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Our Chamber organizes the logistics for Ankeny SummerFest every year and the event could not be possible without our dedicated group of 450+ volunteers. It was our first year using VolunteerLocal for SummerFest and within the first few weeks of utilizing this amazing software, we have since then started using it for all of our other events. As an Event Director, this software has made working with registrations, communications and volunteer reporting so much more efficient and has given our lead volunteers more of a role in the registration process. We look forward to continue working with VolunteerLocal as our volunteer base continues to grow in years to come.
- Jessica Erickson, Ankeny Area Chamber of Commerce | www.ankeny.org
This was my first year as the volunteer coordinator for the Underground Music Showcase in Denver, CO. We have 4 days of live music with volunteer jobs at the main stage, volunteer and box office tents, 20 venues up and down a 4 mile stretch of Broadway and more; you get the picture. Bottom line we had over 300 shifts and over 300 volunteers. The training that Kaylee with Volunteer Local provided was amazing and on going as I prepared for the festival.
I had to request some customization for our event in the thick of things due to the way we were handling the scheduling. Brian was AMAZING in helping me brainstorm some work-arounds and making it happen.
Kaylee and I had a wrap up call and she was very receptive to my comments and suggestions for continued improvement to the Volunteer Local app for us and other organizations going forward. I can't wait to see what we will have available to us next year as this group is super dedicated to making Volunteer Local user friendly to help any organization successfully execute their event!
Now that I have this first event under my belt, I know I can cut my lead time in half by using the system the way it was built while still managing volunteers the way we like to for our event.
Thanks Vol Local team!
- Lexi Corrigan, Underground Music Showcase | theums.com
Thank you and your team for creating such a great volunteer management tool and for offering stupendous help and support. Your tech team is the quickest and most responsive group I have ever worked with. We are deeply grateful for your help in making our first Jaipur Literature Festival at Boulder a great success!
- Joni Teter, Jaipur Literature Festival | www.jaipurliteraturefestival.org
We used VolunteerLocal for our Ribfest and had over 300 volunteers signed up on the system. It made it so much easier to manage that number of volunteers and our Volunteer Committee members were very impressed with the software. It's fairly intuitive and easy to use. Thank you very much.
- Bent Fink-Jensen, Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar | www.oakvillerotary.org
We're in the midst of the crazy week pre-marathon weekend, but I just wanted to take a second to give you and your team a HUGE thank you for the fantastic volunteer management platform you all work on. I have worked with several volunteer management systems, and I've managed large races for over 10 years, and I've never had an easier time using a system - both from my end of things, and the front-end volunteer registration process.
Every new thing I've gone in for the first time to do in your system has ended with me saying "wow, that was amazingly easy/straightforward/fast!" I am truly appreciative of the outstanding product you guys have created. It has saved me a ton of time, and a lot of headache because I really think our volunteers have had both a simpler experience in registering, and also are actually able to USE your tools to go in and edit their own account . The lack of emails I've received asking for me to change a volunteer's job/date/registration or cancel their shift has been very refreshing.
THANK YOU for making my job easier.
- Mona Langenberg, Director of Operations for GO! St. Louis | gostlouis.org
Last year was the first time using Volunteer Local and it has made my job so much easier. Before, we had hard copy forms that people would send back and we would allocate their roles. Now, volunteers can select the exact role and time they would like, saving on confusion and database entry.
It's easy to access reports and the ability to move volunteers and send bulk emails is great. I have been and will continue to recommend VolunteerLocal to anyone who recruits volunteers.
- Claire Levett, Campaign Coordinator, Santos Great Bike Ride for Charity | www.greatbikeride.com.au
Thank you for being so helpful and easy to work with! I look forward to being a repeat customer for future events!
- Lauren Bland, Hampton Road Sports Commission | www.hamptonroadssports.org
I LOVE your system by the way. It's relatively easy for our non-computer savvy volunteers and SUPER easy for me to manage. I inherited a more out-dated system to manage our volunteers when I started here and your system is SO MUCH BETTER. I love the design and ease of use!
-Noelle Harrison, Volunteer Coordinator, San Francisco Playhouse | www.sfplayhouse.org
Thank you for all you time and patience while we cycled the decision through our various committees. We are very excited to get away from our 39 year tradition of scheduling volunteers on paper - and only recently excel spreadsheets - and provide our community volunteers with a more efficient and user friendly way to help us with our event. Everyone to a person is on board with using VolunteerLocal's software for our Designer House Event this year.
- Jean Upton, Bucks County Designer House Chair | www.buckscountydesignerhouse.org
VolunteerLocal has enabled us to recruit volunteers and organize them into shifts on a much more streamlined basis. Normally I would have to exchange several emails including confirmations prior to the event. Thanks to VolunteerLocal, this is done automatically, allowing my time to be spent doing other very useful things to help Iowa's children. I would highly recommend VolunteerLocal. Not only are they non-profit friendly, they are very organized and helpful.
- Tiffany Egli, Director of Activities, Variety Iowa | www.varietyiowa.com
VolunteerLocal makes it so easy to organize an event. It's great because we have a database of emails of people who like to volunteer for our events, so when we have a new event we set up a VolunteerLocal page for it (which is often quite easy because we can duplicate the event from a previous year and edit a few things) then email it out to our volunteer list and most of the spots get filled up right away! I'd definitely recommend it to others. :)
- Chris Ford, Program Manager, Des Moines Music Coalition | www.desmoinesmc.com
I love this software. The ease of use alone - it's like you guys think the same way I do! I kept saying, why can't someone just do it this way?! And you did. Our volunteers are going to be so thrilled because it's so easy to sign up. I'm kicking myself for not finding this two years ago when I did my initial search!
- Susan Hensley, Gator by the Bay | www.gatorbythebay.com
Our event was the 15th Annual Run for Zimbabwe Orphans and Fair - and we made it, thanks to VolunteerLocal! We had two Zimbabwe bands, Sadza buffet, nine cultural booths (games for the kids), mascots running around, t-shirts and eleven running races. We had a crew of about 400 volunteers. To manage all of this was CRAZY. VolunteerLocal really made our job better this year. Thank you!
- Ellen Clark, President, the Annual Run for Zimbabwe Orphans and Fair | facebook.com/ZimbabweRunFair
As a charity we are always looking for cost effective ways to manage our events and Volunteer Local was a perfect fit. It has made the sign up process extremely easy for our volunteers and could not be easier to set up and manage. We can communicate all the details of an event automatically during sign up and manage all the responses via the reporting tool available. The web based tools could not be simpler to use, but if you do need support, the Volunteer Local team are very helpful and quick to response to queries I would recommend Volunteer Local to other charities and businesses, whatever their size. There is something for everyone!
- Lizzy Felix, Heart Your Smile, United Kingdom | www.heartyoursmile.co.uk
This software saved my volunteer director from quitting :) Thank you so much for offering it for free to us little guys! It has been amazing for us!
- Jenn Vanelli, Executive Director / Co-Founder, ValleyPalooza Organization, Inc. | www.valleypalooza.org
I like to make things easy. VolunteerLocal is a big part of this for me - I love how easy it is for volunteers to sign up and check their shifts, and I love how easy it is for me to see where I have holes and move people around during my event. (And how quickly Volunteer Local staff reply to my emails asking for help!) The easier things are, the happier my volunteers are.
- Elizabeth Orcutt, Volunteer Coordinator, Treefort Music Festival | treefortmusicfest.com
Wow. For as long as we've been in the event business, managing volunteers has always been a challenge... until we found VolunteerLocal. The first time we used VolunteerLocal was for Oktoberfest and we haven't looked back. The functionality and reporting are so important for us. It's been great. We can't say enough wonderful things about VolunteerLocal - even the customer support is fabulous. Would I consider using any other tool? Not a chance.
- Mindy Toyne, Owner, In Any Event | www.in-any-event.com
VolunteerLocal has provided us with a great way to stretch our arms and reach volunteers. It is very user-friendly, easy to set up events and provide all of the details potential volunteers need to know. I starting using the website for our Fight for Air Walk this past September, which provided us with a handful of volunteers. I knew right then we would be back for all future events to come - we are already up and running with our Fight for Air Climb on the site! Thanks to VolunteerLocal we are reaching more potential volunteers and sharing our mission with more than we could have on our own, we are very thankful!
- Renee Searle, Special Events Coordinator, American Lung Association | www.lung.org
As an event production company, we are always looking for great systems to coordinate volunteers. VolunteerLocal has helped streamline our process for volunteer management. We produce numerous events with over 100+ volunteers and have been using VolunteerLocal for the past few years. It's so easy to use. My favorite feature is the communication tool - sending important information to our volunteers. You can set this up in advance and forget about it. Receiving support from the VolunteerLocal team is fast and they will take the extra time to give you more tips if you are not already using them. Overall, I would recommend VolunteerLocal to other event management companies. You all know how important organization is for events and VolunteerLocal has helped make that easier for our volunteer recruitment efforts.
- Talisa Gula-Yeast, Operations Manager, Adventure Fit, Inc. | adventurefit.com
Premier Event Management used Volunteer Local on a daily basis from March-October. Volunteer Local allowed us to coordinate over 4,000 volunteers throughout the 2013 season in the easiest way possible. We worked with volunteers throughout an 8 state region and it allowed us to easily communicate and keep track of volunteer numbers. Thank you for allowing us to coordinate and organize volunteers for some of the largest triathlons and road races in the country and also for keeping us sane!
- Laura Smidt, Premier Event Management | pem-la.com
I was just setting up for our next BIG event in September and was able to copy all the shifts and times from the prior event. I can't tell you how much of a time saver this was! So glad we chose you guys!
- Heather Worrell, Volunteer Coordinator, the Kabbalah Centre | kabbalah.com
VolunteerLocal made it really easy to manage over 120 volunteer shifts for the annual Tour de Fat, and helped what has a potential to be a really crazy day a lot less crazy. Once set up, the work was done, and the format was very easy, informative, and beneficial to the volunteers. We would definitely use it again, and already have recommended it to others.
- Jimmy Hallyburton, Executive Director, the Boise Bicycle Project | www.boisebicycleproject.org
VolunteerLocal saved me a lot of time and stress while coordinating volunteers for the 105th Drake Relays. In the past we had been relying on emails, phone calls, and random post-it notes to fill positions but streamlining everything through one website was a lifesaver! The most time consuming aspect of using this tool was the initial process of getting everything in the system but because you can archive events, next year will be a breeze! I recommend VolunteerLocal if you are looking to reduce stress and improve the sign-up experience of both the volunteer coordinator and the volunteers.
A note from one of our group leaders to their volunteers:
As promised last week, we are now giving you access to the direct link for signing up for a volunteer post at the 2014 Drake Relays. Relays are April 25th and 26th.
I tried this yesterday and it is really slick and I think you will rejoice at the ease and fast response of doing your own assignment.
I tried this yesterday and it is really slick and I think you will rejoice at the ease and fast response of doing your own assignment.
- Johanna Determann, Drake Relays | drake.edu/relays
Volunteer Local was wonderful to use for our huge annual church festival! With about 3,500 volunteer time slots to keep track of over a three day event, it is a huge job! The option to send emails directly to the volunteers was wonderful and the Volunteer Local team was great about making a few changes to reports in the midst of our craziness. Thanks so much for all that you do and we will be using VolunteerLocal for other volunteer events throughout the year as well!
- Joan Seibenick, Business Manager, St. John the Evangelist Church | www.stjohnwc.org
VolunteerLocal gives us the opportunity to seamlessly recruit for a number of specialized volunteer roles. We can keep a birds-eye-view on our signups and easily communicate with volunteers. Using this tool helps keep our large organizing team on the same page, which is critical for a collaborative event of this scale.
- Brianne Sanchez, Jumpstart! | www.dmu.edu/event/jumpstart-school-physicals
I recommend VolunteerLocal to anybody that ever has to coordinate an event with volunteers. It's amazing. We've used both the free and paid versions for events in Green Bay and we couldn't be happier with the ease and navigability of the process with the software. It's saved us so much time, and our volunteers love it, too!
- Brian Danzinger, On Broadway (City of Green Bay) | www.onbroadway.org
I first learned about VolunteerLocal when I signed up for a volunteer shift with OFOAM, a local music festival in Utah. I found the volunteer experience simple and easy so I decided to try it for our not-for-profit event and so far I LOVE it. Much better than Google docs, which we have been using... VolunteerLocal is smooth and a major stress reliever. Thank you!
- Pamela Stevens, Ogden Fall Equinox |
Living in a small city, I sort of fell into the roll of volunteer coordinator. Over the past year I have been using VolunteerLocal to help organize my volunteers for local events ranging from music, films and culture. This application has helped me succeed without a doubt. It has been incredibly flexible for each particular event allowing me to customize confirmation e-mails and information boxes to critique my database with all convenient information. And the volunteers love the simple sign-up as well. It truly cancels out the normally confusing sign-up process. And, in all honesty, I dont know what I would do without this great application. Its the perfect tool for the job, and not to mention how great the support team is. I would highly recommend VolunteerLocal for your volunteer coordinating needs.
- Shawn Nicol; Boats and Bluegrass, Midwest Music Festival, Frozen River Film Festival, Winona Dakota Unity Alliance | frff.org
A perfect fit! Having organized many PTA events over the years, I have sampled several online volunteer registration tools, but none passed the test. They were difficult to use and confused an already tedious process.
I found gold when I discovered VolunteerLocal. Gave them a test spin with our last school carnival and I am 100% sold. It is the IDEAL tool for any event requiring volunteers. The setup was easy, the sign up page was simple enough for novice internet users to navigate, the stats dashboard is awesome and the ability to export volunteer data was icing on the cake.
If I did have a technical question, Brian was swift to reply and super great to work with.
Thank you, VolunteerLocal! We will most definitely be using your product in the future. You saved us time and most of all, sanity. :)
- Kerri Sorenson, Los Cerritos PTA | loscerritos-lbusd-ca.schoolloop.com
VolunteerLocal was a godsend. It was one of those moments when I was searching for the perfect web application for my needs and found it. While I know it can be better, it really helped organize and streamline the way I have been able to manage our volunteers. An example last week when we had a last minute kitchen closure, in the past this could have been a disaster with volunteers showing up un-announced. Now that we schedule with VolunteerLocal, we can easily notify a group of cancellations, or modifications to the schedule. Overall, I am very happy with the application, and thankful to you for making it.
- Jesse Seaver, Curry Without Worry | www.currywithoutworry.org
Having a tool, as basic as that sounds, just having a tool for volunteers to sign up for our upcoming orientations and events, is so wonderful. VolunteerLocal is super easy to use and compatible with other users--because we have three or four people managing the events at a time--and it's consistent and helpful. We used to send emails back-and-forth and then create a spreadsheet from the email contacts. Sometimes we would accidentally sign up multiple volunteers for the same thing. Now, we have one place where we can keep track of what jobs are available and when. It's just perfect.
- Jody White, Dress For Success | www.dressforsuccess.org/desmoines
We used to use hard-copy forms that we put on our website--people filled them out and then faxed, mailed or emailed them back to us. I had to input each form into a spreadsheet, then place those volunteers based on our need for each job. I made email lists for each job and sent out schedules and job descriptions. For the walk this past year, I spent probably six full days organizing volunteers. VolunteerLocal has been so helpful! Now, I can spend my time fundraising instead of entering information into a spreadsheet. If I want to see how my volunteer database is going, I can just click the link and see how many have signed up, where we need more--everything. We can put job descriptions on the website, and we just couldn't do that before. This has been an amazing transition for us.
- Toni Mortensen, JDRF | greateriowa.jdrf.org
Before VolunteerLocal, OFOAMs Volunteer Coordinator relied on back and forth emails, phone calls and handwritten spreadsheets to organize volunteers for the annual Ogden Music Festival (weekend after Memorial Day). Also before VolunteerLocal, our volunteers didn't have as much choice about where and when their shifts were and the communication they received about their shifts was sometimes confusing. We had an unhappy Volunteer Coordinator and unhappy volunteers! When our Volunteer Coordinator quit this year (no surprise), with no replacement in the wings, we thought we'd be lost without her. We spoke with other local non-profits about our dilemma and the GOAL Foundation highly recommended your service. In desperation, I signed us up for the free version and began creating jobs and shifts. I found the set up to be very user friendly and our friends at GOAL helped me with some of the finer points along the way. Our biggest challenge was getting our volunteers to use the online sign up, since they had been used to the old way of doing business. Since VolunteerLocal, our communication with volunteers has been clearer, the job descriptions helped them know what to expect and the confirmation email gave them their schedule without me having to lift a finger! Happy (but still looking for a replacement) "Volunteer Coordinator" and happy volunteers... thanks VolunteerLocal!
- Reba Nissen, Director, Ogden Friends of Acoustic Music (OFOAM) | ofoam.org
VolunteerLocal provides both the administrator and the volunteer critical tools to make volunteering fun, efficient and manageable. It's easy to use, provides automated communications & contributes significantly to a high retention rate.
- Stephen King, Executive Director of the Des Moines Arts Festival | www.desmoinesartsfestival.org
I just wanted to say thank you for all of your help with our VolunteerLocal page for the YESS Duck Derby! The program is an amazing and easy way for us to manage our large pool of
volunteers, especially with so many events. Thank you for always responding quickly to my many questions and for providing the service at such an affordable rate. Thanks again!
- Jana Daisy, YESS | www.yessiowa.org
We used to coordinate all 240 volunteer shifts for the Iowa Craft Beer tent using a giant excel spreadsheet with hundreds of blacked-out and empty cells--we called it 'the Soduku Puzzle.' I also had a PDF document that I manually updated every three hours. It was a nightmare. Plus we were left with about 70 extra t-shirts after our first appearance at the State Fair because we didn't have an efficient way to record that information. VolunteerLocal has really improved the registration process for us. Our VolunteerLocal page went live at 8:00am on May 1st. In one hour, 140 spots were gone. After one day, I think there were only 18 spots left. Probably saved me about 100 hours of labor and I was able to customize my registration page to collect information on t-shirt sizes and colors. It was great. No leftover t-shirts, no Soduku Puzzles.
- Steve Linn, Iowa Craft Beer Tent | www.iowacraftbeertent.com
Before VolunteerLocal, we relied mostly on friends and word-of-mouth for volunteers. We tried reaching out to corporate businesses that had volunteer databases--we even put a blurb in the Des Moines register. The thing is, you can get some pretty crazy people that way. VolunteerLocal has been such an awesome tool and resource. We're in the beginning phases of our venture at Mo'Rub, and we are so appreciative to have VolunteerLocal to assist us! From farmer's markets to festivals across the state, VolunteerLocal has allowed us to easily recruit and communicate with our volunteers. Thank you, VolunteerLocal!
- Steph Jessen, Mo'Rub | www.morub.com
When I joined the board, we had a volunteer database on our website. I'm not a techie, but I'm savvy. I said, 'No. There is a better way to do this.' So we signed up for VolunteerLocal in early May and began promoting open volunteer positions in September--it was great. I could just click buttons to organize all my volunteers, whereas before I had to organize it all on Excel. VolunteerLocal has saved me days of work. Days! We're absolutely going to use VolunteerLocal again for next year's Suwanee Day celebration.
- Pascha Dudley, Suwanee Days | www.suwaneeday.com
Getting2Tri just hosted a first ever, paratriathlon training event in Charlotte, NC (last weekend). We used VolunteerLocal for the volunteer registration, management of jobs/shifts, and timely communications. The feedback was incredible! I can't tell you how many volunteers came up to me and commented how easy it was to register and know exactly what they were supposed to be doing. Thanks for having such a great product.
- Mike Lenhart, Getting2Tri | www.getting2tri.org
Thought you might like to see some of the positive feedback we got:
Hello,
Just wanted to thank-you for the fabulous new improvements to this process, I loved all the descriptions, as a second year parent this was extrememly helpful. All sign up in less than 15 mintues, including phone calls back and forth to my husband, thanks so much for streamlining this task. Great job.
Just wanted to thank-you for the fabulous new improvements to this process, I loved all the descriptions, as a second year parent this was extrememly helpful. All sign up in less than 15 mintues, including phone calls back and forth to my husband, thanks so much for streamlining this task. Great job.
- Carl Anderson, WVBBTS | www.wvbbts.org
With great communication and customer service like you wouldn't believe, Volunteer Local has helped us expand and enhance our volunteer database and reach a new level of professionalism.
- Jed McGuire, Wildwood Hills Ranch | www.wildwoodhillsranch.org
Volunteers are the backbone of our national events, and VolunteerLocal's system allows us to easily manage a large volunteer force.
- Jeff Dyrek, National Events Director / USA Triathlon | www.usatriathlon.org
VolunteerLocal was an invaluable tool in our event preparation and execution. There is not a better volunteer management tool for the money.
- Al Lorenzen, Vice President of Sports & Development at Greater Des Moines CVB, host of the 2009 AAU Junior Olympic Games | www.catchdesmoines.com/sports/
There is something special about trying to accommodate hundreds of individual volunteer schedules by hand.
- No one. Ever
