"Utilizing Technology for Volunteer - Involving Organizations", paper by Mark Gannon - March 2001

ICT as Assistance

ICT does bring with it the promise of benefits beyond mere improvements in administrative and operational effectiveness and efficiency, however, usefulness of ICT in day-to-day working should not be overlooked in the rush to be innovative. Some of this day-to-day use of ICT can involve specialist software (or hardware), but much of it can be done within the limits of current organisational skills, resources and technological capabilities.

Office software is the most obvious ICT tool that can be used in this way. Volunteer managers can use simple databases in some very powerful ways. Simple word processing packages can also be used quite imaginatively. The mail merge function available in most office suites, for example, is of huge benefit to all volunteer managers, but particularly those from smaller organisations with few staff. Mailing lists and labels can significantly reduce the administrative burden and allow volunteer managers to concentrate on other tasks. Word processing packages can also be used to create templates of documents that are regularly produced such as standard letters, agreements, newsletters or memos.

Another 'simple' office programme that can be extremely useful is the spreadsheet. This allows volunteer managers to keep a variety of basic data on their volunteers ranging from lists of information for management purposes to more detailed financial information. Spreadsheets also allow volunteer managers to carry out some data analysis without needing the skills to be able to query a fully functioning database. In a package like Microsoft Excel for instance, it's very easy to introduce hyperlinks to other documents, thus in effect building 3-D spreadsheets that can become very powerful instruments for management, analysis and referencing of information without having to jump into database design, which can be a more complex issue.

Computerised databases can help volunteer managers who are swamped with paperwork and therefore maybe cannot keep track of much of the information that could be useful to them. They can also assist in making much of the data that is collected about volunteers useable. Volunteer managers can use this data to possibly justify programme expansion or seek more funding. It may also be used for the direct benefit of the volunteer acting almost like a computerised curriculum vitae of tasks carried out, hours, volunteered, training history and skills portfolio. Collecting simple data on volunteer programmes means that some evaluation can be done alongside the identification and then targeting of under-represented groups.

There are also a range of commercially available database packages which volunteer managers could utilise. These are specifically designed for storing, retrieving and analysing information on volunteers and volunteer programmes. Whilst these custom built systems are often extremely professional and full of features, they can be priced at levels which are prohibitive for many small organisations.

The great thing about these 'assistance technologies' is that almost everyone has access to them and most people know how to use them. This means that those organisations that are unable to fully take advantage of the prevailing online technologies can still use ICT to assist them in their work and even these simple technologies can garner huge rewards in terms of time management and the availability of information.

Case Study: Bristol Zoo Gardens is one of the pilot organisations testing a new computerised volunteer audit system called Involve. They have 120 volunteers doing a range of activities from giving talks on aspects of the Zoo's work to visitors to doing outreach work. Before using the software, Carola Vorlop, their volunteer manager, admits that managing all these volunteers was very time consuming and not always easy. "Previously, I relied on a lot of paper information. Sometimes I had 6 or 7 separate pieces of information for one volunteer, but now all the information is in one place". Carola was particularly impressed with the amount of features that Involve had and it's ease of use: "The system is very user friendly, clearly designed and getting reports from the system is very easy". Overall, the aim of the software for volunteer managers is to make it a much simpler task to store and extract the information about their volunteers that they need. Carola thinks that the system achieves this goal: "It certainly makes my life as a volunteer manager easier and is much quicker than how we did it before".

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