5 Requirements of a Volunteer Management System

How do you manage your volunteers?  Clipboard?  Excel spreadsheet?  Or a server-based solution that does not provide access when you are away from your desk or office.

These labor-intensive methods work fine if you have a small volunteer pool and are only interested in maintaining a list of volunteers. A slight improvement over an Excel spreadsheet.   But if you have a large volunteer base, are committed to risk management which ensures your volunteers maintain acceptable criminal histories and also need accurate volunteer logs to determine when a volunteer has entered or exited your facility, then you need a robust volunteer management system.

Here are 5 requirements of a volunteer management system. 

1.  Cloud-Based.  There are many visitor or volunteer management systems that run locally on your desktop or server.  If you are using a system such as this, how up-to-date is your information?  We recently converted a large school district to our SafeVisitor system and learned in the process that their locally run database of sex offender data was more than 2 years out of date.  That is frightening.  Sex offenders who had been added to the national registry in the past two years were not in the database.  Not to mention they had additional costs of running and maintaining their own database.

There are many benefits of a cloud-based system.

a.     Always Up to Date.  Each time we update our SafeVisitor system you receive those updates immediately and at no cost.

b.     Real Time Sex Offender Data.  Using an API the sex offender data is always in real time.   

c.      Nothing To Install.  Cloud-based systems are accessed via the internet and your web-browser.  What happens if you need to evacuate a building for an emergency?  With SafeVisitor you can login via your phone, tablet, laptop or any computer and ensure all of your visitors are accounted for.

d.     World-Wide Access.  Administrators can access organizational locations and view who is logged in.  We work with a large international volunteer organization and they can login anywhere in the world and check volunteers or visitors in any country.

2.     Comprehensive Background Checks.  Many visitor or volunteer management systems advertise that they have integrated background checks.  Many offer only low-level national sex offender checks.  Or the background checks are a manual process that require you to manually update in the software.

SafeVisitor is unique because we have integrated comprehensive background checks available through our parent company Safe Hiring Solutions.  This custom volunteer background check integration allows you to:

a.     Define Level of Background Check.  Our custom integration allows you to select from more than 30 background screening solutions that range from SSN Verification and National Criminal Database to Federal Criminal Courts Search.

b.     Create Levels of Screening for Positions.  You can determine the depth of the background check by position.  Volunteers who do not have any contact with children or vulnerable populations might be screened at a different level than volunteers who are interacting with children.

c.      Automated Rechecks.  Each volunteer position can be setup with a recheck requirement that is defined by you.  If you set the recheck for 36 months then at month 35 SafeVisitor will begin emailing your volunteer with a link to complete the recheck. If they don’t, then their status is moved to expired and access removed.

d.     Change Level of Screening for Recheck.  SafeVisitor allows you to conduct a comprehensive background check and then a lower level national background recheck since your volunteers have been screened initially at a higher level.  This provides significant costs savings to volunteer organizations.

e.     National Sex Offender Check.  Run a national sex offender check each time a volunteer enters your facility.  They might have a clear background check when they initially apply but are later are convicted of a sexual offense.  This will flag them and deny them entry.

3.     Mobile App Geo-Fencing.  We are a mobile society.  We may not remember to bring an ID card, purse or billfold but we will always have our mobile phones with us.  SafeVisitor provides a mobile app for approved volunteers and vendors.  We setup the GPS coordinates for each of your buildings and as approved volunteers or vendors approach one of your buildings and cross the geo-fence, the app automatically displays the volunteer/vendors information and photo on the front office computer so security or front office personnel can visually identify the visitor before allowing them access to the facility.

4.     Excluded Parties.  Do you have a list of individuals that are not allowed on your property?  Maybe they have trespassed in the past.  Or there are custody orders.  Or one of your employees is going through a divorce and a protective order is issued and you would like to put the estranged partner on an exclusion list that pops up if they try to enter your facility.

5.     Pre-Registration. Do you routinely have large groups of volunteers coming to your facility for events?  Upload a spreadsheet of approved visitors with a date and then print their badge and log them with one mouse click as they enter your facility.

SafeVisitor was built by and for volunteer organizations.  Numerous large volunteer organizations such as Kiwanis International use SafeVisitor to manager their volunteers.

Click here to setup an online demonstration or click here for pricing information.