Volunteers help not-for-profits do more good for their communities and achieve their mission. But as we live in a fast-paced world, managing your volunteers through a pen and paper-based process and Excel spreadsheets is time-consuming, inefficient, and inconvenient. Your not-for-profit must have the right volunteer management tool to ensure successful program delivery.

But with so many options, where do you begin, and how do you choose?

We recommend exploring a volunteer management solution that works natively with your Microsoft 365 solution so your not-for-profit can:

1. Save on costs by maximising your existing Microsoft software grant.
2. Move away from using solutions that don’t talk to each other.
3. Create a more seamless user experience.
4. Leverage the power of a low code app development platform to automate your most unique or complex processes.

To better understand what is available from Microsoft and Professional Advantage, below are two options that can help support how you engage, onboard, and manage volunteers.

Microsoft Volunteer Management and Volunteer Engagement

Volunteer Management and Volunteer Engagement is part of the Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit solutions built on Power Apps that help you to manage and engage volunteers and track onboarding processes. Volunteer Management provides you with a 360-degree view of volunteers, helping to make the most of your volunteers’ skills; making it easier to recruit, onboard, and retain them; and manage volunteering events. On the other hand, Volunteer Engagement helps volunteers see what events/activities they have scheduled, the details, and how to apply if they are free, qualified, or interested.

These two solutions are highly recommended for large not-for-profits that have a sizeable pool of volunteers to manage and engage.

Volunteer Management features

1. Easily track volunteer sign-ups and shift attendance.
2. Review and approve qualified volunteers for opportunities.
3. Learn about where volunteers are in the onboarding process.
4. Design and publish engagement opportunities to the Volunteer Engagement portal.
5. Automate messaging to volunteers throughout the opportunity lifecycle.

Volunteer Engagement features

1. Create volunteer profiles to promote their experience and personal interests.
2. Create engagement opportunities that volunteers can search.
3. List a summary of engagements for each volunteer.
4. Secure authentication to the Volunteer Engagement portal.

Volunteer Management and Volunteer Engagement combined with Microsoft 365’s in-built video conferencing with Teams, document sharing with SharePoint, and security with Microsoft Defender, makes it an ideal solution for efficiently and securely connecting and collaborating with your volunteers.

Getting access to the free Volunteer Management and Volunteer Engagement app

1. Confirm your eligibility for Microsoft’s not-for-profit pricing and grants. Follow the steps on Microsoft’s site to become eligible.
2. Review the Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit Industry solution capabilities and choose one or more solutions that suit your not-for-profit’s needs.
3. Determine the Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit License prerequisites. You need to have:
   1. Power Apps for Volunteer Management and Volunteer Engagement.
   2. Teams to manage volunteers.
   3. SharePoint for the volunteer centre.
4. Access grants and purchase the prerequisite licenses mentioned above. You can talk to a PA representative for the complete and latest pricing or to help you determine the most appropriate licensing for your not-for-profit.
5. Purchase the Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit Add-On License. A quantity of “1” license gives access to Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit for all company employees with a license prerequisite. Either a Basic or Standard license must be present on the contract to implement the solution.

Professional Advantage’s Volunteer Onboarding and Offboarding App

PA’s Volunteer Onboarding and Offboarding app was brought about by the demand of many of our not-for-profit clients for a lightweight app to automate the manual steps to onboard and offboard volunteers. It is an option for organisations not yet ready to get a full-blown volunteer management solution but who still need to automate this critical not-for-profit process.

Compared to Microsoft’s Volunteer Management and Volunteer Engagement solution, PA’s offering might be a small subset of what Microsoft’s solution can do but packs some weighty features and benefits.

Volunteer Onboarding and Offboarding app features:

1. See your total number of requests, pending action items, audit logs, and outstanding user requests on a single dashboard.
2. Add or edit a request to onboard a single volunteer or in bulk.
3. Request specific permissions based on the volunteer's category.
4. Get notified of requests to onboard a volunteer and conveniently approve or reject the request on the app.
5. Automatically provision their permissions to the relevant apps or systems they need to access.
6. Set the expiration date for the volunteer's access to secure your not-for-profit's systems.
7. Quick to implement and highly customisable to suit your not-for-profit’s unique processes.

Modernise your volunteer management process today!

With volunteer management or onboarding and offboarding tools, not-for-profits can efficiently manage and engage volunteers to deliver more programs and services to their communities. And with an experienced partner like Professional Advantage, you can adopt modern technology faster and more affordably so you can focus on what matters most to your not-for-profit: delivering your mission.

Contact us to learn how we can help your not-for-profit based on your specific use case.