From setting the date and picking the perfect venue to selecting décor and promoting your event, there’s a lot to think about during the event planning process. As you generate interest for your event, it’s important not to forget the people who’ll make it all come to life—your volunteers and guests. How will you manage your volunteers and ensure each knows how, when and where they’ll be needed? Will your guests be able to find event details and register easily? Luckily, there’s a myriad of programs and strategies you can utilize to help make both volunteer management and event registration seamless and efficient.

Volunteer Management

Volunteers are as essential as sponsors and paid staff to making your event a success. By donating their time, they are able to execute the logistics and behind-the-scenes needs so your event can run smoothly and reach its goals. Show your appreciation by making the experience as easy as possible. Some useful volunteer management tools we’ve utilized in the past are volunteer assessments and pre-event volunteer training.

A volunteer assessment helps identify event needs and organize volunteer capabilities, assigning roles and responsibilities and listing relevant information like the date, time and location where each volunteer is needed. In addition, it should also detail where and when volunteers may be needed for relevant training, if applicable. Of course, you can organize this yourself in an Excel sheet and by keeping in close contact with your volunteers, but as events get larger, it’s often easier to use an online program like SignUpGenius or SignUp.com. With basic, free packages and more comprehensive monthly or yearly plans, these platforms offer a variety of services including shift signups, administrator management tools, calendar syncing, email reports, reminder notifications and volunteer hour reports. Other online programs like Samaritan Technologies, InitLive, and Better Impact, offer services catering to recruitment, mobile, real-time communication and even nonprofit-specific needs.

Event Registration

Now that you’ve planned your event down to the last detail and organized your staff, how will you get your guests there? Event registration can be done in a variety of ways, but as with volunteer management, online systems can make the process smoother and more efficient for all parties involved. Popular online tools like Eventbrite allow you to create event web pages, send invitations and emails, track registration progress and even scan tickets. Guests will also appreciate the ability to pay for tickets online through their credit card or PayPal account. Check out these other popular online event registration tools: Constant Contact EventSpot, RegOnline and Brown Paper Tickets.

Learn more about planning successful, seamless events by downloading our free Event Planning Workbook. 

Happy planning!