Managing volunteers with Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud
Volunteers are the heart and soul of every nonprofit.
Managing volunteers effectively – keeping track of qualifications, scheduling shifts, and measuring impact – can often be a challenging task. That’s what makes the Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud Volunteer Management feature such a big step forward.
In this article, we’ll explore the Volunteer Management data model, compare it with older solutions like Volunteers for Salesforce (V4S), and discuss how nonprofits like yours can use this tool to manage volunteer programs more efficiently.
Why Salesforce Volunteer Management is better than V4S for Nonprofits
For years, nonprofits relied on V4S to manage their volunteer programs. But the limitations of V4S made volunteer tracking and management a challenge. Nonprofits struggled with the maintenance burden of frequent Salesforce updates, poor integration with fundraising and constituent data, and limited features like only jobs, shifts, and hours.
The new Volunteer Management in Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud changes this by offering:
- A fully integrated volunteer management system built into Salesforce.
- Comprehensive features that include volunteer applications, skills, certifications and onboarding workflows.
- Real-time connection with fundraising, program management, and AI-driven analytics.
This makes it easier for nonprofit organizations to scale their volunteer programs and improve operational efficiency.
Key components of the Salesforce Volunteer Management data model
Salesforce has structured the core objects of Volunteer Management in a way that mirrors the volunteer lifecycle. An organization needs to know which types of People are required to fill the specific Profiles needed for a given volunteer project. Once those people are identified, they can then fill out Volunteer Applications for the project. After their applications have been processed and the volunteers have completed an onboarding process, they get their Positions, Shifts, and Assignments. Volunteers then carry out the project’s unique Programs and Initiatives. Using what they’ve learned from the completed volunteer project, an organization can build a strong Action Plan to make sure they maximize the Benefits of their next project.
Keep in mind that the different phases of this lifecycle are flexible. Depending on the timeline and needs of a project, the organization might follow a different order or skip certain steps entirely.
The following objects have been designed to help simplify the entire process from recruiting volunteers to completing and evaluating programs.
People & Profiles
- Contact : Core volunteer record with personal details
- ContactProfile : Stores sensitive information like licenses and passports
- Competency & Examination : Define and track required skills and certifications
- PersonCompetency & PersonExamination : Connect volunteers to their competencies
- ConstituentRole : Manage organizational roles such as Board Member or Mission Director
Volunteer Applications
- ApplicationForm : Capture volunteer application data
- ApplicationFormEvaluation : Record application reviews
- ApplicationStageDefinition : Track stages like “Applied” and “Accepted”
Positions, Shifts & Assignments
- Position : Generic volunteer roles (Nurse, Photographer, etc.)
- JobPosition : Open roles attached to specific missions or programs
- JobPositionShift : Scheduled shifts within those roles
- JobPositionAssignment : Links volunteers to positions/shifts and tracks logistics
- VolunteerHours : Logs service hours
Programs & Initiatives
- VolunteerInitiative : Large-scale programs like annual missions
- Campaign (Mission) : Specific events or trips within initiatives
- Location & OperatingHours : Manage physical sites and schedules
Action Plans & Benefits
- ActionPlan & ActionPlanItem : Manage onboarding more efficiently
- Benefits & Qualifications : Track according to role
How to set up Volunteer Management in Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud
Getting started is straightforward.
- Enable Volunteer Management in your Salesforce org.
- Set up Contacts and Profiles to capture volunteer data.
- Define volunteer Positions and required Competencies.
- Configure Campaigns, JobPositions, and Shifts.
- Assign volunteers and automate onboarding with ActionPlans.
- Track service hours and collect performance evaluations.
- Create reports and dashboards to recognize volunteer contributions.
Real-world example: Global mission management with Alliance for Smiles
Salesforce’s Volunteer Management can be incredibly useful for nonprofit organizations coordinating complex, large-scale programs.
Take Alliance for Smiles, an organization dedicated to changing children’s lives by organizing international medical missions where volunteer surgeons, nurses, and non-medical staff provide free cleft lip and palate surgeries and long-term care. On an average two-week mission, they send a team of about 20 volunteers to provide life-changing treatment to around 90 children.
To manage their global operations effectively, AfS has to track volunteer qualifications, certifications, and availability across multiple regions and time zones. With Volunteer Management, they could streamline everything from recruiting medical volunteers and tracking their licenses and skills, to scheduling shifts and logging volunteer hours. Integration with fundraising and program management tools supports missions both operationally and financially, while dashboards make it easier to demonstrate impact to sponsors and donors.
By connecting people, processes, and data in one place, Volunteer Management helps organizations like AfS focus on bringing hope and healing to children around the world.
Why this matters
Using Salesforce Volunteer Management offers scalability, helping you with anything from local events to multi-week international programs. It seamlessly integrates with your other fundraising and program management tools, and helps you prepare for AI-powered volunteer matching in the future. It offers transparency and audit trails for volunteer service, and you can enjoy compliance tracking with certifications and licenses.
This feature allows nonprofits like yours to strengthen their volunteer engagement with self-service scheduling, shift reminders, and personalized opportunities. Built-in dashboards make it easier for your program leaders to measure the impact of volunteer hours and present outcomes to funders and stakeholders.
Summary
Managing volunteers doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud’s native Volunteer Management helps your nonprofit to run organized, efficient, and impactful volunteer programs.
Since it’s fully integrated with fundraising, program management, and AI analytics, it gives your nonprofit a more complete picture of your operations. With features like skills tracking, certifications, and Action Plans, your organization can match the right people to the right roles and ensure compliance at every step.
As we saw with Alliance for Smiles, using Volunteer Management means less time spent on manual processes and more time focused on changing lives with their mission. By leveraging Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, they can scale their volunteer programs, increase transparency, and demonstrate measurable impact to both funders and communities.
Want to modernize your volunteer management? Need expert help customizing Salesforce? Modelit’s certified team is here to support you every step of the way.
Get in touch to find out how we can help your nonprofit maximize its Salesforce investment for volunteer initiatives.
