How to gamify the VMS and motivate your volunteers

How to keep volunteers engaged and motivated during peak times of year!

👀 Keep things fun and don’t forget to incentivize and steward volunteers for their hard work. Using Advocate Merge Tokens, SFP Dashboard, and GC Video within GC Volunteer Management (VM) makes gamifying volunteer work easier and more visible! 

🔗 ADVOCATE MERGE TOKENS

School administrators will be able to set which SFP campaigns and landing pages volunteers will be able to create advocate links for within VM.

OK, SO WHAT?
Volunteers will only see the campaigns and giving forms relevant to the work that they are doing.

COOL! MORE DETAILS, PLEASE!
School administrators will be able to set, role-by-role, which campaigns a volunteer can create merge links for in their emails. 

Additionally, when creating an advocate merge token, volunteers will now be able to use hyperlinked text as opposed to needing to display the raw URL within the email meaning a merge token can be used with text like “Click here to give now!” as opposed to displaying an advocate’s short link. YAY!

⛰️ SFP IN GC VOLUNTEER MANAGEMENT

Volunteers will be able to share campaigns as well as track the campaign progress and their own advocacy impact for selected campaigns within VM dashboard.

OK, SO WHAT?

We are making it easier to navigate between a school’s SFP campaign and their volunteer dashboard in VM. Let's rally already engaged individuals to share a campaign and generate impact!

COOL! MORE DETAILS, PLEASE!

With this functionality, school administrators will select which campaigns and/or T2 landing pages a volunteer will have within the "My Assignments" page based on the volunteer’s role. Administrators will also be able to set a dedicated email template for each campaign, which will be pre-populated when a volunteer uses the “Email My Assignments” button within the dashboard.

📹 GC VIDEO IN VOLUNTEER MANAGEMENT

For schools leveraging GC Video, volunteers will have access to a streamlined flow for creating and sending Spotlight videos to their assignments within VM.

OK, SO WHAT?

Video communication is a powerful tool for P2P outreach!

COOL! MORE DETAILS, PLEASE!

A new role permission will be added, which will give volunteers the ability to create and send a video landing page to their assignments.

Understanding Campaign Progress Display in VMS Dashboard

How Campaign Progress Cards Work

When you connect campaigns to volunteer roles using the Role Campaign Selection feature, volunteers will see campaign progress cards in their VMS dashboard. It's important to understand what these cards display:

• Total campaign-wide progress (all donors and dollars for the entire campaign)
• Overall campaign statistics, not individual volunteer contributions
• The same figures you'd see on the main campaign page

• In the Advocacy section of the volunteer's dashboard
• Only after the volunteer is added as an Advocate in Social Fundraising Platform (SFP)
• Only after actual activity occurs through their personal advocacy link

Common variations of this question

• Why does my volunteer see all campaign donations instead of just their own?
• VMS dashboard showing wrong donation amounts for volunteers
• Campaign progress card not matching volunteer's personal contributions
• Volunteer seeing campaign totals rather than personal impact

Troubleshooting Campaign Display Issues

A: Yes, this is expected behavior. The campaign progress card displays overall campaign statistics, not individual volunteer contributions.

A: Personal advocacy impact (clicks, gifts, dollars generated through their unique link) appears in the Advocacy section of their dashboard, but only when:

1. The volunteer is added as an Advocate in Social Fundraising Platform (not just VMS)

2. Activity has occurred through their personal advocacy link (format: https://give.schoolname.edu/campaign?a=[user_id])

A: Use the advocate dashboard in Social Fundraising Platform to see detailed attribution for each volunteer's advocacy link activity.