How to organize and hack an effective volunteer system.

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 11/2/21 1:30 PM

With today's technology, you know there has to be a hack to seamlessly organize the administrative process for everything related to volunteers. 

You know the processes involved and the different material and software applications that you use for each one, but what if there were a single software that can bring it all together?  

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Tags: Volunteers

How can I use data to establish groups or recruit volunteers?  Here's help.

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 9/21/21 11:00 AM

Last week in our Roundtable on Reports, we talked about different ways to use group reports.  If you're interested in more, here's the podcast.  It's Episode 13.

Typically, you probably think of group reports as enrollment rosters or group attendance.  Of course, those are important because they help you see how well the ministry is doing.  But, data can also be a life-saver for dealing with two challenges that every church faces during this season of the ministry year.  Let's personalize those and see how group reports can come to the rescue.

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Tags: Volunteers, Reports

Three page titles and a new webinar that make scheduling volunteers better.

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 8/31/21 2:15 PM
 It has been just over 2 months since we released our new Service Volunteers feature which was designed to help staff effectively and efficiently schedule multiple teams for a worship service or other ministry experience. 
 
With every new release we look forward to clients and staff looking it over and giving us feedback. This post is a summary of that.
 
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Tags: New Release, Volunteers

New:  SERVICE VOLUNTEERS. Top Tier Upgrade.

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 6/7/21 10:30 AM

Six years ago we released an initial version of our volunteer scheduling feature.  It has been updated many times since then, but nothing like we are rolling out tonight.  Tonight's release of SERVICE VOLUNTEERS fills in the gaps to elevate this feature to the very top tier in the industry.

Our Volunteers feature lets you create a group and then schedule that team to serve.  With SERVICE VOLUNTEERS you create Templates made up of all the groups serving during a given service. 

Using the template you can schedule volunteers across all teams, see blocked out dates, potential conflicts, email or text everyone, and choose from 3 options for volunteers to get their own substitutes.

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Tags: New Release, Volunteers

How to recruit volunteers for Christmas Eve services.

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 12/1/20 10:15 AM

I remember from my church staff days that it was all hands on deck for Christmas Eve  services.  I see the staff at my church today all working together to cover volunteer spots for these services just like we did.  Because it is such a special time for families, I doubt  this stretch for volunteers on Christmas Eve will ever change.  But, we can help.

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Tags: Volunteers, Registration

How To Conquer Volunteer Scheduling In Your Church

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 8/6/19 8:03 AM

Eight weeks ago, I did a blog post on using Workflows to help you with volunteer recruitment.  This is the time of the year that most church staff are stressed out to make sure all the volunteers needed are in place.  But, once you get them recruited and trained, there is still the challenge of getting everyone scheduled.

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Tags: Church Management Software, Volunteers

Workflow Magic: Volunteer Training

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 6/18/19 8:22 AM

Today's post is a follow-up to last week's on volunteer recruitment.  The two posts work in tandem, you really need to master both to get the process down.

Last time we saw the need for a Ministry Connection Central group that simplifies church-wide communication and then auto-registers responses for specific Ministry Connection follow-up.

We then saw how to use a specific Ministry Connection group to develop a follow-up system to move those interested in connecting to their next step of registering for training. The system automates communication to ensure we are doing due diligence as staff to honor their initial interest.

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Tags: Volunteers, Automation

Workflow Magic: Volunteer Recruitment

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 6/11/19 8:28 AM

The church runs on volunteers. Pastors and staff are looking for help. Attenders and members are anxious to help. So, why is recruiting hard?

Every week or so staff get notified that people want to serve in their area of ministry. They send an email or leave a voice mail and if there's no response, they're on to next week's contacts. They don't have an adequate system or bandwidth to continue pursuing people.

Meanwhile attenders and members keep responding to the asks about their interests on Sunday and wonder why staff don't respond like promised. It could be that the email or voice message came in the middle of their work day, got put aside for later and then forgotten.

We recently gave some thought to how to solve this problem using the Churchteams system and Workflows. Here's what we came up.  See what you think.

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Tags: Volunteers, Automation

Best Practices: How to Track & Use Spiritual Gifts For Team-Building

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 7/24/18 10:04 AM
From the beginning of the Churchteams vision, there was a component I called Giftfinder that I dreamed of building into the software.  We built Groupfinder to help people connect with small groups. And Growthfinder as a spiritual growth assessment designed to help pastors, staff and group leaders measure and track spiritual growth.  Here's a Best Practices Blog post on using Growthfinder. 
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Tags: Groups, Volunteers, Best Practices

Best Practice w/ Feature Upgrade:  Check-in Everyone & Auto-Print Youth/Volunteer Name Tags

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 5/15/18 7:02 AM

The best place to connect with parents on Sunday morning is when they check-in their kids.  This is just as true for your members and regular attenders as it is for your guests.  You may already be using that time to start the follow-up process.  If not, see section D in the check-in view.  But, why not use the same opportunity to capture attendance for everything everyone in the family is attending or serving in that morning?  

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Tags: Check-in, New Release, Volunteers, Text-To-Church

Train, Schedule & Help Volunteers Thrive

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 8/15/17 8:47 AM

In the last blog I shared ideas on how to best use our church database to recruit volunteers.  This is a huge effort for many church staff every late summer and early fall.  But, the rest of the year is about helping these volunteers thrive and succeed in their ministry.  Here are some ideas on how to use Churchteams to help you make sure your volunteers have as positive an experience as possible.

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Tags: Volunteers

Managing The Stress of Recruiting Volunteers

Posted by Boyd Pelley on 8/8/17 9:47 AM

 August is the time of the year that many church staff are feeling the pressure of recruiting for their fall ministies.  The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers few.  And the staff are feeling the pressure of both.   I remember this season well from my many years as a small group and family pastor.  My wife and kids remember it as well.  Dad was always a little more amped up.  

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Tags: Volunteers

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