To keep track of volunteer hours, I have a sign in sheet in the office(all visitors are required to check in there). The sheet has columns for the volunteer's name, which class or event they are helping with, time in and out, and total time spent. I enter these numbers weekly into an Excel spreadsheet that has formulas to calculate the totals hours donated, hours donated per month, and average per day. We haven't gotten as detailed as tracking numbers by individual volunteer, because we just work at encouraging people to give what they can. We revamped our program a little this past school year and our hours went from 1810 for the previous year to 3225!
I can send you the sign-in sheet and spreadsheet if you think it would help.
I am thinking I will try to figure out Access. I had it in a computer class last year but we didn't cover it well. The first thing I thought of when I saw it was how great it will be for volunteers.
We give out a log sheet to each volunteer. This year I am going to see if I can put out a sign in sheet for volunteers also. They usually just sign in at the office. We have lost a major grant this coming school year and I really want to express the importance of keeping up with the hours. Our Title I and district Parent Liasion is supposed to do something with vol hours at the end of the year but I am not sure what they do. I was told several years ago these hours where needed to help with grants.
One of our main focuses for next year is to develop a stronger volunteer pool. Key to this is the software, I am interested to know if someone has developed their own volunteer database they would be willing to share (MS Access or something) or is there one out in internet land. I am considering using it to record donors as well.
Do you keep track of volunteer hours spent. If so why and how?
