When you have an ongoing volunteer need such as community library, school cafeteria, or church pantry volunteers, it's nice to keep a list of substitutes (sub-list) for people who can't work a regular shift but are willing to help out occasionally, as needed.
Recruiting substitutes is also a best-practice for building your volunteer team. Psychologically, it's often easier for new volunteers to agree to be a substitute than to agree to a regular commitment. As you use your list and invite helpers, you may notice that the same people enthusiastically step forward...guess what, they're your new regular volunteers!
These are the steps for creating a sub list on VolunteerSpot:
1) Create your regular Multiple Day activity sign up calendar and invite your core group of volunteers to sign up for their shifts. This is the activity you will manage on most days, and will have your regular on-going volunteer shifts listed.
2) Create a new "No Specific Day" sign up Sheet, with one ToDo item: e.g. Library Substitute. Set the number of people who can signup to "No Limit" and add Details about when they will be called on. (click image to view full-screen.) Invite volunteers to sign up using an email or link, or make manual assignments from a clipboard signup sheet.
3) When you need substitutes, Open your regular ongoing activity in the MyActivities tab and click the "Invite" icon to the left of the activity status calendar. Choose "Invite from Previous" and select your sub-list volunteers (the signup sheet you created in Step 2) and customize the message. (Click the image below to see the example enlarged). Activity links to your ongoing volunteer calendar will be automatically included.
4) Substitutes will be invited and can choose their spots by clicking the link in their email invitation. Full days will display as 'Full" - and everyone will be pleased you skipped 'reply-all' email and duplicates, easy!
