Using Salesforce for Volunteer Management: Ultimate Guide

Does your nonprofit use Salesforce but is tired of relying on spreadsheets and manual systems for keeping track of volunteers?

You’ve come to the right place!

Learn how to begin using Salesforce for volunteer management and recruit, engage, and retain volunteers more effectively than ever before.

What is Salesforce?

For those new to the software, Salesforce is primarily a CRM (Customer Management Solution). 

For nonprofits, the platform is a great tool for managing donor interactions and activities to stay organized, streamline processes, and drive meaningful engagement.

What is volunteer management?

Volunteer management often looks different for every organization. But typically, volunteer management is all about—you guessed it—organizing and connecting with volunteers as they support your nonprofit’s goals and activities. 

Mainly, volunteer management is all about making sure volunteers are effectively integrated into your organization, their contributions are maximized, and their experiences are rewarding.

This typically includes volunteer:

• Recruiting
• Onboarding
• Engagement and retention
• Role allocation
• Data management and tracking
• And more

Why do you need volunteer management software?

Managing volunteers and having a volunteer management strategy should never be an afterthought. Not only is one-third of the nonprofit workforce volunteers, but those volunteers are also almost twice as likely to donate to a charity that they volunteer with.

Here’s what that means for nonprofits: volunteer management must be a top priority. Without it, organizations could be leaving valuable help and money on the table. 

With volunteer management software, nonprofits can maximize this support by improving: 

• Organization: Volunteer management software stores all volunteer information— sign-ups, basic contact information, etc.—in one place.
  
  
• Communication: The right platform has built-in tools to keep volunteers informed and engaged. This might include the ability to send tailored messages, schedule automated recognition, and more.
  
  
• Tracking and reporting: Volunteer management software often automatically logs volunteer hours, making it easier to monitor contributions and recognize efforts.
  
  
• Volunteer experience: Volunteer management software allows volunteers to manage their own profiles, sign up for shifts, and access important information independently.
  
  
• Skills and opportunity matching: Certain platforms will allow nonprofits to match volunteers with opportunities that suit their skills and interests, making it simpler to fill roles and keep supporters happy and engaged.

Can Salesforce track volunteers?

The Nonprofit Success Pack in Salesforce mainly focuses on managing donors and internal constituents—but doesn’t have many tools geared specifically toward volunteer management. 

That means that many nonprofits that use Salesforce have to find third-party platforms to help them manage volunteers, or rely on clunky manual processes. 

How to use Salesforce for volunteer management

HandsOn Connect—a true, native volunteer app on Salesforce AppExchange—is tailored specifically for volunteer management. With HandsOn Connect, nonprofits that already use Salesforce can remain right on the platform to organize all their volunteer-related activities and easily manage volunteer: 

• Organization: Use built-in communication tools, automated volunteer notification opportunities for supporters, and more.
  
  
• Tracking: Compile and monitor all of your volunteer activity in one central place.
  
  
• Reporting: Quickly and easily get a snapshot of all of your volunteer data to share internally or externally.

Integrating both the nonprofit Success Pack and HandsOn Connect in Salesforce creates a powerful, unified platform for nonprofits working with volunteers.

How to manage volunteers on Salesforce with HandsOn Connect 

To manage volunteers on Salesforce, download HandsOn Connect.

From there, you can:

• Create: Design custom calendars to schedule volunteers across multiple programs and locations while making it easy for volunteers to find opportunities on their own.
  
  
• Customize: Create unique volunteer opportunity landing pages, search functionality, dashboards, and modules—all branded to represent your organization.
  
  
• Connect: Keep your volunteers in the loop with custom email and text communication options and build community with social groups and volunteer chat threads.

Start using HandsOn Connect + Salesforce for volunteer management 

Salesforce is a great option for organizations that need a single platform to manage their data.

But, without dedicated volunteer management tools, it can be difficult for nonprofits to recruit, engage, and retain their most important volunteers.

​​With HandsOn Connect, a Salesforce native app integration, you get the best of both worlds: a top-tier CRM from Salesforce and cutting-edge volunteer management from HandsOn Connect.