Conferences are a vital part of professional development and continuing education for nearly every profession and non-profit organization. A key element for conference organizers to strive for is to make the event as seamless as possible for all participants. But accomplishing this can take a ton of work! Staff and volunteers are essential for getting the job done. Below are the 10 must-have volunteer roles you'll be so glad you recruited for once your conference begins.

Planning and organizing a race takes a lot of time, consideration, and volunteers. There are not only a ton of tasks to fill, but there's also a lot of ground to over. We're here to help make it a little easier for you by breaking down the most essential volunteer roles for your upcoming race. 

First impressions for any event are important, especially when it comes to onboarding volunteers. The first time volunteers step onto your event site, you'll want to make it as easy as possible for them to check in, find out where they need to go, and become a fully-engaged part of your event team. Here are six ways to make event check-in convenient for your volunteers:

As you recruit volunteers, sheer numbers aren't enough. You have to make sure you're recruiting the right people to fill every role; after that, you need to make sure you actually get them all assigned to the right place so you can optimize your team—and your event.

As an event planner, you know that getting and keeping quality volunteers is vital to your brand. A well-trained volunteer team can actually reduce the amount of wages you pay out to your permanent employees, considerably increasing your ROI. Below, we've gathered some strategies for recruitment and retention strategies that really work.

Whether you're a church, non-profit, or professional event planner, you know how important it is to make the most of your volunteers. However, volunteering can be hard work, and you'll be surprised how easy it is to burn out your most experienced volunteers while your first-timers languish in the sidelines. Here are definitive ways to avoid over-committing and under-utilizing members of your volunteer team. 

When it comes to attracting volunteers, it's important to know what people are looking to get out of the volunteer experience. What motivates people to volunteer? How can you make your volunteer opportunity appealing? Here are a few things to consider:

When your organization or event runs on volunteers, you'll want to reach talented individuals from all walks of life. Senior citizens and graduating students looking to hone their resume are common sources for a great volunteer team. However, if you're like many organizations, you're probably missing the hidden talent found in what can be called non-traditional volunteers. Here are some great tips for reaching out to demographics that don't usually volunteer:

You’re about to plan out your next event - you have all these ideas, you know who you want to market it to, and you’re super hyped to get started, but… you’ve hit a roadblock: How do you design awesome event graphics (logo, promo, hand-outs, signage, etc.) that will make your event shine without using PhotoShop? How do you not spend forever trying to make your design vision become a reality? Event graphics are key for event marketing, so something has to be done, but how?!

While PhotoShop can often be the go-to tool for these kind of projects, it’s not always the best option if you’re not familiar with how to use it. Thankfully, for those of us who aren’t graphic design pros or don’t have the time (or budget) to self-teach PhotoShop skills, there’s hope!

We’ve compiled a list of our favourite tools for creating professional looking event graphics so that people will be flocking to volunteer or attend your event! 

Old-school methods of building a volunteer program are quickly being replaced by efficient and effective technological processes. In fact, we've done some checking around and came up with six good reasons why more and more organizations are embracing technology to recruit, engage, and retain volunteers. 

Organizing any event can be tricky and time-consuming, but scale that up to a sporting event and you’ll really come to appreciate the power and importance of planning. From sourcing a venue and enlisting a suitable number of volunteers, to arranging all-weather preparations and on-the-day logistics, there are potential pitfalls at every turn. With this in mind, in today’s post by the experts from Start Fitness, you’ll be treated to a step-by-step guide to planning a sporting event.

On the face of it, much of the success of any event hinges on the execution of the event itself, but on closer inspection, the reality is that every stage of your event matters - from the conception and pre-planning stages, through to the post-event follow ups.

With this in mind, in today’s post, the packaging experts at R+R Packaging have put together an event planning 101 guide that covers all aspects of organizing an event to ensure it runs without a glitch - leaving you with happy attendees and vendors, and glowing reviews.

It's overwhelming to recruit when you know you have 100's or even 1000's of positions to fill. Here are some great places to share your event volunteer sign-up/recruitment link so that you can watch these positions fill up fast!

When it comes to giving back, Americans demonstrate a great deal of generosity through volunteering:

• Over 62 million people volunteer time annually
• There are over one million charitable organizations in the United States
• Many people donate a lot of time because they love it, and because there aren't enough volunteers: the U.S. volunteer rate is declining

What is the best way to keep volunteers engaged, excited and willing to invite new volunteers to your organization? Balancing how you train volunteers for their work and how much trust you invest in their work are the driving forces behind loyal, dedicated staff.

Any experienced event planner knows that whatever can go wrong, will. It's just the nature of the beast, another pool for Murphy's Law to dip its long tentacles in. In order to make events flow smoothly, volunteers are often needed. Finding volunteers is half the work, but even an experienced volunteer needs to be informed on your business and trained for your event. You could handle it one-on-one based on their experience, but if you've recruited a large group, that would prove not only time-consuming, but also inefficient.

We know how important your time is, so we've prepped this ultimate recipe for training a large team of volunteers, no matter where they are.

Maybe your boss comes from a different generation. There's nothing wrong with that, he or she just has certain ideas about how things are done based on what has been working for years. But life (and event planning) is different today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. It's different than it was one year ago... 

As of May 25, 2018, all organizations working with the data of EU citizens will need to be GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) compliant. This data protection and privacy law spells out the handling and security needed for any personal data you may hold. The events industry in particular gathers a great deal of sensitive personal information. Keeping it secure is now a must and both event and volunteer managers need to prepare before the new regulations come into effect. In this post, we outline what GDPR is, how it relates to volunteer management and events, what you can do to comply, and what to avoid.

 More than ever, members of  today's younger generations want to engage in volunteer activities that allow them to make a difference. But what are they looking for and what do they expect? And how do those expectations impact the direction of volunteerism in the future? Here are just a few tips on how event planners can be ready for the volunteers of today and tomorrow.

In most cases there will be no major emergency or disaster at your next event, but that does not mean that you do not need to be prepared for one. Ensuring that your event volunteers are trained and prepared to handle an emergency could be the difference between life and death. Let's take a look at some things that you can do to prepare your volunteers. 

According to Answers.com, competitive edge “is the ability of an organization to produce goods and services more effectively than competitors do, thereby outperforming them. This means they must stay ahead in four areas: being responsive to customers, innovation, quality, and efficiency.”

In an event saturated market, finding a competitive edge is extremely difficult.
But, a dramatic change has taken place among buyers (be they your attendees or event-based clients): they are increasingly prioritizing their desire for a quality customer experience. This change presents the opportunity to develop a competitive edge through investing in event staff & volunteer management in order to provide the very best service to clients.

We've broken out how to do this into 7 components.

As a professional event producer, you know how important it is to gather information about your staff and volunteers -- throughout the recruitment processes, and during the events themselves. But what about drawing conclusions from that data? When you understand where your volunteers are coming from, how they engaged, and how efficiently they used your event communication tool, you can better tailor your marketing efforts, efficiencies, and protocol to put on the best event possible.

Event volunteers shouldn't be an afterthought. But, unless you're tracking and reporting on your staff and volunteer data, you're missing out big time!

How do you create a better events and grow your operations? By learning from your last one. What worked? What didn't? But, how do you know if you're not tracking data throughout the event?

No matter the size of your organization and number of events you organize, the details involved in planning, managing, setting up, running and analyzing the results are time-consuming and easily lost or forgotten. If one person tries to track everything, or a committee shares information, miscommunication and losing key elements in the process happens. Here are seven reasons you need software that includes Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as a full-time organizing partner: