Keeping Volunteers Accountable is Hard. But it doesn't have to be. | Track It Forward

Keep Volunteers Accountable and Happy

Quick Approvals

When a volunteer does something, quickly validate and recognize it through approvals.

Clear Expectations

If a volunteer knows how many hours they need to track, they will do them.

Feedback Loop

Knowing that a volunteer can see their own hours will create a healthy feedback loop so they complete it.

If You Don't Do It, They Won't.

Accountability sounds like project management in a business, right? Does this belong in a volunteer organization? Isn't volunteering supposed to be fun and not remind everybody of work? All true, but, you can keep volunteers accountable while making it positive at the same time.

No volunteer organizer wants to hound volunteers and make sure they're meeting requirements. It has negativity written all over it and no volunteer or volunteer organizer wants to go through that type of confrontation. But alas, the work must get done, and some volunteer organizations require volunteer hours to even operate in exchange for some type of membership. Thankfully we can remove any headache through this with the help of technology.

By creating a clear expectation on time and allowing a volunteer to see their own progress, you will no longer have to do a lot of that accountability. Volunteers prefer to self-regulate themselves but sometimes it's just not clear on how to do that. Providing volunteers a structure to log hours gives them that feedback loop to do that type of self-regulation. Let them see their own progress, let them log their own hours, let them know when they need to log more hours, but do that all automatically.

The best part is, every time someone volunteers with this new structure, you now have the opportunity to appreciate them while approving their hours. Every interaction turns into a great interaction and positive reinforcement.