Luckily being a little tech savvy myself, I took the job of streamlining the process as much as possible, and I agree, if you’re asking for volunteers, don’t make it hard for them to take action on your behalf. Throwing road blocks in front of volunteers does several things.

1. Stifles their want to help you and ultimately, they will go elsewhere.
2. Stifles future recruitment because typically friends tell friends of volunteer service they are doing.
3. No volunteers creates problems internally for the non-profit when it comes to staffing, responsibilities, etc.
4. Finally lack of volunteers and activities can effect funding, which no non-profit can afford to lose.

With free tools there’s no excuse to be out there, make your information available, consolidate your emails for better responding times, archive all your information so people can follow up, and make all forms and documentation as easily accessible as possible. Some non-profits have even developed an online booking calendar where volunteers can log in and select the days they are serving so that, like a work schedule the non-profit knows which shifts are covered.

Streamline people, whether non-profit or not, makes life so much easier.