I just finished developing a "Volunteer Information Form" that asks each parents to fill in their specific contact information, time availability, volunteer interests, special talents, business affiliations, etc. I plan to enter all information from the forms into a volunteer database and then sort it by event/needs as they arise. The business affiliation information will also come in handy when searching for donations for our auction, etc. If you'd like a copy, email me at - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
I've gotten so much information from everyone else on this forum, I would love to give back to the group!!!

I tracked our volunteer hours this year purely for my own purposes to see how much time was actually spent on our activities and to be able to present the information at our 1st volunteer dessert party we had this year. I did not include any of the officer's hours ( gosh - that alone could add up to a full time employee's hours!) I probably should have but it would be really hard to be accurate on that. At our last meeting of the year I announced the hours, which I rounded off. Off the top of my head we had about 800 man hours from September until June.

I think it is somewhat tedious and is more for an "organized person" to do. I have to admit that when I start a project or decide to do something I get a little headstrong and just plow into it..... I do not think everyone would want to do this though.

I used excel as a spread sheet. Did an alpha sort at the end of each month. You really can see your "steady" volunteers this way - their names are listed over and over and over.... lol!

Bertha, to answer one of your questions, up until recently, NV PTA kept track of all volunteer hours and "valued" them at $10 an hour. Then the hours were added up and a mock check was presented at the legislature to show them the value of our volunteers, in a way they could understand...money!
We keep track of our volunteer information now, what they volunteered for, contact info and hours/days available. The district now keeps track of volunteer hours, but I don't know why exactly.
It also helps some schools at the end of the year for the Volunteer appreciation but I recommend that it's open to all because someone always gets missed!

We do write down the events we do and anyone who is volunteering for the event just signs in. At the end of the year we have a volunteers lunchoen and donate a book to the school library for each volunteer. But a spread sheet sounds like a great idea!

We don't track volunteer HOURS, but we keep a large Excel spreadsheet of volunteer info.

Each row contains volunteer data with colums for contact info, children names/grades, areas of interest, etc.

To be really efficient, a database program would be ideal. However, the Excel file is very portable, lots of people know how to use it, and we already have the software (legally) installed at school. So this ends up being a better solution for us strictly for simplicity.

I keep track of our groups hours manly so we can say at the end of the year how many hours were put in. It also helps when the school does the volunteer breakfast they take my list of all volunteers wheather it was one hour or 40. This fall we are kicking off a volunteer program that will log all volunteer hours. I am thinking we will set a school wide goal and maybe have a school wide incentive . If the parents do the time the all of the kids get rewarded...just an idea