Volunteer Matrix - The best Volunteer Scheduling Software

Communication with your Volunteers & Staff

Communication is key to any successful volunteer program. Volunteer Matrix is the swiss army knife of volunteer software - to support your endeavors. Note, below is not even a comprehensive list!

Details

VOLUNTEER Automated emails	Welcome on registering, reminders (4, 3, 2 week & 2 day), thanks (includes lifetime hours) or no-show message, happy birthday, volunteer anniversary, hours reached milestones, etc.
STAFF automated emails	Weekly executive summary, system wide reports, by project reports, new vols registered, schedules canceled, volunteers who reached hours milestones, etc. You can enable/disable any of these emails.
Staff generated emails	Your staff are conviently able to filter and send targeted messages to your volunteers from multiple screens.
text messaging	Volunteers are able to easily self-subscribe and receive the reminder and thank you messages. You can configure projects/events to send out an hour before their shift reminder text if desired (where the volunteer opted in). Additionally, your staff are able to push out text messages to those who opted in for texting (usually emergencies).
cancellations	Your staff are easily able to cancel shifts, dates (by project or full dates), or bulk cancel. All volunteers are notified, and if any do not have an email address, a list of those volunteers & their phone numbers is provided. If a volunteer cancels their own scheduled date, staff can be notified if > X days before their scheduled date.
Waitlist 2.0	Volunteers can opt in to receive notifications by email/text anytime shifts they are interested in open up or are added to the schedule.
parental approval of waivers/Docs	We have an automated system which will email the parents of youth volunteers which prompts the parents to accept the waivers/docs. At the same time, the parent can opt-in to receive scheduling notifications of their youth's volunteer schedule.
Email list integrations	We offer several email list service integrations (API's) so that volunteers can opt-in to your 3rd part email lists in real time. No exports or management required by your team.
Automatic bounced email correction	Our system automatically will capture email & text message bounces from mistyped or changed emails/texts, and prompt the volunteer to correct their email/text address as appropriate.
Branding integrity	All emails contain your specific organization branding, logos, footers, etc.

Unmatched Reports & Exporting

Volunteer Matrix is a data-driven system, and as such you won't find any other software remotely comes close to what we offer when it comes to reporting and data exports. Volunteer hours tracking reports in real time, with just a couple of clicks. Whether you need the statistics for grant writing, board meetings, or to really analyze the progress of your volunteer programs, Volunteer Matrix has you covered.

Most often, you won't need to do exports in order to import that data into other systems - we have an unparalleled list of 3rd party API connectors, which will real time update your data on those other systems, or in some cases bi-directional updates - changes in the other systems will update in VMX also.

Examples

STATISTICS	Right on your HomeBase when an admin logs into the administrations side, you will see the Statistics box. Here you can easily get statistics on the number of unique people, number of hours, number of slots, number of first time volunteers, number of one time volunteers, number of cancellations - all within any date range desired (even your imported data), and filtered if desired by project (or other items).
hours by VOlunteer	Sometimes you just want a complete list of all volunteers and their total hours in some specific date range (awards). The excel version of this data includes their profile details, any custom fields, number of no-shows, etc.
retention data	Use this graphical tool to really compare the progress of your volunteer programs over time. Graphs by year, quarter, month, week of the year, etc. Additionally, repeated volunteerism by number of months, weeks, days, etc.
custom reporting/exports	Volunteer Matrix come pre-loaded with many of the most common exports you might need. We also provide you a way to quickly click-to-select data columns to create your own exports. After creating the data set, you can apply filters on virtually any data point in the system to get just what you want. You can even have these automatically emailed to you on your set schedule (like every Mon 8am).
Integrates with your existing organizational calendaring	You can easily subscribe your exsting organizations calendaring (google, outlook, etc) to your projects/events so that you can real-time see your schedules, desired number of volunteers, current number scheduled, and a list of names of those scheduled. This is also great to use if you have sponsored events, where you can let the sponsor subscribe to their own project for real time updates without giving them administration access.
sign in sheets	In case there is some reason you don't use the included Kiosk mode or QR codes for volunteer Clock In & Out (remember - everything is included in Volunteer Matrix) - you can have the days pre-filled sign in sheets emailed to your team for printing.

Groups & Families Volunteering Together

Groups in Volunteer Matrix - are a set of people who all know eachother and so may volunteer together. This might be employees from a company, members of a family, a church congregation, etc.
Guaranteed, no other software available does remotely as much to support group volunteering as Volunteer Matrix. Below are just a few examples to get your toes wet:

Examples

group scheduling	Groups scheduling together in Volunteer Matrix - it just works like you would think it should. This means it's intuitive for group leader to self-create their groups, add their members, and schedule the group and members. With other software, they have to provide directions to the volunteers to accomplish this, with Volunteer Matrix - no directions are needed. The system will guide the group leader seamlessly through the process.
group members	No matter how a group member comes to Volunteer Matrix, whether the leader added them (they receive an emailed invitation to register), or they used a group share-link, or they just arrive on the main registration form, group members are able to locate and join their group schedule. Even before registering, a group member can see where their group is scheduled. After registering they can see who else in the group is scheduled... and much more.
clocking in & out	Even when groups go to clock in & out on site (kiosk, QR, etc), the group leader is able to clock in the entire group at one time. They can even make attendance changes (numbers and who) when clocking in. This eliminates the need for your staff to manually make corrections later.
required documents / waivers	The rquired documents system in Volunteer Matrix is comprehensive while remaining simple for the volunteers and your staff - with virtually no 'management' needed. We've automated the document acceptance even for group members, so that you will always know all volunteers have completed/accepted the required documents.
three types of groups	We offer three different types of groups, any one can be set as the default, and each group can be set to a type individually. These are designed so that you can effectively control your groups, problem groups, etc.
scheduling restrictions	We have integrated into our system your ability to allow or deny groups, limit the number of people from groups on any shift or date, require group documentation, require group payments.... what ever your specific requirements are, it's likely we already support them.

There's much more than just this to the Volunteer Matrix volunteer groups features and options!

Scheduling Flexibilty - including features you didn't even know you couldn't live without.

No matter which of the Volunteer Matrix scheduling options you choose to offer your volunteers, Volunteer Matrix is all about ensuring your team has 100% control, while automating virtually any required processes. The system will clearly communicate to your volunteers who don't meet requirements, what is necessary for them to be able to self-schedule on any opportunity (online training, in-person training, etc).

Use any of our numerous API connectors which connect to 3rd party software in real time, making updates in their system, updating constituent data, submitting background checks - what ever is appropriate to automate your volunteer process.

Features like when youth register, Volunteer Matrix can automatically contact their parents/guardians and get them to accept waivers, make any payments. After which their youth is automatically notified they can begin scheduling themselves.

Public Calendars	Integral to Volunteer Matrix are your public opportunities calendar(s). Many other volunteer systems don't show your opportunities until after registering and/or logging in, resulting in hemmoraging of new volunteers. Volunteers today expect to see the opportunities before they commit the time and energy required to register with you. Since you have 100% control of where volunteers are able to sign up for your opportunities (by age, training, etc), there's no risk in showing in advance you have many opportunities where you need volunteers. You may also have online trainings (text, video and Q&A) for opportunities so that where appropriate volunteers can immediately be qualified to sign up for shifts.
And even more calendars	Volunteer Matrix is designed to support any number of URL's/calendars to that your many volunteer programs are not all jumbled up in one place. If you have multiple locations you might have a separate calendar for each, or very different types of opportunities. Organize and display your projects/events in whatever way which makes logical sense for your programs. Each calendar can utilize a different registration form if desired, require specific online training(s), prompt for different waivers/documents, have it's own 'skills & interests' sets, and much more. When we say Volunteer Matrix was designed to support virtually any volunteer process, we really aren't kidding. Each project/event has it's own dedicated short URL which will show only that project/event (something like https://vmx.me/ABCDEF), which can also be handy in some cases. Volunteer Matrix offers at least 3 different calendar layout options for you to choose from. Wall Calendar, By Date list, By Project list - all are integrated into your full website design with navigation for a seamless volunteer experience.
access codes	You can further lock-down projects &/or shifts on your calendars using Access Codes. These ensure only the volunteers with the correct link or code are able to view and sign up for opportunities. Often these are used where you might have a single/special donor for a project/event. Also great to pre-release new opportunites to previous volunteers before the general public.
recurring volunteers	Often an organization will have recurring volunteers, who can be configured to be automatically scheduled on their recurring schedule. Since Volunteer Matrix tracks cancellations, they may cancel one of their future scheduled dates, they won't be readded. You can also disable reminder & thank you emails for recurring volunteers if desired (on a per-volunteer basis).
self-added hours	You can configure each volunteer to allow them to self-added hours if appropriate. This might be board members, mentors, or any other volunteer where their time is not on site. You can configure each person to enter hours by project/event by in/out time one or two times daily, total time once daily, weekly or monthly. It will even send gentle reminders if they forget to enter hours. There are also options to automatically add a specific configuration to set a volunteer with this based on selections on the registration form. If a project/event is configured to require a training, once a volunteer opens the self-added hours entry (on website or mobile device), it will prompt them to complete that training before they can enter any hours (unless of course they already completed the training(s)).
Subscribe to Project/Events	Likely you are using an organizational calendaring system (outlook, google, etc), and Volunteer Matrix gives you options to subscribe that system to your Volunteer Matrix project calendars. This will real time update your calendar system with the project schedule, times and number of volunteers wanted on each shift, the current number scheduled, and you can click for the details to see a full name list of attendees. This feature is also very handy when you have a dedicated project/event sponsor, where you can offer to them to subscribe and have real time updates so they know where they need to encourage their volunteers to schedule.
Waitlist 2.0	With a traditional "waitlist" as other software companies provide, actually cause an organization to loose new volunteers! A volunteer may waitlist instead of choosing the next available date, then they never end up scheduling an available date later. We analyzed data from our customers when we used to offer this type waitlist service. Our version of a "waitlist", what we call 2.0, is rather a notification system where volunteers can receive an email/text when slots open up, or are added to the schedule - and only when they are scheduling a date. So, you do end up capturing all new volunteers AND you end up with possibly many volunteers automatically notified about shifts they are interesed in when they open up. This is a significant improvement over traditional waitlists, and another feature only offered by Volunteer Matrix.

These are just some of the features and options available to 100% of Volunteer Matrix customers.
With over 20 years supporting nonprofits in their volunteer management and scheduling needs, we'd be happy to help you design and automate your volunteer programs/processes.

Integrations - introducing real connectivity with your other systems

At Volunteer Matrix we understand the necessity and importance of data interconnection between your varied systems. As such, we offer more 3rd party integrations than any other volunteer system available. Where possible, we build bi-directional connectivity. If you use a platform not listed below, please contact us and we'll see about adding a new API connector to work with that service (typically < 2 weeks).
The services listed below (like Blackbaud products) may charge your organization for using their connector independent of Volunteer Matrix, any listing here is NOT an endorsement of any kind, nor is any 3rd party integration required in order to use Volunteer Matrix.