volunteer supervisors.

Understand: My Groups

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Promote your activity!

- Post upcoming events, classes and meetings

- Share photos of your volunteers in action

- Provide key documents for easy download

- Easily communicate • Post news• Email the entire team

at once or one volunteer at a time

• Download a current roster at any time

See GroupShare training materials for more details.

Understand: My Groups

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Understand: My Groups – Events Need to manage RSVPs for an upcoming meeting or project? Click on “Add Event”Want to post an informational-only event, such as a conference call? Click on the date

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Understand: My Groups – “Add Event” Successfully recruit volunteers for an event

- Enter the details: name, date, start time, contact, location and description (include the event end time and a link to a Google Map)

- Set a maximum number of attendees if needed- Indicate the type of event

- Required: Automatically add the event to your volunteers’ schedules as “attending”

- RSVP: Give your volunteers an opportunity to let you know if they’re available. This is the best option for managing sign-ups, especially when you have a limited number of spaces.

- Information Only: Similar to just adding a quick informational-only event right on the calendar (see last slide), selecting this option gives you a chance to provide more details for such an event.

- Do you need to send reminder emails for this particular event? Really think about this – do your volunteers need to receive an email reminder right to their inbox about a conference call? Probably not. Should they receive one about a quarterly meeting? Possibly. Recommended: at most, ONE reminder email, three days before the event. Leave the second box as “Don’t send reminder.”

- Do you need to send an invitation to this particular event? Remember, the event will display automatically on the GroupShare calendar, and if the volunteer receives nightly updates, they’ll already know that you’ve added an event. Consider if you absolutely need to alert your volunteers that there is something new available. More often than not, you probably will not need to send an invite.

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Understand: My Groups – “Add Event”

Indicate type of event = RSVP

Volunteers will click on the name of the event to view details, then submit an RSVP (Yes, No, Maybe). Often, they will add comments and questions here since it’s easy, so be sure to manage these (see next slide).

Volunteer supervisors should click on Manage Event Details, Reservations and Attendance to see who has signed up.

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Understand: My Groups – “Add Event”

Indicate type of event = RSVP

Use the Manage Reservations and Attendance page to contact those that have or have not RSVPed, view comments, download a sign in sheet, upload files related to the event, edit event details and more.

Be sure to review all comments! Respond by simply emailing or calling the volunteer.

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Understand: My Groups – Volunteer Supervisors

Work with Volunteer Resources to create an access group and GroupShare site in Volunteer Connection for Volunteer Supervisors. The site could serve as a toolbox of resources that would allow you to do such things as:

- Submit requests for new volunteers- Nominate Volunteers of the Month- Request the inactivation of a

volunteer- Communicate with other supervisors

through discussion or email- Learn how to use Volunteer

Connection by downloading training documents

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Shift Tools provide scheduling options that are not available at GroupShare events.

- Make registration more widely available, even for your entire region or station- Quickly create recurring shifts and events- Copy an existing shift or event to create a new one

See Shift Tool training materials for more details.

Understand: Shift Tools

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Tips

• Finding your volunteer’s contact information

– Use your GroupShare “Directory” to find email and phone numbers, or simply click “email” next to

the volunteer’s name to send a message directly

– “Download XLS/PDF Roster” from GroupShare administrative actions to view a real-time group

roster

– Use “Search Directory” at the top of any page within the site; enter full or partial first name OR last

name for successful results.

• Scheduling your volunteers

– Likely items to include on GroupShare calendars include your activity’s meetings, shifts, events, and

training (you can link to the Saba LMS)

– Consider using shift tools for special event signup, non-Saba courses such as Red Cross Orientation,

specific disaster services scheduling, and scheduling that involves recurring shifts or events

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Thanks for all you do!

Questions about Volunteer Connection: contact the volunteer resources department at your chapter or station