What is the best volunteer management software for your nonprofit?

The UK is one of the world’s most charitable nations. Yet, despite this generosity, recent years have seen volunteer numbers slow, with studies showing that almost two thirds of charities are struggling to find the people they need.

This isn’t necessarily due to a lack of interest. In fact, our own research shows that online searches for volunteering opportunities have increased by 13% in the past year. To harness that enthusiasm and start growing your programme, you don’t just need any volunteer management software. You need the best volunteer management software – one that fits the needs of your organisation, and will help you find, recruit, retain and manage a growing community of engaged volunteers. 

It sounds great in theory. But how do you know when you’ve found the best volunteer management system for your organisation? It all comes down to functionality. In this section, we’ll highlight some of the key tools and features to look out for when conducting your search. 

Next-level recruitment tools

To build a successful volunteer programme, you need to bring in more of the right people. That means you’ve got to think strategically about the types of roles you’re recruiting for, the requirements of each opportunity, and the skills of individual volunteers.

Once your profiles are complete, you need to make sure your ad is visible. The best volunteer management software is designed for this, and will include tools and features to help you develop, host and share detailed job adverts on your website and social media. 

And they won’t stop there. 

The best volunteer management systems are there to help you level-up every stage of your recruitment process. So, keep an eye out for software that: 

• Enables online application submission and processing
• Provides real-time updates on application status for managers and applicants
• Sends automated prompts and reminders for outstanding tasks
• Streamlines background checks and onboarding procedures

Find out more about our recruitment feature

Interactive volunteer management 

Bringing volunteers in is just the first step. To build lasting, successful programmes, you need to turn their enthusiasm into meaningful experiences that keep them wanting more.

Interactive rotas are a great way to do this. Research shows that one of the biggest barriers to volunteering is time—with volunteers often struggling to balance their commitment with work, family, and caring responsibilities. Self-service scheduling tools are a handy fix that give people the freedom and control to sign up for shifts, events and training at a time and frequency that works for them.   

Sound good? Pay attention to tools that offer:

• Mobile app access for volunteers on the go
• Facilities to build a quick access volunteer information hub
• 1:1 messaging between volunteers and managers 

Find out more about our management feature

Creative communications features

Of course, volunteering shouldn’t be all about the job. To truly make volunteers feel part of your organisation, you need to go beyond the transactional and create opportunities that facilitate deeper involvement.

The best volunteer management systems make this easy – offering tools to help nurture relationships between volunteers and managers, and among volunteers themselves. While email is a given, top-tier systems go further, offering SMS capabilities, internal messaging and interactive forums that help build a genuine sense of community. 

They will also help you track volunteer impact, celebrate anniversaries, milestones, and share organisational updates that make sure your volunteers feel valued and in the loop. 

Find out more about our communication feature

Powerful integrations  

No volunteer works alone, and your volunteer management software shouldn’t either. The best software will seamlessly integrate with your core systems and help build unified and efficient workflows across departments.  

Be on the lookout for tools that integrate with:

• Your charity CRM: Volunteers are supporters too. Top-tier software will integrate with your CRM and give you a full view of their activity as donors and volunteers, with updates automatically rippling across both systems.  
• Learning management systems (LMS): When volunteers need training or refresher courses, integration with your LMS makes sure that nothing is missed, and that ongoing learning is easy to manage and track.
• Customer support platforms: If a volunteer needs technical support, an integrated system will give your service team full visibility of their volunteer history, and make sure their managers are aware of the conversation.   

Find out more about our integrations feature

Tools to support diversity and inclusion

Building an inclusive volunteer programme starts with understanding who your volunteers are. The best volunteer management software will offer diversity and inclusion features that help you move beyond assumptions by eliminating manual data collection and making it easy to capture and analyse key diversity metrics. 

Supported by secure data storage, anonymised reporting, and permission-based access, with top-tier software on your team, you can confidently gather the insights you need while protecting individual privacy. 

Find out more about our diversity and inclusion feature

While volunteer management software might seem like a big upfront spend, it’s important that you see this cost as the long-term investment that it is. In the long-run, taking the time to choose the best volunteer management system for your organisation is a move that will not only save you money, it strengthens your whole programme—delivering lasting value for your team, volunteers and organisation.

Headline benefits include:

Fast and efficient recruitment

Finding the best volunteer management software for your team won’t just help you recruit more volunteers, it will streamline and enhance your entire recruitment process. Automated workflows move volunteers quickly and seamlessly through each application—reducing applicant drop-off and cutting processing times down from months to weeks. 

What’s more, with all your application data stored in one centralised hub, it’s easy to get a bird’s-eye view of your recruitment pipeline. That means you can quickly spot and fix bottlenecks and deliver a five-star volunteer experience from day one. 

Improved volunteer management

When you’ve got hundreds—if not thousands—of volunteers on the books, it’s easy for someone to feel lost in the crowd. The best volunteer management systems will help you keep things personal without taking up valuable time. 

The best bit? Every interaction will be automatically logged as part of their relationship history. That means it’s easy for your team to stay up-to-speed and make sure your volunteers feel valued and supported.  

Great volunteer retention rates 

Volunteering should never be a chore. With every personal note, reminder and group discussion you are building a vibrant and active community where volunteering is a fun, social activity to be enjoyed, not a task to be completed. 

What better way to keep volunteers motivated and engaged? 

Streamlined workflows

By far one of the biggest advantages of digital volunteer management is the time it will save. The best volunteer management software is there to help you work smarter, not harder – using automatic workflows, self-serving rota systems, and creative communications tools to streamline and level-up your programme. 

Data-driven evolution

And finally, we all know that the best decisions are driven by data. Your new volunteer management system will give you plenty of it. With powerful reporting and analytical tools, it’s easy to make sense of the numbers and use them to evolve your programme upwards: designing recruitment strategies and volunteer management processes that make sure your organisation has the people power it needs to succeed. 

It all sounds great in theory, but finding the best volunteer management system for your organisation will always come at a cost. The trick is to be specific about your needs and make sure that you’ve compared prices across different suppliers.

Remember, the final total will vary depending on: 

• The number of users, volunteers and Volunteer Managers  
• The type of features and tools required (look out for additional add-ons!)  
• Project management, training and implementation support
• Integration requirements
• Supporting and maintaining a mobile app

You can see a breakdown of our pricing packages below: 

A piece of software that could be considered as being the best volunteer management system should support a tangible improvement on an organisation. For example, since our customers have invested in Access Assemble, they have been able to experience a significant return on investment (ROI). The metrics that are especially prevalent are increased profit, increased number of volunteers recruited, and valuable time saved.

"I would absolutely recommend Access Assemble, our applications have increased, and onboarding is much quicker and more efficient. It also gives you a great overview of your volunteering programme.”

Stephanie Robey, Volunteering and Employability Manager - Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust

Read customer story

“The biggest improvement is easily the streamlining of our volunteer recruitment. Being able to follow some simple steps to create and publish a recruitment advert, with the peace of mind that this will take applicants all the way through the recruitment journey, is revolutionary.”

Laura Clark, Head of Volunteering - National Autistic Society

Watch customer story

“Assemble has had a huge impact on the RSPCA as an organisation and this is largely down to us making use of the full breadth of the software, but if I had to pick a must-have feature, I really couldn't do without the recruitment tools - they are worth their weight in gold! It just makes recruitment so much easier and with a standardised approach across the Society, our Volunteer Coordinators love it too. The simplicity of being able to generate opportunities independently, but with full access to our role profiles and the comfort that nothing will get missed throughout the application process, has been game changing.”

Brian Reeves, Head of Volunteer Experience - RSPCA

Watch customer story

Stepping into the world of digital volunteer management can feel daunting. But taking the time to find the best volunteer management system for your organisation is an investment that will pay off time and time again. 

To learn more about Access Assemble’s features and how it can benefit your organisation, contact a member of our team today.