Patrick Shaw’s Weblog

No, not really!

That’s because databases really aren’t that simple. Don’t get me wrong - they might only do two or three things - but to make those things happen well requires a lot of behind the scenes work.

For instance, you may want to have volunteers sign up for a volunteer opportunity. Sounds pretty easy, right? And it should be - at least from the experience of the volunteer! But here are some things that you’d want to make sure you did well:

• Each user would probably need to login and have a user name and password, and you probably don’t want to have to manage all of those passwords - the system should!
• You probably want to make it easy for a volunteer to sign up for more than one event - so you’ll have to maintain an “inventory” of volunteer opportunities to include when, how often, how many can volunteer and so on
• You’ll likely need to view and print reports - who is volunteering, which opportunities are open or closed, how many hours of service are being delivered and so on.
• Your volunteers may also be donors - so you might want to consider importing, integrating or otherwise having a 360 degree view of those key people - so you might start to lean towards a donor tool, too.

Those are just a few small items that need to be addressed BEFORE you start. Add in maintenance, documentation and training for your staff and your volunteers - and you can see that a tool that only does a few things really well isn’t all that simple!

So - what SHOULD you do?

I recommend investing in a great planning process. This might be the best investment you make - gather your key stakeholders, find out what you have on hand, work with a professional to describe what you need (we call this a requirements gathering process) and get some budgetary estimates. The value of great information is enormous - and at the end of that planning process you should know if you should proceed, how - and how much it might cost to get that volunteer database up and running!