What the volunteer sees from their side

An organiser picks a tool for themselves. What actually decides whether it works is what their volunteers see of it: two hundred people who know where they should be is two hundred phone calls you do not get the night before. So every volunteer has their own page, and it answers the only question they are asking: when do I start, and where?

The next shift, at the top

The page opens on the next shift: the day written out, the start and end times, the position, the team, and the names of the managers to talk to. A shift under way is flagged as such, a shift gone by fades out. No table to decipher, no PDF to dig out of an old email.

Below it, all their shifts in order, each with the position's description and the comment you left them. It is the same information as yours, seen from the other end.

Their calendar, kept up to date on its own

One button adds their shifts to the calendar on their phone or computer, through a file every calendar application can read. Times are written in the event's time zone, the one the site displays, not the phone's: a volunteer arriving from abroad does not turn up an hour out.

Their documents and their perks

The documents you attached to their position or their team are right there, on the shift they belong to: the bar's safety instructions, the site map, the position sheet. They have them to hand when they need them, rather than in an email from March.

Alongside them sit their badge and their perks, with what is left of each: two meals out of four, the T-shirt already collected. Nobody has to keep count on their behalf.

They sort themselves out, you get your evenings back

From their page, a volunteer edits their profile and fixes the phone number you mistyped, declines an assignment that does not suit them, and picks their own hours once you have opened shift booking. They can also leave the event: their availability, their assignments and the information they gave you go with them, while their account and their other events stay intact.

Each of those is something you do not have to do, and above all something you learn before the day rather than through an absence.

From one year to the next

The account is theirs and follows them. When you open the next edition, they sign in with the same details, find their information already filled in, and only have to say whether they are coming back. A volunteer who helps at three different events still has a single account.

Why it matters

Volunteers do not choose the tool and do not judge it on its feature list. They judge it on one thing: did they know, without having to ask, where to be and at what time. When the answer is yes, they come back the following year, and that is the only measure worth having.

Frequently asked questions

Does the volunteer have to install an app?

No. Their page opens in their phone's browser, and the link they get by email takes them straight there. They never have anything to pay either.

Can they decline an assignment?

Yes, from the shift itself, and you are told. Far better to learn it the week before than on the day, through an absence.

And if they cannot come at all?

They leave the event from their own page. That removes their availability, their assignments and the information they gave you, without touching their account or the other events they take part in.

Do they see the other volunteers?

They see their team managers, who are the people they deal with. The rest of the organisation is not open to them.

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