If volunteers are an important part of your mission, a volunteer management system can be invaluable in helping you maximize the contribution of your volunteer base. Volunteers are much like donors in that they want to contribute something to your organization. While volunteers may also end up giving money to your organization, they also want to lend their time and expertise to help you succeed. This is a big reason why it is so important to be able to track, recognize, recruit, and retain volunteers. A system specifically designed to collect and track the information regarding your volunteers can save you time and money. Compared to a paper based or simple spreadsheet tracking, a volunteer management system is more efficient and precise giving quick access to a wide range of information that can be difficult to track otherwise. Having a complete record of volunteer hours and activities can be invaluable in program planning as well as for funding proposals and reporting. Reports to supervisors, budget development, and recognition efforts are all enhanced when key information (tasks completed, hours worked, schedules) is kept within a central repository. In addition, volunteers can be incentivized and take ownership of their position when they know their contribution is being tracked and especially if they are able to see personalized reports of their efforts.

• Samaritan Technologies (www.samaritan.com) -- Offers both a software program, Coordinator CS,  and an online hosted volunteer managment system, eCoordinator.

• VolunteerMatch (www.volunteermatch.org ) – Nonprofits can post volunteer opportunities on the VolunteerMatch website aand track referrals. VolunteerMatch offers two options for nonprofits. The Basic version is free and allows for recruiting, online referral management, tracking & reporting, and a donation solicitation feature. The Community Leader version provides enhanced features and costs $75 per year.

• Red Ridge Software (www.redridge.com ) – Red Ridge Software sells Volunteer Works and Volgistics. Volunteer Works is software that you will install on a computer. It helps to track, schedule, maintain job descriptions, report volunteer hours, print labels and lists, and much more. A single-user license costs approximately $800 and includes one-year of support. Additional years cost $90 for one user. Volgistics is an online-only tool that can do everything that Volunteer Works can do and more. The rate for Volgistics depends on a few factors including the number of volunteer records you keep and number of users. For example, one user and 200 records would cost $30 per month. A comparison between Volunteer Works and Volgistics is available at http://www.redridge.com/Comparison.htm

• 1-800-volunteer.org (www.1-800-volunteer.org ) – Provided by the Points of Light Foundation, 1-800-Volunteer.org provides a system to manage volunteer opportunities, recruit potential volunteers, and track current volunteers. Nonprofits must be associated with a local volunteer center to use this service.