Episode 44: Volunteer Management for Fundraising Events

Jeff: Welcome back to the Elevate Your Event Podcast, where we talk about all the various ways you can make your next fundraising event better. And we are here today to talk about one key element that will make your fundraising event better, and that is volunteers. Right. And so we have a special guest. Coming to us from Mexico and making Elise and me super jealous is Julie Farrell.

Julie: Hi, there. It's nice to be here from Mexico.

Jeff: And Julie is with Plan Hero, and we're going to talk a little bit about what that tool does. But real quick, just want to also introduce Elise Druckenmiller. Elise runs our client services division. When we were brainstorming on having a podcast on volunteers, she was like, "Pick me, pick me. I want to talk. I have a lot to say about volunteers."

Elise: Oh, I'm sorry. Did I -- did you want to do that part?

Jeff: Julie doesn't want to listen to us. Okay. No, it's pretty good. That was impressive. Tell us about your tool, kind of how you got started, what it does. And then we'll dive into how our listeners might be able to use it.

Julie: Sure. Well, based on the sounds with regard to volunteering, we probably have some similar stories, which is that we have all done a lot of volunteering. I've done a lot of volunteering. I started out in the tech world -- missile launchers and industrial lasers -- and then ended up being a full-time mom, which meant I became a full-time volunteer and did a lot of work with nonprofits. I've served on many nonprofit boards as well as the straight-up hands-on, driving for Meals on Wheels kind of thing and working on a lot of auctions, a lot of fundraising events. So basically, that's a very long-winded way of saying it seemed that there could be a much better way to organize volunteers than what I had at my disposal. So that is what launched Plan Hero. We do group organizing. We're a responsive web app. For those who don't know what that means, it means that you don't have to download an app. Our software responds to whatever device you're on. And you can easily create sign-ups to get people in the right positions at the right time. We send auto reminders and make it really easy for you.

Jeff: I can't wait to see how someone who designed and built missile launchers has incorporated some of that expertise into volunteer management because I could see that there could be some usefulness there.

Julie: Well, I have to say, driving on the L.A. freeways, my husband used to say, "Can't we just strap one of those AIM-9 Sidewinders onto the side of the car and just take out that guy in front of us in traffic?" But I don't really have that in the software. We do have a rocket that launches when you click "launch" for your event. And that is definitely a throwback to that time. But we had in particular in industrial lasers a really big software component, both the front end and then the machine operation as well. So I ended up on the management side in engineering. I had a lot of experience with managing software projects.

Jeff: That's awesome. That's definitely all in there. And that's a whole other kettle of fish to talk about. But look, we all come from these software backgrounds. And it does help in a variety of ways. It's not just the building of this, but it also talks about the type of discipline that came from your previous work and how that can start to inform, "Hey, we're doing something that needs to show some level of organization," right? Everything from not just how it works, but the quality and the stability of it and everything else. So that's very cool. I love that. Absolutely. Okay, so we got Plan Hero. Tell us a little bit about how it works. I assume there's a sign-up process, but there's also obviously the definition of the jobs and the roles and whatnot. How do your clients use it for their events?

Julie: We actually just this last spring released Plan Hero 2.0, which as you all know from the software standpoint, anytime you're launching a new platform, that's a big deal. So we put all the bells and whistles that we'd been wishing for over the last five years and learned about into it. One of those -- and there is a segue here to answer your question -- is a group page. Basically you can have one URL that you can send all of the volunteers to that has all of the various events or sign-ups that they can sign up for. In the case of, for example, a school auction or any kind of a gala, you could have your initial kickoff sign-up that would be just the various roles that are available. "Hey, I need a lead for the live auction. I need a lead for the silent auction. I need a lead for decorations," and so on. You could have all of that and then all of the committee members. People could immediately sign right up and know what their committee is and could always reference that again. And then once they do that, it becomes a great communication means for the auction chair because they can speak out to those various groups. From there, it just keeps breaking down into better and better organization. Speaking about volunteers, I don't know how many times you've shown up to volunteer and you find out there are too many people there and they don't really need you. And you're like, "Well, there are ten other things I could have been doing right now." Or you show up and the person who asked you to be there doesn't know where to put you. Our software, if you take the time to be organized in advance, can take care of all that. You can assign time shifts. We tend to talk about two hours as being a great number because if people want to be there the whole day, they can sign up for four two-hour shifts. But for the mom or dad who has three kids and three ball games that Saturday to attend, maybe they can at least sit there for two hours and be a part of it. We break all of those things down. And then in doing that, it's very easy with our software to have each of those jobs separated out for each of those time shifts so that when you are going, you know what you're doing. "I'm helping with the flower decorations for the tables. I'm on the cleanup crew. I'm the person sitting at the check-in table for two hours." And then we send out auto reminders that the person can also receive via text. The whole idea is that if you do a little upfront work, all of the back end is going to go much more smoothly for you. And save time in general.

Jeff: No, that makes sense. We were just kind of talking about this. We were actually at a recent event and we go to this event annually. It's the same challenge. It's either the over-allocation of people into certain jobs and the under-allocation of people into other jobs. I need maybe eight to ten people to do check-in and 24 show up, and then nobody's at checkout or vice versa. We see a lot of that. Or, as the mobile bidding company, we tend to be the first people that you see when you walk in the door. And so it's, "Hey, how's it going, welcome to the event." "Oh, I'm just a volunteer." "Okay, well where do you need to be?" "I don't know." "Well who are you supposed to see?" "I don't know." "Well what job are you doing?" "I don't know." "Okay, well I don't know any of that information either." I usually just take them and put them in a seat and have them start doing check-in if they don't know. Usually we're short at check-in so I'll give you a job.

Julie: Yeah, hey we can put you to work. For sure. And there's nothing more frustrating to me than to have that happen because does that person want to come back next year? Maybe if you guys were cool and made them feel good. But otherwise, they're probably like, "Yeah, those folks aren't too organized and I don't really want to do that. They clearly didn't really need me because there was nothing for me to do when I got there."

Jeff: I agree. And then are they going to donate too? I don't know. You don't seem -- I think that there's -- I mean, these people have set aside their time. It's almost, sometimes, disrespectful. Like, hey, we need 50 volunteers, 50 show up and 25 of them are just sitting around twiddling their thumbs. They're there often because they have a relationship with you or a connection to the organization, or they value you, and they also want to be valued back. When you're not respecting that time, they tend to not be as giving with their time the next year or the next year or the next year.

Julie: Yeah. And they'll pass that along, right? People talk. Frequently, particularly around fundraising events -- there are obviously huge slices of different kinds of volunteering -- but particularly with auctions, fundraising, galas, that kind of thing, people talk. It's a social thing. So if it's like, "Yeah, I helped out at the thing last year. I got there, there was nothing for me to do. I'm not even doing it this year." What's your friend going to say? "Yeah, me either." I've seen that. It just snowballs. And volunteers do get annoyed.

Jeff: There was a group of college students that came to an event I was at, and they just sat there. I was like, "You guys, what's going on? You guys need something?" They're like, "We were told to be here at this time to volunteer and they have nothing for us to do." And the guy looks over and goes, "Well, there's an empty table over there. I think we're going to sit down and eat." I was like, "Well, I'm not standing between you and that table because that has nothing to do with me." But I think he's like, "I'm going to issue my own level of payback here, get myself some food."

Jeff: So let me ask you this, because one of the other things we see with volunteers that I think software could help with is when you identify these jobs, are you also able to identify the personality or the skill set type that would best fit into that role?

Julie: You can certainly write that out within the item title, like, "Hey, this requires a lot of back and forth with people," or, "Hey, we'd love you to run our social media, do you have experience with it?" So you could sort of pre-populate everything with the type of person you're looking for. I think if you were really looking for someone specific, like if there's something you're a little concerned about -- which person you want really out in front of people, or yeah, maybe not that one guy -- I would recommend preselecting those people and just signing them up for that spot so that you already see that they have it, just like you would do typically with already knowing who your live auction chair is going to be, for example, or some of those pivotal positions. I would recommend, though, and you can use our software for this as well, when you're first kicking off the fundraiser to have a questionnaire, a survey that goes out to all of the volunteers. We have forms -- as many questions as you want to ask. You can just write one up as a form and have them let you know what they're interested in working on. And also, what are some of your skills? Because you may find that someone really likes to write but maybe isn't the one who wants to go out and ask people for things. But maybe they can be the ones who write the well-put-together emails, or instructions, or emails to prospective donors. There are talents that might lie there that are untapped if you don't ask what people can contribute and you just say, "This is what we need." Hey, there may be a graphic designer among them that you've got making the flower designs and it's like, wait, this person could do all your social media and crush it for this thing. So having that upfront is good.

Jeff: No, that does make sense. And the reason we bring it up is because we tend to see some skill or comfort level with role realization when people arrive. It's like, "Wait, you want me to do what? You want me to use an iPad to check in people? I don't know how to turn on an iPad."

Elise: That's not a good role for me.

Jeff: Or sometimes, look, I hear what you're saying about handpicking certain people. Sometimes I want to fire the people our charity clients have handpicked and put someone else in that role. It's like, "I know you picked her because she's sweet and nice and she's your line marshal, and we're not getting anybody through the check-in line because she's hugging and talking to everybody."

Julie: Right. Well, and I think with that -- that's really funny. It's funny because you've seen it before. That's exactly right, because it resonates. It totally does. I'm just picturing that person. It's like, come on, come on, come on. You guys can do this over there. I think you can outline some of that again in that item description. Just say, "Hey, this -- you need to have sort of a sergeant-type mindset here because people want to get moved through the line. They want their glass of champagne. They want to see their friends. They don't want to be standing in line in their high heels because they hurt." I think adding that to the description makes sense. But I also think -- and this is something we do -- you can reference the previous year's sign-ups. You could duplicate the sign-up but also then be informed for the next year. I do think it's really important for people to always have that post-mortem -- well, hopefully "post-mortem" is probably not the best phrase.

Jeff: Everyone feels kind of dead, but hopefully it wasn't a dud.

Julie: But I think having that post-mortem is really important. Just like to your point of saying, "Yeah, we had 28 people at check-in and 14 at checkout. And we needed the inverse of that." Those numbers could be changed for the following year easily then, if people take the time to do that.

Jeff: We're picking a little bit on charities, although we've all done the same things. I've screwed up my volunteer list so many times. I tell you, tools like this can certainly help with that. In the best of them -- we were recently at an event and they do an amazing job of organizing their volunteers. And they had none at checkout. It was like, "Oh, oops."

Julie: So it happens. And you learn by doing, right? You learn by doing. It's just the same with our software. You put it out there. You think you've designed it perfectly. And then someone does something like, "I never even thought of that." Okay, well, we're going to have to change that. You change it for the next year and make it better.

Jeff: For a visual guy like me, I like to see the charts. Like, okay, where is everything? We were recently helping a client with their tables and just trying to figure out, "Okay, did you allocate people to the tables correctly?" And it helps with this. But it's like, "No, you have 24 people at this table and you have eight at this one."

Julie: It's a high-rise.

Jeff: So maybe we need to move some people around or maybe we misassigned them. But the same thing would happen with volunteers. It's like, "Oh, wait a second here. We've got some gaps in the plan." I think that could help. And you mentioned shifts. And I would say that's the other thing. I'm all for saying something like, "This is roughly a two-hour shift," but we did have a client once who literally put together a very organized plan. And it's like, "You're here from five to seven." Sure enough, checking was running a little bit late. Checking was supposed to be six to seven, but people were arriving late so checking was lingering into 6:30 and here is this group of people -- gets up and walks away at 7 o'clock.

Julie: Yeah. No, that's a good point. I think certain roles probably can have a defined time, but it may not be as cut and dried, so be prepared for that. Because I need you here for check-in, or I need you here for checkout.

Jeff: I've seen this happen as well. We actually -- the Handbid staff was the ones that stayed -- but there was a checkout and it was supposed to be from 9 to 10:30. That sounds about right. No, they had an after party. So all of these people flowed into the after party and no one was checking out. The after party was till midnight. And these people were like, "Nope, I am here from 9 to 10:30 and I am out of here." And I don't blame them. They're volunteers. So I was like, "Okay, well, who's going to sit here with all these auction items and wait for people?" So there's a couple of things. It's managing your volunteers and setting the expectations of time and jobs and all of these things. But it's also taking that list and saying, "Okay, I've organized this so well, but how does this fit with the rest of my event and the behaviors of my guests?"

Elise: Yes. And do I have coverage?

Jeff: Right. Because in one of those cases, we had an employee who flew to an event in Miami. And I think he just stayed because his flight was the next morning at like 8 o'clock. And he's like, "At this point, I might just go to the airport." But he stayed till three in the morning because their after party ran till like 2:30 in the morning. Those are the type of events that have us put more restrictions on what happens, on what you actually get when we staff an event. But again, the volunteers are like, "Our job is over. We're out."

Elise: And to your point, it's like, but the event's not over.

Jeff: Right. So when you're looking at how to organize your volunteers and do you have the right coverage, you either shut checkout down at 11 p.m. and tell everybody, "If you don't pick it up by then and you're going to the after party, you're getting it Monday because we're not going to be here." Or you plan to have volunteers there, or staff, or somebody. Some of that stuff gets overlooked. But even other little things -- like I would ask, does the tool allow me -- okay, so I see that there's a job and this job is, let's just say check-in. I have a check-in job and it tells me I need to arrive at five o'clock and here's where I go and here's possibly who I'm going to report to. I need to go find Julie and she's going to tell me what to do or train me. Does it tell me like where to park? Or any of that other kind of stuff? Like, what else to bring? Does it tell me I'm going to get fed or do I need to bring a granola bar?

Julie: Diapers. No bathroom break, sorry.

Jeff: I'm a very needy volunteer. Can you tell, Julie? I have a lot of needs. And you're going to be on my crew?

Julie: I don't think so. That's actually a great question. We have the ability to attach documents to any of the sign-ups. So like the actual day-of or day-before, day-of, day-after -- it all depends on whether you've got a cleanup crew or whether you're doing it at the Four Seasons. You can attach documents that would say here's a parking map. So it's a PDF that's uploaded there. What to wear, what we need you to do, how you should carry yourself, terms you should know, whatever. You can have all of that as attached documents. In addition, there's a whole description area, and you can have any live links out to anything there as well. So if you wanted to link back to something on your website, you could link to videos. You can't have videos actually within the event itself, but you could certainly link to a video.

Jeff: Yeah, no problem. And actually, I think that's kind of a good thing to do from the standpoint of -- I've just been writing this article about volunteer management. What we haven't talked about because it's not the nuts and bolts of managing is the whole issue of -- oh my God, what just came into my head was the granola bar and the fact that I didn't say anything about that.

Julie: Yes, you can write that you can eat and have a bathroom break or whatever. But sorry, back to the other point -- it helps when people know what the impact is of what they're doing. I think it's just so easy to get wrapped up. "Oh, it's the school auction," or, "Oh, it's the auction for X, Y, and Z nonprofit." Okay, well, what's the money going to? What does it really do? I was thinking about an interesting example to get that point across to people. It's like, okay, we're fundraising so that we can raise money for a children's science museum. I was on the board of one in Santa Barbara -- which is a fantastic one, by the way, MOXI. So if you're raising money for scholarships for kids to come to summer camp and you're looking to have those kids come from underrepresented groups in STEM fields, that starts to get kind of interesting. It's not just, "Oh, it's for summer scholarships." Okay, well, now you can start to say two groups in particular, Latino/Latina and African Americans, are underrepresented in STEM fields. Well, guess what? The STEM fields are, out of the shoot, the highest-paying jobs that a college graduate can get. So now you start to think about, okay, we're going to be changing a paradigm here. We're getting these kids -- instead, they're coming from at-risk schools. There's a nearby school that has a lot of free-and-reduced lunch, like 98 percent. Bring those kids in, and now we're changing a whole generation of kids in our local community to go from free and reduced lunch to being up on the higher end of the salary scale. Draw the whole thread all the way through. It's not just scholarships, right?

Jeff: Yeah. So if people get that, if the volunteers can kind of keep that in their heads, it makes them feel a little better when they're like, "Okay, I'll stay another hour." As opposed to, "I'm at the darn auction."

Julie: So anyway, I just wanted to underscore -- I think some message that is really going to feel impactful about what you're really doing there, that will really help keep those volunteers happy and more motivated.

Jeff: I agree. Well, and here's the thing. When I think about the volunteers and we've covered a lot of logistics of making it successful, right? When they show up and what jobs they do and everything else. But to your point, let's just step back, go a little bit bigger picture. We need to explain to them what we're doing and here's what we're about, like you just described. We need to reinforce that with them. And then we need to thank them. I think it's not just saying thanks at the end of the night. I think you thank them through things that you do. And one of the ways that you can thank a volunteer is to be very organized around what their job is and where to go and everything else. But then just pamper them a little bit when they're there. Give them something to eat. I was asking for the granola bar, but I would really actually appreciate it if you gave me a piece of pizza or something. And it's interesting because I've been to plenty of places where it's hotel, plated meal, filet mignon, and then the volunteers are shoved into a side room and you've got cold Domino's pizza and Cokes. I would just say, if these people are there giving hours of their time, upgrade that a little bit. It doesn't have to be filet mignon dinners for every volunteer, but maybe think about doing something a little bit nicer. Create a volunteer lounge. Something where it's like -- that's a very cool idea -- let them, hey, when they're not working, they might actually come back and help again. When I say that, I've seen people at check-in and then they roll into the lounge.

Jeff: The event we were just at last week -- I mean, this is more than a lounge. It puts a concert goer's green room to shame. They have 40 types of soda in there. They've got a standing buffet going. They've got snacks all day, the whole duration of the event. Every type of candy set up, candy bar, granola bars, they had Cheez-Its, they had Ruffles. I mean, you name it. They had gourmet chocolates and cookies. They even had Coors Light and wine.

Elise: And look at how much we're talking about this, see? And I didn't even volunteer. And I wanted to hang out in there. I was like, this makes me feel good.

Jeff: And so what you'll see happen sometimes when you do that is, "I just finished check-in. I went into the lounge. I hung out and had a good time, kind of dabbled in the auction, whatever. Maybe I'm bidding on stuff. Oh, I see they're short at checkout. I'll help you." I'm having such a good time at the event. I don't feel shortchanged. And look, I'll give you the opposite. We did an event, and there were 18 volunteers we trained on computers. This is back -- we do most check-ins now on iPads and iPhones, but this is years ago when they were all on laptops. Trained them all. I look around and we're about to check in about 1,500 people to this event. And I was like, "You all thirsty?" And they're like, "Yeah." I'm like, "Okay. I need to get 18 bottles of water and I need to definitely get some breath mints because you're talking to these people in close proximity. And it's like, I need to give them some tools here because they're going to feel bad." So I kid you not, I have to roll up to the hotel gift shop. Now, what do you think a bottle of water costs in a five-star hotel gift shop?

Julie: Eight dollars.

Jeff: Exactly. "Put that on my room, please. I'll take 18." I was like, "I'm emptying your fridge and I'm going to need several bags because I'm taking 18 bottles of water downstairs." And they were so appreciative. It's just the little things like that. "Oh my God, you got water. Thank you so much." "Well, because this charity should be giving you water."

Jeff: I mean, in the opposite side to that, these are two polar opposites, right? The ones that get nothing and the ones that get everything. But the one that we were at, for example, how well they organize it and take care of them -- not only do they have this beautiful buffet and breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and the snacks and the drinks and all the things, they know that it's going to be cold. They know that check-in is chilly and it's going to be outside. They provide themed jackets to the appropriate size for everybody. So they matched each other and they matched the theme of the event. And they were gorgeous.

Elise: They were amazing. I'm really just sad that I didn't get one.

Jeff: You were supposed to steal one, but it's fine. We can talk about it later.

Elise: I've seen a little envy.

Jeff: But these volunteers, they have sign-ups every year. They have people on a waiting list and they have so many that they have to interview them to determine who gets to come and who doesn't.

Julie: Wow.

Jeff: Because they treat them well. So the organization and how you manage them goes a long way.

Julie: I like that. We're going to put on our mockup boards a sign-up for who's going to be in charge of making sure the volunteers are in good shape and what they need. I love that idea.

Jeff: A volunteer manager. Yes. Like the care committee.

Julie: That is, yeah. And that's who they check in with. They show them around. This is where the bathroom is. This is the coat check. This is your hospitality room. Having somebody like that can make a real difference. When the volunteers no longer have something to do, they need a point person. It's not just the lead of the whatever -- when that role is done and they're still there and they still want to help, is there somebody that they can check in with that is overseeing all of the volunteers? That's important.

Jeff: I agree. Yeah, I love that. Let's call it Voluncare.

Julie: Voluncare. Oh, I love it. Look at you. You're not just a missile lady. You're a marketing person too.

Jeff: But I play one on TV. Julie, are we getting credit for this?

Julie: Totally. Well, we'll co-trademark it.

Jeff: Perfect. That's awesome. Voluncare. I love it. The other thing that I put the pin in here, which still kind of comes along with this, is it would make a ton of sense -- in the situation where check-in took longer -- obviously you can say, "Look, guys, this is our best estimate. Make sure you show up at the right time. We may have to carry you over a little longer." But you could also have floaters. You could have shifts for floaters and just say, "Hey, we're not sure what we're going to do with you. You may be hanging out in the killer Voluncare lounge the whole time. But if something happens and we need to place you somewhere, we've got you there." So maybe you've got five or ten, a couple handfuls of floaters that know they might not be well deployed, but they know why they're there. There you go. So they're the ones that you put in the place of the person that doesn't show up.

Julie: Exactly. Or the one that shows up late. Because volunteers always show up on time. It's very rare they show up late.

Jeff: That's another thing. When it comes to volunteers, it is hard to put a volunteer in position when they come in late. So if there are any volunteers listening, show up on time because it is hard to take care of you when you show up late. It's highly likely most volunteers are told to be there 30 minutes before they actually need them there, just to kind of create that buffer.

Elise: I do that.

Jeff: You don't. Show up 30 minutes early?

Elise: I don't tell them when it actually starts. I'll say like, "Hey, your shift starts at 4:30" because I really need you here at 5. And I know you're going to show up at 4:50.

Jeff: Right? And I know that's kind of -- that can be a little mean, but I think in some cases, you kind of know. We have some really good friends that come every year to Thanksgiving. We always lie to them about what time it starts because they always show up an hour too late. Until they showed up at the right time last year.

Elise: That was funny.

Jeff: The right time, which is really the wrong time. It can backfire on you. But we love you volunteers. Even when you show up late, we love you.

Jeff: Well, look, this software sounds awesome. And introduce it to my charity. PlanHero.com. What's the URL?

Julie: Yep. PlanHero.com.

Jeff: Great. And then does this synchronize with any other tools, any other CRMs at this point?

Julie: No, not at this point.

Jeff: Okay. Well, we'll have to figure out how we get Handbid and Plan Hero to work together. That'd be fun.

Julie: I know. I think that might be worth a little chat later on.

Jeff: All right. We don't know how to build missiles, but we know how to build auction software. So we can be a great partner. Exactly. Okay, awesome. Thank you for your time.

Julie: Yeah, of course.

Jeff: Hey, we're going to wrap up this podcast. Thank you all for listening in on our conversation about volunteers and our new idea, Voluncare, which is going to be trademarked by the end of today. So we're on that one. But anyway, Julie, thank you for attending. We really do appreciate you jumping on from Mexico and chatting about Plan Hero. And look, if you guys have any other questions, you know how to reach them -- PlanHero.com. If you have any questions about Handbid and volunteer management, you also know how to reach us. And look, if you're enjoying this podcast, leave us a five-star review. Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, YouTube, anywhere else that you might be listening to your podcast -- we should be there. And until next time, happy fundraising.